tjhammer

the chances that BSA will ever be held to be a public accommodation is exactly zilch

Yes, but the chances that BSA, Inc. will be held to be a business that refuses to sell a product to people with religious beliefs they don't like is very likely.

And since BSA Inc. has gone to court (several times) to chase off competitor organizations that try to deploy the Scouting program outside of BSA Inc. it's certainly acted like a business. (It's not the WOSM regulations that prevent multiple Scouting organizations in the USA... it's the Congressional Charter that the BSA received, giving it absolute exclusivity over the brands and programs of Scouting in America.)

BSA Inc. as a business has been predatory, competitive and very much profit driven. The IRS forms filed by the national organization (they file several, which obfuscates the real size and cash flow of the organization) tell part of the story (the Supply Division, for example, profits are accounted for differently than others). The professional staff pension program was drawing so much profit that the IRS threatened to revoke the non-profit status, leading to the wave of early retirement packages the BSA pushed on its staff four to seven years ago.

I'm not sure we (BSA) could ultimately win a legal dispute that argued we were a business. The evidence of such is far more extensive than the few I've outlined.

Would you buy breakfast from Denny's if they refused to serve Jews or blacks (or atheists or gays)? Is there any legal reason the diner has to serve Jews or blacks (or atheists or gays)? How is BSA Inc. different than a local diner? (Lawyers with opinions?)

Larry Craig is another example of the end of what BrentAllen and tjhammer both hate about the old gay culture.

I do feel sadness for any man of his age who has lived a lie for so long. Like every gay man, I can understand a bit of what he's going through. But I'm far younger, far more affirmed by those around me, and far less committed to concealing a big secret. And I managed to leave the self-loathing behind long ago.

Larry Craig has only compounded his own misfortune by hurting others. He has a perfectly anti-gay voting record. If he was closeted but didn't use his powers to harm gay people, then there would be more cause to sympathize.

Larry Craig has spent a lifetime aligning with "straight people" who abhor "gay people". Much like Ted Haggard and others, no matter how hard he "wished" away his sexuality, it didn't change. A bubbling repression that manifested in abhorrent ways. But Larry Craig is quickly becoming an aberration, something foreign to younger generations of gay men.

His behavior (not just in that bathroom) is a relic of the old gay culture, driven by secrecy and bogus shame.

The current political wars are a re-alignment. It used to be gay vs straight. But now it's the old gay culture against the new gay culture. Larry Craig cruises for sex in bathrooms, he's part of the old gay culture. His lifestyle is threated by gay marriage: more guys sitting at the boarding gate with their husbands means fewer in the airport washroom. His lifestyle is threated by gays in the military: more sailors with boyfriends on shore means fewer available underneath the dock. Craig, West, and Haggard are the death throes of the old gay culture, desperately longing for the good old days.

It's not just the "old" gay culture of anonymous sexual encounters vs. the "new" gay culture of monogamy; it's self-loathing vs. self-affirmation.

BrentAllen - OK, thanks for narrowing down what you mean by "lifestyle". Funny, if someone asked me about BrentAllen's "lifestyle", I imagine Robin Leach narrating about your opulent house, fancy boat, love of fine dining and cadre or fiends.

So it's not who I love, my companion of the past seven years, or my household or my friends or my religious beliefs that bother you. What you're worried about is how I might advocate (flip charts?) how I PHYSICALLY spend a collective 45 minutes, during the most private and secluded moments of my week?

BrentAllen - I acknowledge your response, and agree it does no good for us to prejudge each other based on some stereotype.

I'm curious, though... I responded to YOUR WORDS... you claim to know something about my "lifestyle". How do you know about my values, home life, friends and the manner in which I spend my time? What do you believe those things to be, based on this predefined image of my "lifestyle" you have proffered?

Keep 'em coming Ed.

Over the last decade, the age (and rate) in which gay people "come out of the closet" has dropped dramatically. When I was in high school, I couldn't relate to any gay people, and the prevailing prejudgment told me I was one of the worst kinds of people.

The church I attended, and the Scouting program I loved, both wanted nothing to do with me if I was gay (so I hid it). This didn't jive with what I knew in my heart to be true (that I didn't choose to be gay, and that I wasn't a bad person). But you can nonetheless imagine the internal conflict. The "closet" is a brutal place to put oneself, though in retrospect I can't accept all the blame for being in there.

The "closet" and all the conflict that causes can be too much for some people... I made it through relatively sane and healthy, but many don't. I've written before on this forum of one of my Scouting friends, driven to attempted suicide at 18 years old, before emerging from the closet and continuing on to be a great person (in no small part as a byproduct of his Scouting).

I think the "closet" also causes a lot of the stereotypical "lifestyle" that you believe is universal. In fact, this "lifestyle", and much of the "gay culture" is vanishing at an astonishing rate. Young people are far more open and accepting of gays than ever before. I'm only in my mid-thirties, but even I'm astounded at how different life is for a gay kid coming to grips with his sexual orientation today than just a few years ago.

And the more people who realize just how "normal" gay people really are, the less cause for the "closet" to even exist. The less "closet" time gay people spend, the more assimilated they are into the community... and more and more it's an end to the "lifestyle" you imagine.

>>why isn't homosexuality as prevalent as heterosexuality

Beats me... must have something to do with biology and God's plan for the species.

>> advocating their lifestyle

Good grief. You don't know ANYTHING about my "lifestyle", just some cartoonish image you cling to as justification for your prejudice. As long as you can believe I'm so different from you, it's easy to label who I am to be "immoral".

But by all means, please don't let me discourage you from continuing to share your ideas. In the end, it does more to drive people away from your line of thinking than it draws near, and I wouldn't want to deny your bliss.

BTW, can we agree prejudice against "Nazi's, mass murders, slave traders, child molesters and rapists" is a bit different than prejudging me because I'm gay? Otherwise, I think thou doth protest a bit too much about being called a bigot, no?

BrentAllen - anecdotally, yes, people seem to become more conservative as they grow older (and I think you're right, it often correlates to those payroll taxes!). But I have no reason to believe that's going to happen again with this generation. It makes for a catchy observation, though.

"Conservatism" has been utterly redefined in the past 15 years. It certainly doesn't stand for rugged individualism or small and hands-off government. If people grew older and wanted to pay less taxes, expect more self-reliance and be free of a nanny-state government... they aren't going to find any of that in the Christianist conservatism that's emerged today.

The merger of evangelical Christianity with the politics of the Republican party has severely damaged BOTH (to my chagrin, in both cases).

For what it's worth... I agree that blindly "labeling" people is wrong. If you look at my post, I've called the BSA Inc. position prejudicial... I, personally, didn't use the epithet.

However, do I think there are bigots in the BSA, and within this forum... yes.

But do I think everyone that's willing to prejudge gay boys and men as unfit for membership in the organization is colloquially a bigot? No, that was sort of my point. I think prejudice is often less sinister and deliberate. But when prejudice goes unchecked, denied and defended as rightuous, it's a pretty slippery slope to Rev. Fred Phelps and evil bigotry.

I grew up during Reagan, and was inspired to what seemed a clarion call: rugged individualismbelief that America was the role model for the world, and actions that warranted itgovernment that DIDN'T try to solve problems that communities were better suited to solve (education, moral teachings, etc), government that DID solve problems it was better suited to solve (national defense, disaster recovery, etc)Millions from my generation defined conservatism as such. But there's nothing in today's Republican party that even remotely resembles my indoctrination.

During the past few years, I discovered the kooks with agendas to the right of me became harder to relate to than the kooks with agendas to the left of me. The hypocrisy and disingenuity of those that hijacked what I knew as conservatism became too hard to accept.

But here's the real rub... Bush/Cheney, the neocons and the evangelicals have done more to influence the "next generation" than Reagan ever dreamed... it's worth a read, if you want a view of the next decade's leaders, radicalized by the current bunch by defining what they are not.

EdMori: Who beside you see the Boy Scout as bigots? Names, please. Got any non-atheist or non-gay people who side with you?

OK, well, it's been a while... I'm ready to wade back into the morass... let me take a crack at answering you Ed:

NYTIMES Poll, June 27, 2007: 44% of people aged 19 to 27 think gay marriage should be legal. 68% think if not marriage, at least civil unions should be allowed. Pretty much every poll of the American public reveals similar, and increasing opinion on gay couples, gay parenting and recognizing that gay people are just normal folks like everyone else.

It's probably clear to most Scouters that people aged 19 to 27 are the likely parents of kids entering Cub Scout age, and it doesn't take much of a leap to extrapolate at least a coorelation to the dramatic drop in new kids entering our Scouting program.

Since young Americans are far more relaxed about homosexuality than their elders -- three-quarters of 18-34-year-olds think it is OK to be gay, whereas half of those over 55 think it is not -- this trend is likely to continue. This year was also the first since Gallup started asking the question that a majority of Americans have not said that homosexual relations are morally wrong.

Households with gay couples living normal, everyday lives just like most of the people in this forum increased more than 30% in five years following the 2000 census... most pronounced in places like Wisconsin (showing an 81% jump in the number of same-sex couples)... among the ten fastest-growing states for coupled, gay households: Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri and Indiana.

"The gays" are not just distant flames in far off cities... we're increasingly the boring couple with the porch light next door to you in suburbia and middle America.

Fellow Scouters, this is not a "battle" the the BSA or prejudice will win against time and reality. It's easy to prejudge someone as evil or duplicitous or radically different when you don't actually know them... but large bunches of the younger generation has grown up around openly gay, normal (whatever that means) people, and just aren't apoplectic over the issue.

To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eyes. - John Locke, some dude who used to think a lot about Enlightenment

http://www.republicanunity.com/artcl/bld.htm

Too bad the BSA National Council continues to drift away from some of the principles Scouting instilled in Gerald Ford.

The BSA had no legal grounds to fire Smith yet. Tell us, if you were the employer, and as far as you know your employee had not committed a crime, WHAT exactly would have have fired him for?

Nothing. At least that's how I would have handled St. Jean, since BSA had no legal grounds to fire him, he was not implicated in any sort of criminal activity, and was not about to splash onto the national news in way that would embarrass the "company". Unfortunately, BSA did do something, and probably will end up right back in court defending yet more indefensible decisions. They terminated "for cause" where the "cause" is likely illegal discrimination.

As for Smith, knowing exactly what he was "suspected" of doing (with agents actually seizing equipment), and aware of how especially inappropriate that would be for the man in charge of my youth protection policy, I would have demanded his immediate resignation, and if I did not receive that resignation, I would have fired him. Employment with BSA is an "at will" relationship, and there is at least an implied (if not probably literal) morals clause associated with the leaders employed by the organization. Mere implication in this criminal activity, especially when uncontested by Smith, would be enough "legal grounds" to terminate an employee. Is that the way the scenario unfolded with BSA? Probably, and unless there was something to the contrary in his employment contract, I would assume it's legally justified for him to have his retirement benefits.

Not speaking for jkhny (he seems to have plenty of words for himself), but I think the point was the "screaming irony" that Smith fired St. Jean and that Smith ran youth protection. I think the other point is that St. Jean should never have been fired. Based on the information that's public (which may not be everything, but sure seems to be), I'd say any rational person would have to agree with both the irony and the inappropriateness of firing St. Jean.

Seriously though, no props for FunDip? Come on, the sweet hard candy stick you lick and dip into fluorescent colored sugar? That had to be about the closest thing to drug I abused when I was 11.

Not to slow down the party, buut BobWhite's, shall we say "narrow" view of the facts probably should be corrected.

At the time that Smith took retirement no charge was made, no charge was known. On what grounds as an employer could you fire an employees who was not under arrest, had not been charged, and was eligible to retire?

As was reported when the case broke, the authorities first contacted BSA and seized Smith's computer at work. Smith didn't "retire" and months later be revealed for distributing child pornography.

It's disengenous to suggest BSA had no idea Smith was implicated in this or that he had already "retired".

IMO, Smith did the right thing by retiring (he did it only after the story was in the news, and should have even sooner, but it did show some personal accountability, and when combined with the fact that he pleaded guilty nearly immediately, shows he likely had some desire to shield BSA from his personal foibles).

But to equivocate a distributor of child pornography who had been in charge of BSA's youth protection policies with a gay employee who was "discovered" to be associating with gay friends is just absurd and insulting.

Most importantly, FunDip and the packet of shredded bubble gum you cram into you cheeks until you nearly choke, then heading out to play Little League, has to be the near perfect memory of candy.

JD - don't sweat BW's arrogance. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim. But, as he implies, he means well. If you can cut through the condescension, there's often a underlying point worth agreeing with, he just does a very poor job of communicating and leading to get that point established.

No matter who you are or what experiences you've had with Scouting, it won't ever reach a sufficient level as long as BW believes you're opinion is wrong. To be fair, I really don't disagree with much of the general point he's trying to make... that Scouting is best done locally, and that should be our focus. But it is absurd to think BSA National's role can not get in the way of local Scouting, and that local Scouters should not be concerned when that happens.

It's not important that I have sat in plenty of committee meetings at the national level, and was on a first name basis with two of the last three Chief Scout Execs. My involvement with the World Organization of Scout Movements in Geneva, including more than a year of program development and involvement in other countries, is irrelevant, at least to BW. The fact that I started with Scouting when I was eight, then progressively - and extensively - served local, council, regional, national and international levels of the program is really not important.

The fact is, in his mind, I should no longer be involved in Scouting (you know, because I now don't meet the membership requirements), and because I have a critique of the organization I'm relegated to "whiner" status, and in the way of people who are really doing something for Scouting.

I agree with BW, to an extent, that Scouters should seek to improve Scouting around them, regardless of what community - or level of the program - they are involved in.

However, when malfeasance, incompetence, or decision making manipulated by special interests gets in the way of local Scouting, it is cause for legitimate concern.

The analogy that McDonald's franchisees don't care about what the parent company does is absurd. It's the whole reason they are McDonald's franchisees, and not running their own Bob's Burger Barn. And you can sure bet that when McDonald's corporate has a PR disaster (think "Supersize Me" documentary"), the franchisees are screaming up the chain for someone to help. When a local Wendy's franchise is accused (falsely) of having a finger in the chili, not only is that local franchise devastated, repercussions are felt across the country. When a local Denny's decides it doesn't want to serve black people, the entire Denny's chain gets a reputation of bigotry.

Scouting might be "hunky dory" in your area, but don't be blind or naive to think that's true everywhere, or that a trend of problems might eventually end up in your backyard.

I knew several Council Scout Executives (and council volunteer leaders) back during the "Council of Nine", the nine major metro councils that initially came out against the BSA's ban on gays. I can tell you most of these folks genuninely believed Scouting's policy was wrong. And some of them were simply looking at the community around them, and reading the writing on the wall. In self-interest, they were trying to separate from a national position that would have drastic consequences for Scouting in their communities.

A few years later, many of those folks have retired now. And Scouting in some major metro councils is probably the biggest hit by membership slides and financial drought. For a while, games could be played with LFL and inner-city programs that were "underwritten" to keep the Scouting numbers artificially inflated, but that's not a sustainable program, mostly because it doesn't require dedicated volunteer leaders (which are the "engine" that has kept Scouting moving forward for a century).

Visit the council in Chicago (a ghost town of an office and practically non-existent relations between volunteer leaders and the "paid staff that works for them"). Look at Atlanta, where the pressure to keep up has enabled a mess that Jim Terry (dispatched from National) is trying to carve into something reasonably resembling Scouting. Was the devastation of Scouting in some of these metro areas only because local volunteer leaders stopped doing their job? Or what role did BSA National -- forcing these locales to adopt policies that were contradictory to their local community standards, pushing professional candidates that would toe the party line -- play in the devastation?

I'm not chicken little... Scouting was and is one of the great institutions of the world. And the impact Scouting can have on a boy is amazing. But as the paid professional mantra goes, "you can't put the Scouting into the boy, unless you first put the boy into Scouting". And there's clearly a current problem, more than a cyclical matter, quickening around us. It's going to continue to be harder and harder to "put the boy into Scouting" as parents under 35 have kids entering our total available youth.

In the end, I can identify nothing that BSA National has done to reverse the tide, and the reality is some of BSA National's actions can be directly blamed for waves crashing against local councils, particularly in some major metros.

I don't think BSA is a sinking ship, but I do think it's adrift at sea, and the direction it will eventually take will ultimately be dictated by parents. The only question is, how big a group of parents will care?

Bob -- can you educate the ignorant masses with a list of the top 10 responsibilities of the National Council? Maybe then we can all better understand just how little they have to do with 'real scouting' that's going on, and why it's non of our concern what they do.(This message has been edited by tjhammer)

BW, before you blow an authority gasket (I imagine you in an office up in the attic, chugging blood pressure medicine, tilting away and ready to throw open the window screaming "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!")....

GS cookie sales are about $600 million business, and Weaver Popcorn (the company that owns Trails End brand) did about $90 million in Boy Scout popcorn sales. (But then, you probably already knew that, too.)

Bob, come on, let's not be so disingenuous here.... Smith was one of the three top paid executives for Scouting, had been directly in charge of Youth Protection guidelines, and was one of the very regular, vocal opponents to "homosexuals" in Scouting.

The fact that he didn't search for and trade pictures of naked boys at the office, but confined such activities to home, seems like a pretty minor detail compared to the hypocrisy of the above, don't you think?

Without comment on the intent of the thread, I will add that the IRS 990 form you're referencing does not really include all of BSA. (I have no idea how many corporate identities comprise GSUSA.)

BSA councils are all independent corporations, and their assets and P&L are probably not reflected in the above. More significantly, though, is the fact that at a national level BSA has multiple entities, making it difficult to get a true picture of the entire organizations business practices. At least a few years ago, I know there were separate tax returns filed for Supply Division (as I recall that was a bit more than $100 million in additional revenue), the Publishing group (Boys Life and Scouting) had separate tax returns (and were separate corporations), and without searching my notes I believe there was another corporate entity that held the BSA Employee retirement trust funds (which was making so much "profit" because of how well the market was performing that the IRS was placing it's non-profit status in question, and that was dealt with by offering early retirement packages a few years ago).

Additionally, the Chief Scout Executive received a paycheck for that role, and additional paychecks for his editorial roles in the Publishing Group, etc.

It would be very interesting to understand the true balance sheet and P&L for the entire national organization, and how that might compare to the collective financial position of the independent council corporations. My sense is the numbers outlined above are a fraction of the total picture.

I suppose I'm the gay cousin the family is still trying to get used to... I live off in the big city, and drop back in from time to time, for family reunions and such.

But I'm not really sure I know who Crazy Uncle Frank would be. All in all, I'd play horseshoes with just about anyone in the family.

Of that we are both guilty, no doubt.

Then, in your view, throughout the Bible where it says "man", it means that quite literally? If that's the case, then it would sure seem likely verses can be found that place women into subservience in ways beyond just spiritual leadership.

I get the picture.

Well, let's stick with the one I brought up in the most recent post... the Bible outlines a role for women to be subserviant to man. Most of Christianity rejects this today... where do you stand?

And an extension of that example, what of the recent "edits" to the Bible to be more "gender-neutral" in the use of pronouns... do you reject new translations that refer to "people" instead of "man" or "woman"?

Now come on, accordion players are clearly born that way, I mean why would anyone choose to play an accordion?

But bagpipers, that's a different story. I think both accordion players and non-accordion players could play the bagpipe. It just takes a willing effort. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, I think it can be quite emotional and satisfying to hear a bagpipe off in the distance late at night or early in the morning.

OGE, you've always struck me as the sort of person who could appreciate an accordion player, even if you were not one yourself.