Rick_in_CA

I read somewhere that the original BSA campaign hats from the 20s and 30s were made from crushable felt (much like the current "Indiana Jones" hat). I have also been told this is false. Does anyone know the answer to this?

jblacke47 wrote: "BSA is a religious (A Scout is Reverent) organization. Not just one religion, but all religions." Really? You believe that? So if my religious faith says there is nothing wrong with being gay, my unit can have gay adult leaders? Of course not. Your statements on this forum show that you believe that your faith trumps anyone's that disagrees with yours. Allowing others to follow their faith is "dictating to your faith". Or are you one of those that believe that Unitarians or Episcopalians aren't real religions, or that they are not welcome in the BSA? The reality is that you can be religious, yet not believe that being gay is a sin. Yet you don't want to recognize that as legitimate (see: "...but don't dictate to those who would like 12"). I am a scouter (and was a cub scout, boy scout and explorer scout in my youth), I consider myself to be a religious person, and I don't believe being gay is a sin. How come my beliefs don't count?

The problem is that for many conservatives (not all) the phrase "faith is important" actually means "faith that looks like mine is important, the rest can pound sand".

A big problem is how our society has become very risk-adverse and litigious. It's not just boy scouts. Remember the chemistry sets we had as kids? Try to buy one now (sets today basically are chemical free). Want to fly model rockets? Think again (here in California at least it's difficult, though not impossible - it requires a permit and most parks ban them even with a permit). Buy some sparklers for the 4th? Not here at least. Want to climb a tree? Not without a safety harness! (My parents had a huge camphor tree in the front yard. I fondly remember spending hours in that tree with half the neighbor hood kids playing tag, sailing ships, swinging on ropes - it was the best climbing tree I've ever seen. I cried when it died of sudden oak death and they had to cut it down. It's trunk was eight feet wide.). Today it's all about minimize risk, cover your butt, assume the worst, that looks scary, don't do that, don't forget the paperwork. It makes adventure and challenge hard to do. That is why outdoor challengers are often replaced with book challenges, those are easier to do.

Because I don't believe the split was ever really about gays. It was about religious pluralism.

I guess it depends on the council. We see our DE quite often (most recently she was helping run the district pinewood derby). Plus our council staff is also pretty helpful (we see many of them also). Our council is a healthy one with multiple council owned camps that are well used, and lots of council wide activities. So I see what our pack gets for our FOS contributions. However, if I was in a council like Basementdweller's (based on his stories), I wouldn't give them a dime either.

I second this. This kind of nonsense has to be confronted or it will spread. It has no place in scouting and should not be tolerated. The SE has to be notified.

I think Eagledad makes a great point. We aren't just trying to teach the scouts technical skills, but we are also modeling behavior. Take for example the (very bad in my opinion) practice that some troops have of making a scout sing to get lost property back. What behavior is it modeling? If a scout is out in the street and sees the man in front of him drop his wallet, which should he say: "Excuse me sir, you dropped your wallet." or "Hey mister, I got your wallet. Sing a song and I'll give it back to you.". If the second is not acceptable to a stranger, how is it acceptable to a fellow scout?

The Eagle Scout award means different things to different people. I have encountered people that see eagle scouts as a really impressive, and others that see them as no big deal. I think one of the things that shapes our view of the award, is what were the eagles like that we knew when we were scouts. In my old troop, we had only one scout make it to Eagle while I was there (no, not me). He was our SPL at the time, and a great scout (if you wanted a great example of kind, courteous, helpful, etc. He was it). I remember his eagle project. It was a conservation project at a county park, and the whole troop showed up to help. I spent the day with a pick in my hand digging a drainage ditch in hard ground ("are you sure that isn't concrete?"). Others in the troop laid out matting on bare hillsides and erosion channels. It was a project he (and all of us) were proud of. We saw how much he put into the troop, and how much he put into the award. To us it meant something because of the scout that held the rank, not the award itself. Later that year when I met my first 14 year old eagle at summer camp, I was kind of shocked. How did he finish everything so quickly? I chatted with him a while about it. His troop turned out to be an eagle mill troop (though I hadn't heard the term back then). His project was a joke (he collected newspapers for recycling by giving twenty homes a paper bag, asking them to fill it with old newspaper, and collecting it the next week. He collected about a 100 pounds, that was it. Our troop did a newspaper drive every year, and we collected more than that per scout). His troop also ran a merit badge "clinic" the weekend after summer camp because summer camp didn't give out enough merit badges. He had gotten something like eight merit badges at the previous year's clinic (enough to finish his eagle). He boasted that over half the scouts in his troop were eagles (I didn't believe him, so I went by their camp later. I didn't count them, but there were a lot of scouts with eagle patches). Basically, his eagle award wasn't worth much (unfortunately this encounter has colored my view of "young eagles" to this day - something I have to watch out for). So I can see both sides.

Seriously? If a gay man doesn't desire to sexually abuse teenagers it's because of a "...several decades' effort to dissociate homosexuals from their proclivity to youth..."? That's it's all some sort of conspiracy to hide the truth about gay people? Am I understanding your point? As for: "your knee-jerk assumption that any criticism of homosexuals=charges of pedophilia", what a load. I don't assume anything of the sort. I'm just reacting when I see people like you writing stuff of the form: "most gay people secretly want to abuse teens, it's part of their culture". Or is that not what you are saying?

They won't be able to get away with that for leaders. Openly gay leaders will almost certainly lead to inappropriate contact between adults and youth. BSA needs to figure out how they will mitigate that. Why? Have heterosexual female leaders "lead to inappropriate contact between adults and youth"?

Scouter99: So you are saying that it is inherent in the nature of homosexuals to sexually abuse youth? What a load of BS. It is no more inherent for homosexuals than it is for heterosexuals.

Scouter99: You have bought this up before, but I don't understand your point. Yes there are homosexuals that are attracted to youth, and some of them end up as teachers in schools, and some end up in youth groups. The very same can be said about heterosexuals, only there a lot more of them. However if you are implying that homosexual = pedophile, then you are wrong. And that isn't what that chapter of Toward Stonewall says.

I think a big part of the decline in participation in Boy Scouts and other activities is the increased opportunity costs of participation. Kids today are chauffeured everywhere, they don’t travel on their own. Look at any elementary school today, where are the bicycle racks? When I was a kid, my school had huge bicycle racks that held hundreds of bicycles everyday. Why? Because we rode our bikes or walked to school. That very same elementary school no-longer has those racks because the kids are driven to and from school by their parents. The line of urban assault vehicles (SUVs) waiting to pick up their kids at the end of the day stretches for blocks. Same thing for little league, boy scouts, etc. - we usually got there under our own power (unless it was across town). I am amazed at how much time parents today spend shuttling their kids around. In our cub pack we have lost several boys over transportation issues. Many extracurricular activities today require complete commitment. Want to be a cheerleader at your high school? You have to attend a summer camp just to be allowed to try out. Want to play soccer? Be prepared for a year round activity. It used to be if you wanted to do multiple activities, it wasn’t that hard. Now many groups expect you to pick just one and spend all you time with them. One thing I have observed that is probably related to the transportation thing, is that the circle of friends that kids have today tend to be much more geographically distributed. When I was a kid, I could walk or ride my bicycle to the house of virtually every one of my friends. We all lived in the same neighborhood and went to the same schools. Now with most of the children of my friends, that isn’t true. One of the reasons they have to be chauffeured to “play dates†instead of simply getting together with their friends under their own power.

No, your point was "If any group of scouts tried that today, a bunch of people would probably end up in jail." As for RichardB's "Centennial Year" attack on the "Real Patrol" Method: What do you expect? His boss gets paid a million dollars a year to bash camping. So what? How did that actually impact your own outdoor program? Was it 4 Patrols times 4 Weekends per month for a total of 16 fewer Patrol Campouts per month? 50 years ago it never occurred to us to ask our Scoutmaster for permission to camp without adult supervision, even though it was "required." The "simple reality" is if you teach your Scouts how to backpack, they will begin to buy the equipment they need to go backpacking on their own. Like we did 50 years ago. They will invite their friends, some of whom may be in their Patrol, and some of whom will not be Scouts at all. They may ask their parents for permission, but they won't ask you. Baloney. There is no such California state law. http://www.curfewclass.com/states/California%20Curfew%20Laws.html "Been told" by a Trained Webelos III leader, you mean. I called the head of Cleveland California National Forest Law Enforcement (858-673-6180). He said he had never heard of such a state law, and if one existed it would not be his job to enforce it. He did say that there are city and county laws designed for urban areas, but he has never heard of one being used against Boy Scouts in a National Forest or state wilderness area. The problem is that Wood Badge has been dumbed down to the Den Leader level, so BSA camping is usually a Webelos III event in a Boy Scout camp or other family venue. So when a "Trained" leader hears the term "state park," he or she thinks of state family campgrounds (where unsupervised teenagers might be discouraged) rather than state wilderness trailheads, which are essentially the same as National Forest trailheads. And of course: Wood Badge victims can not distinguish between a Troop backpacking program and a "Real Patrol" overnight. Baloney. The age of passengers is unrestricted after holding a driver's license for one year, or at 17 years of age, whichever comes first. That's about the same as it was 50 years ago in New York State. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver's_license_in_the_United_States So no, it is not more difficult for teens today to just pick up and "go camping" than it used to be. What is more difficult for teens today is to find a "Trained" Boy Scout leader that does not brainstorm excuses for a Boy Scout program literally (not figuratively) designed to get parlor boys to Eagle without ever walking into the woods with packs on their backs. Ouch. Kudu you are correct. The source I had found that listed the curfew law as a state law was incorrect. It was a city ordinance. But I bet that a bunch of kids camping by themselves without adult supervision could cause legal problems (locally someone had child services called on them for leaving a 14 year old girl home alone overnight). And you are correct that the driving restrictions only last a year (or until the driver turns 18 if that comes first). So unless a group of teens have someone at least 17 years old with an unrestricted license, they aren't going to be driving themselves a 100 miles to go camping.

When I was a boy scout, I remember one of the neighboring troops had a scout master that was an open atheist. He was active at the district and council level. While I understand he didn't go around giving lectures to scouts on why being an atheist was great, if asked he would discuss it. He was active as a scouter for something like 20 years. No one cared (OK, I'm sure there were some people that cared, but no one at the unit or council level felt any need to force him out for being an atheist). I don't think that would be true today. As for being gay, I think there were lots of units and COs that would NOT accept an openly gay leader. But for those that did, I think the council would have let those units keep their leaders. The change in the BSA was the move away from local control, to national setting membership policy based on conservative religious ideals. That is the mistake national made, and yes, it was destructive. It forced public schools and the military to stop chartering units, and closed off multiple sources of support (and no it wasn't the bad ACLU that kicking units out of schools, it was that the BSA went from having no formal policy of discrimination - to having one. And I applaud the ACLU for forcing government institutions to follow the law).

What agnostic means to you, is up to you. I just use the standard definition. The standard definition? As Merlyn pointed out, the term “agnostic†was defined by Though Huxley in 1869 (though he didn’t invent the ideas that the term describes). It basically means that “God is unknowableâ€Â. That covers several forms of thought. One (as you pointed out) can be thought of as: “I don’t know if gods exist or not - I don’t know what I believeâ€Â. However, this is only one version of “agnosticismâ€Â. Another is someone who believes “the true nature of God (or the divine) is unknowable to usâ€Â, that too is a form of “agnosticismâ€Â, and there are multiple religions that fit that description. So when the BSA says that we don’t allow agnostics because they don’t know what they believe, they don’t know what the term really means. So when a Hindu says to me “my branch of Hinduism is basically agnosticâ€Â*, he isn’t saying that he can’t make up his mind. And when the BSA says that man is unacceptable, it doesn’t understand what he is saying. Nice to know that the discussion has now turned to attacking the person rather than discussing the topic. I was not trying to attack you. If I came across that way, I apologize. It’s just that we have to be careful when we throw words like “atheist†and “agnostic†around. The words have pretty broad meanings (a lot of “standard†(i.e. colloquial) definitions are incorrect or incomplete), and someone may refer to themselves using those words, and it behooves us to try and understand what they are actually trying to say before we condemn them for it. * this came up in a short conversation about faith with a Hindu man. I wish I had more time to explore the topic with him beyond the explanation of “because God is unknowableâ€Â.

Who said that? Fred did: This is just another version of hate and it's the same ugly destructive hate that Merlyn LeRoy shows all the time in these forums. He's not a scouter and only is here to be a thorn in the side of others who disagree.

I agree with those here who have said that this spin off would probably have eventually happened even if the vote on the gay issue had not come up. There were (and still are) a group of people in the BSA that are not interested in, and have no intention of embracing the BSA values of pluralism (the BSA is “completely nonsectarian†and A Scout is Reverent - “... He respects the beliefs of others.â€Â). They want the BSA to be an explicitly conservative Christian organization that allowed others to join, as long as they agreed to follow conservative Christian values (after all, these are the only valid “valuesâ€Â). The vote was a signal that the BSA was no-longer moving in the direction they wished. So it’s no surprise that Trail Life is an explicitly Christian organization (and only a certain kind of Christian at that), that has a policy on gays that is almost identical to the new BSA one (because it was really a religious issue, not one about gays). I have no problem with them and I wish them well. Trail Life (like the American Heritage Girls) is very up-front and honest about what they are, and provides an alternative to those scouters that don’t want to rub elbows with people of different faiths.

I've never understood this. How is asking the BSA to live up to it's stated values ("...is completely nonsectarian...", Reverent - "...shows respect for other faiths...") hate?

moved

Baloney. 50 years ago (1964), few if any Boy Scouts had ever heard of a backpack waist belt, which changed Delway's back country travel as radically as the invention of the stirrup changed the history of warfare. If anything, the worldwide test of a First Class Scout, a 14 mile overnight backpack Journey with a heavy pack hanging directly off our shoulders, was harder 50 years ago. But the whole point of backpacking is that a Boy Scout's direct experience of nature can be the same now as it was 50 years ago. Note that the "simple reality" apology for Parlor Scouting is a description of front country Patrol camping, not Delway's back country backpacking. As such: 50 years ago we did not take rifles backpacking. Those of us with Svea 123 stoves did not bother with campfires. Or hatchets. Or gathering firewood. No law then or now prohibits unsupervised teenagers from backpacking in national forests (or most state wilderness areas). Such venues are free, not "more expensive." State-of-the-art backpacks from the 70s & 80s can be purchased now for $5. We never stayed in one place for a week in the back country, and no adult ever checked up on us. We did not use public transportation for backpacking: When I got my driver's license we drove 100 miles to the Adirondacks on school vacations (oh, DuctTape, I lost your Email). I know "21st century" Scouts who drive 200 miles after I get them addicted to backpacking. So why can't "21st century trained" Boy Scout leaders tell the difference between a backpacking trip and a Patrol outing? 48 years ago the father of modern Wood Badge, John Larson, won the battle to replace outdoor leadership with indoor leadership: http://www.whitestag.org/history/history.html#1965 So now Wood Badge is designed for Den Mothers, the "Patrol Method" presentation of Scoutmaster training replaces Patrol Leaders with adult-led EDGE theory (nobody noticed), and we pay our Chief Scout Executive a million dollars a year to bash camping. But Delway the good news: If you stick to your guns (and also give your most mature Scouts some freedom on two-deep back country trips), your Troop's backpack program can become popular beyond your wildest dreams. Check out our January backpack "Cumberland Island National Seashore: Day One" (and Day Two) https://plus.google.com/100437668559826261011/posts It's not Baloney. There are more restrictions now. "50 years ago we did not take rifles backpacking." The point wasn't that they were taking rifles, it was that they were camping without direct adult supervision - something the BSA no longer allows. "No law then or now prohibits unsupervised teenagers from backpacking in national forests (or most state wilderness areas)." - incorrect. California state law (which applies even in national forests here) makes it illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to be "out in public" without adult supervision between 10:00 pm and sunrise (there are exceptions for traveling home from a movie, etc.). I've been told camping in a state park is considered "out in public" (I haven't consulted a lawyer on that point however). "When I got my driver's license we drove 100 miles to the Adirondacks on school vacations (oh, DuctTape, I lost your Email). I know "21st century" Scouts who drive 200 miles after I get them addicted to backpacking." In California at least, it is illegal for a driver under the age of 18 to drive with any passengers under 20 years of age unless they are accompanied by a licensed driver over 25 years old. Plus they can't drive between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. So yes, it's much more difficult for teens today to just pick up and "go camping" than it used to be.

moved

jBlake, you clearly don't know what the word "agnostic" means. There are multiple religions that are agnostic in nature. Does that mean that an agnostic style Hindu has no faith? What a great way to show respect for other religions.