Scouter99

A typical council based on the comments re:OA that generally bubble up online.

Exactly. The"subject" is the scouts' application to sell water, not the membership policy, so what does NJ mean when he blames the scouts for not discussing the matter at hand when the council wants to discuss a different matter? He wants gays so don't expect anything except flagellation.

I got one, it was as big as a tent, never wore it any. If Pascal Tessier is reading, I'll sell it to you for cost+shipping, it's great for parades.

Our 15-yr-old chief uses tobacco right out front of everyone. Frankly, it's the kind of thing I expect from the OA.

Do your homework. Scouts/Scouters were prohibited from wearing their uniforms in support of political causes before the membership vote, the membership resolution itself again explicitly prohibited Scouts/Scouters from using their uniforms to participate in political campaigns (precisely because everyone knew that the supporters were going to march in uniform beside the pervs that populate these parades). A candidate saying "I'm a Boy Scout leader" is indicative of what values he holds, not using his unit/uniform to promote his platform--there's no comparison unless the guy wears his uniform to the debate. And if he does, then, yes, he should be disciplined. BSA's encouragement for boys to be active in their patriotic duties, such as participation in the political process, does not mean that Boy Scouts should put on their uniforms and campaign for a particular party. You know that and you're being deliberately obtuse, or else you're dumb. and I say so right out because it's so annoying and tiresome. Or can I expect your support if I go march in uniform at the Klan rally? That is exactly why when in the past BSA has done things like put out election doorhangers, they say "Vote as you think" not "vote for Roosevelt!"

What this boils down to is association. My gut reaction on this one is "go away and never return" because the boy has made his personal problem a troop problem by enticing fellow scouts to join him. If he were allowed to stay in my troop, he would never, ever get that SM signoff on anything related to Eagle. I've never had to deal with a Scout bringing drugs to a scout function, so it's all philosophical to me, but I think you've made a grave error in keeping him around. At the very least, you now owe an explanation to your scouts and to their parents as to why you're allowing this wolf to stay among the flock. Back to association: I've had scouts who were deeper down the rabbit hole than this--harder drugs, seen them high as a kite in public, bled into school--but they didn't bring it to Scouts and if they did it was in the deep dark night by themselves. I have never thought they ought to go because if they keep their drugs away, then Scouting can keep working on them, and I believe its my duty to work on them, and I pray to God I'm doing something good by them. Some have pulled it out, cleaned up, and made Eagle with most people around them none the wiser. Others will live the rest of their lives bouncing up and down. At Boy Scout age, no drug is trivial. I don't know when or why it started, but situations like this are one reason I'm glad that it's our troop's practice that the Scout Spirit requirement isn't ever signed until after the SM conference. There's no rule or anything, we just do it that way.

Sounds about right. I haven't got the slightest idea who the candidate is or what his politics are. I simply know that it is neither OK nor within the rules for a Scout or Scouter to use his uniform to promote a political candidate, platform, or party. The notion that the rule is suspended when it's yourself strikes me as silly at best.

Absolutely not.

My jokes often tend toward the gothic.

Can we accept Darwinian ideals and accommodate these people?

The line on the federal law requiring proof of age is images taken after 1996 (or something like that, its US Code 2257 but I don't really care to do a lot of Googling down that line), and whether the photo is sexually explicit. A 15 yr old girl sending out photos of herself to elicit a sexual response is illegal because it is pornography and she's the one that created and transmitted. A funny baby photo is not.

There are a couple of moons in our troop archive. As many adults as youth

Thanks!

And at Boy Scout camps: (warning, obviously there are very old photos of rear ends in this article on the subject at hand) 9th image down is Bucks County Council's Camp Ockanickon http://houseofmirthphotos.blogspot.com/2010/04/old-swimming-hole-by-brooks-peters.html And on the cover of the official magazine of the UK Scouting association in 1951: (again, be aware, a side view of a rear on a Scouting mag cover) http://storage.canalblog.com/75/55/326328/32474750_p.jpg Nothing so forward in American Scouting mags, as far as I know, but of course our patron saint Greenbar Bill's photos of Indian campouts would curdle the modern Scouter's blood. http://boyslife.org/wayback/#issue=wfUIHchKA94C&pg=38

Yes, it's the Warren Report. Link on the bottom left of http://www.scouting.org/jamboree/sitecore/content/bsayouthprotection.aspx Direct link to the report: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/youthprotection/pdf/WarrenReport.pdf

I did not answer the largest portion of your second-to-last reply to me because I had already made my thoughts on the matter clear (which you have now quoted in your last reply), and repeating them didn't serve anything. Peregrinator has it exactly right when he says that the agents provocateur are current scouts/scouters who break policy to use their uniforms to protest. I named several, but you saw NJ's name and I imagine saw no more. I did not tell NJ to consider joining BPSA because he expressed his opinion, I told him if he's got so much grit in his mouth that he can't stand it, to the point that he'll defend these dirtbags who are trying to do nothing but wreck BSA, who deliberately and repeatedly break the regulations you say you' yourself will support if shown them, then he ought to find a movement that he's in line with. And that's true of anyone. I am not a vegetarian, I do not go to the PETA meetings and demand they start serving hamburgers. Frankly, I have to say I find the suggestion that when a moderator says let a topic die or else I might have to kill it is any different than a moderator just pulling the switch to be a little silly. If you want to split hairs, split them. So, yes, I find it more than a little ironic that you're all bent out of shape over my thoughts on association, and think it's just peachy that a mod tells people he disagrees with to can it. We see the ultimatum differently. I don't have any personal problem with NJ in general, he's a likeable guy. I disagree with him on a certain point. He seems to understand that disagreement doesn't equal ad hominem, I don't think you need to white knight him any further. Should I have kept it buttoned or expressed myself in a more suave manner? Absolutely, my apologies. Do I hate NJ or think anyone with an opinion should leave? Oh, please.

Yeah, I'm very comfortable calling 97% of the population normal.

This all becomes an exercise in irony as a gay scout leader and his boyfriend get hauled into jail for molesting teenagers. Gay people preserve the worst stereotypes about gay people, which are rooted not in fear from normal people, but because sex with boys was the central tenet of gay activism from the 1800s until the 1970s. Forgive us for believing what they said about themselves and their desires before they realized it wasn't working for public opinion.

60% of Ineligible Volunteer-Perversion files involving a minor (let's don't forget that there's more than one way to land in the IVP section, including just being gay, and there are multiple categories of IV files) contain information from the public domain, including "newspaper articles, police reports, criminal justice records, and/or records of civil litigation." This was not a BSA problem, it was an America problem. Unlike the rest of the country, BSA created a comprehensive, nationwide system to keep these people out when they were reported, innocent or guilty. Like Fred said, hindsight is cheap. In every stage of the evolution on thinking about sexual abuse, BSA has been ahead of the curve--the federal law requiring proof of age in porno didn't even exist until 1988, 5 years after this gay guy took the Polaroids of his victim. The parents didn't even call the police, from a contemporary perspective, the BSA should have called the police, but we're condemning BSA for not doing what the victim's own parents didn't do. Should Athens have allowed women to vote? Sure. Should the BSA have called the cops against the parents wishes? Sure. In reality, by blacklisting the guy BSA was already doing more than anyone else.

Ineffectiveness of the particular attempt. I think you all do a fine job especially given the crummy state of the software you have to work with.