Scouter99

You could tell him that BSA didn't start actively removing gay youth until the 1990s. As far as I can tell, before that, gay youth were only liable to removal if they engaged in sex acts during scouting activities. I base that on this quote from the 1972 Scoutmaster Handbook (the oldest one I have access to): "Sex Curiosity ...You may discover or hear about incidents of sexual experimentation among troop members. How should you handle such matters? ...Incidents of sexual experimentation that may occur in the troop could run from the innocent to the scandalous. They call for a private and thorough investigation, and frank discussion with those involved. It is important to distinguish between youthful acts of innocence, and the practices of a confirmed homosexual who may be using his Scouting association to make contacts. A boy of 15 of or so cannot be assumed to be acting out of innocence, and should be separated from the troop for the protection of younger boys..." (73-75) To me, that reads that even a boy who was known to be gay ("confirmed") could be a member without issue unless/until he engaged in sex acts with members of the troop. Frankly, regardless of national policy, that's pretty much the way 99.99% of troops have handled gay kids for the past 20 yrs, anyway. Your boy in question doesn't know that, so he thinks gay kids have always been outright barred regardless of whether or not they're acting inappropriately. The boy should also be made to understand that only recently have the vast majority of troops been chartered to churches. Before 2002, schools, police- and fire departments, military bases, juvenile detention centers, and even the Department of Housing and Urban Development chartered troops, but in 1998 the ACLU sued Chicago Public Schools, Housing and Urban Dev., and the military because when a gov't employee/agency required a boy to say the Scout Oath, he was forcing the boy to do his "duty to God" and that amounted to a breach of the first amendment. HUD, the military, and Chicago Schools all settled, the military holding out til 2002. At that point, rather than screw around with it anymore, BSA simply stopped issuing charters to gov't institutions, and those units were forced to move to churches, "Friends of XXXX" LLCs, civic institutions like Rotary Club or Moose Lodge, or even private businesses. Units currently meeting in schools are not chartered to those schools, they have a CO with no space, and a school that's willing to let them use its space. What this has amounted to is a drastic change in the demographics of BSA, to an institution cornered into churches, and no wonder more socially conservative than it used to be. It's easy for a 17-yr-old to misunderstand BSA as a religious institution; BSA was pigeonholed into churches before he ever entered Scouting.

What, are you planning on telling them they're not allowed to date? Common sense: No PDA, put their tents far apart. Extra mile: Flour on the ground around their tents

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Well, it all depends on how much it matters to you and how much you want to push it, but when I want to be I'm the kind of guy that it wouldn't go away as easy as ignoring me. Would they try to require an Orthodox Jew to *un*cover his head? King DD: I think to be a modern druid you just earn the Astronomy, Sustainability, Bird Study, Fish and Wildlife Management, Soil and Water Conservation, Mammal Study, Reptile Study, and Beekeeping MBs, plus the Leave no Trace Achievement Award, Paul Bunyan Woodsman award, and Hornaday Award.

"Basement Bob," I presume? Quite the battle you're putting on. Definitely a lot of dumb going on in the comments for that blog. After he decided to turn his scouting manual into a full-blown program for boys, Baden-Powell's program had no advancement, and it didn't float. When he incorporated Seton's Woodcraft Indians advancement concept, he had what he needed: motivation. Young men can camp, fish, set fires, play Frisbee, build a robot, toast marshmallows, and fool with rope anywhere. They get the ceremony, recognition, belonging/bonding, etc. in Scouts.

"...13-17 is still abuse" Simply put: no. Laws establish only what is legal or not legal. Consensual relationships do not constitute abuse, but they may be illegal. We see the argument that illegality establishes abuse evaporate when we consider that a 20-yr-old can legally engage in sex acts with a 18-yr-old; however, make that 20-yr-old a teacher, and the 18-yr-old a student, and now the same behavior is illegal (even if the 18-yr-old is not a student of the 20-yr-old). Free consent (not made under duress, manipulation, etc) establishes whether abuse has occurred. As a society, we have decided that we don't want people under the age of 18 to be able to give legal consent to sex acts to people over the age of 18, but that does not change the biological desires of minors or of adults, it can only influence their behavior. But 30 yrs ago in the US, that age was 16, and 50 years ago that age was 13; indeed, in many parts of the world, the age of consent is still 12, or they don't even legislate the issue. "...have a cite?" I assure you, I'm not the one to be cheeky with on this front. Pedophilia is a specific medical term with a specific definition. It means a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. We generally peg puberty to 13. You are free to borrow or buy a copy of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) if you want to check up on that, or pop over to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia While I'm humoring your citations request, as noted, we "generally" peg puberty to 13, but as I said, "in increasing numbers" boys are entering puberty as young as 10, which you can read (or listen) all about here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/12/24/167735056/like-girls-boys-are-entering-puberty-earlier You may read the book I referenced for free here: http://books.google.com/books?id=buDwPEe95OIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false But a digital copy is cheap if you want to be able to read all of Ch 13. Might I also suggest "Gay Man's Worst Friend" for a prominent gay publisher's explanation of how it is that you don't know about the intrinsic tilt of homosexuals toward youth despite the wealth of historic and contemporary evidence. You can read about the classical Greek ideal of adult-youth gay sex as the height--the most superior--of love in Plato's "Symposium" which has inspired and influenced homosexuals for centuries.

In point of fact, consensual sex acts between males after age 13 is not "pedophilia" it is homosexuality. Pedophilia ends where puberty begins, and in increasing numbers that is as young as 10. Gay adult-teen sex is a cornerstone of gay culture from Plato to Wilde to "Queer as Folk" and only idealists have the capacity for the blissful ignorance or willful blindness necessary to paper over this simple fact. You can read all about it in the gay history "Toward Stonewall", Chapters 12 and 13. Keep your barfbag handy.

We stopped giving out service stars because no one put them on their shirts, so it was money down the drain. I buy my own. We buy 1 name tag once the person has been in the unit for a year, after that it's out of their pocket.

It's my experience that the boy solves the problem for you when he quits because either (a) he hates mama and daddy henpecking him over advancement or (b) he agrees with mommy and daddy.

There's a SM from another troop who comes to RT every-once-in-a-while who has a stack 2-inches deep of activity patches hanging off his right pocket button; it takes every ounce of my self control not to cut the button off. Square knots don't bother me, if they earned it there's no reason they shouldn't wear it. BSA has adult awards to motivate and recognize volunteers, and in many cases to ensure adherence to policy; people that sneer at them have a problem. That said, BSA recommends no more than 9 in 3 rows; pick your favorites if you have more. (I only have 2 myself, AoL and Leaders Training Award) If it really bothers you, the furthest I go is to compliment their accomplishment and follow it with a friendly "it would look nicer if you wore it [wherever it's supposed to go.]" But I wouldn't do that with a stranger.

Nobody likes camp food. If I get sent out of camp on an errand, yeah, I do it at lunch or dinner time and stop at McDonald's (which is ironic, but I digress). But I would never walk into camp with my own special food in front of everyone else who is suffering through it; it's rude. What I would suggest, since this all stems really from the food avoidance rather than any desire to leave expressly to get a drink, is that you talk to the boys and adults about maybe cooking your own suppers in your site, like summer camps used to do and the way they do at jamboree. You can all certainly cook better cheeseburgers, grilled chicken, etc than the crap they churn out from the D hall. Maybe sweeten the deal by offering to do the cooking yourself. But to me, it's the height of rudeness to bring your own meals to camp absent an allergy. People do what they want to do.

Hah. Definitely came off as more of a troll than I intended, not used to forums where I can't edit

Nobody likes camp food. If I get sent out of camp on an errand, yeah, I do it at lunch or dinner time and stop at McDonald's (which is ironic, but I digress). But I would never walk into camp with my own special food in front of everyone else who is suffering through it; it's rude. What I would suggest, since this all stems really from the food avoidance rather than any desire to leave expressly to get a drink, is that you talk to the boys and adults about maybe cooking your own suppers in your site, like summer camps used to do and the way they do at jamboree. You can all certainly cook better cheeseburgers, grilled chicken, etc than the crap they churn out from the D hall. Maybe sweeten the deal by offering to do the cooking yourself. But to me, it's the height of rudeness to bring your own meals to camp absent an allergy. No, I got it: You're a picky eater and your body has conditioned itself to that. Believe you me, I crap my brains out at camp, sometimes for the first couple days, sometimes the whole week. That does not entitle me to special meals when odds are many of the boys are also suffering, and I know most of the adults are. I pack my own toilet paper of preference and Cottonelle wipes, and a box of Imodium. Do what you want to do, but it's not a matter of you living or dying, and you're just going to raise the ire of people around you. I would definitely advise against any drinking while you're already annoying everyone around you. As for the so-called Paleo diet fad, if you want to get serious about it, might I suggest an authentic primal diet based upon the native americans observed by the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca who was marooned among them for a year or two: "From October to the end of February every year, which is the season these Indians live on the island, they subsist on the roots I have mentioned. Only [in November and December] do they take fish in their cane weirs. When the fish is consumed, the roots furnish one staple. At the end of February the islanders go into other parts to seek sustenance, for then the root is beginning to grow and is inedible. . . Three months out of every year they eat nothing but oysters and drink very bad water. . . Many a time I would go three days without eating, as would the natives."

As it happens, 63% of Americans are obese, and as such I believe that we should remove "physical strong" from the oath, and make Personal Fitness, Cycling, Hiking, and Swimming merit badges optional rather than Eagle-required.

The first year that my dad went to camp with me, about Wednesday he grabbed me and we stole into town for supper. He never drank except a beer at a baseball game or maybe with pizza (I'm talking 5 beers in 20 years) but if he'd had one with dinner I don't think it would've been a big deal, nor would I have a problem with another adult doing so now that I'm an adult. The problem would be if they had more than one and/or came back still buzzed and/or smelling, or talking it up. The problem with people that drink with any regularity is that they can't keep their mouths shut about it--protip: No one cares about what you're drinking, bro. Smoking is comparable here. The camp we attend allows smoking in one spot, and one spot only, far away from everyone's eyes and noses. It is simply not a moral issue for an adult to have a drink. I don't, but it's not illegal and it doesn't set a bad example in my opinion, until you start yammering on about it like some frat boy or connoisseur. That said, this I have an issue with: Nobody likes camp food. If I get sent out of camp on an errand, yeah, I do it at lunch or dinner time and stop at McDonald's (which is ironic, but I digress). But I would never walk into camp with my own special food in front of everyone else who is suffering through it; it's rude. What I would suggest, since this all stems really from the food avoidance rather than any desire to leave expressly to get a drink, is that you talk to the boys and adults about maybe cooking your own suppers in your site, like summer camps used to do and the way they do at jamboree. You can all certainly cook better cheeseburgers, grilled chicken, etc than the crap they churn out from the D hall. Maybe sweeten the deal by offering to do the cooking yourself. But to me, it's the height of rudeness to bring your own meals to camp absent an allergy.

I don't have any intrinsic problem with the James West, I'd love to earn one one day myself, I did think it looks odd on the kid in that photo.

Let us know how many more of your Scouts start smoking pot on your trips after you hand this boy his reward for doing the same.

Rate of growth doesn't say anything either. BPSA will have a higher rate of growth for decades (if they're not sued out of business) until they saturate, at which point, just like BSA, they will stay even or drop off.

False. http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2012/03/08/can-packs-troops-teams-or-crews-participate-in-political-rallies/ They may wear the uniform to perform a flag ceremony, but they must immediately leave, or change out of uniform.

Prediction? I won't be surprised either way, really. If you put a gun against my head I'd say they'll allow gay kids. Plans? If no, I plan to get angry at every loudmouth that sounds off for the next 2 weeks until some Senator farts and distracts the 24-hour news cycle. If yes, meh. I knew of a few gay kids in our troop when I was a scout myself, and I've been aware of a couple as an adult. The difference now is that kids are pushed to come out as soon as, if not before, they've got their first pube, so it's a different dynamic: It's one thing to have a "funny" kid in the troop, it will be another thing to have an honest-to-God gay kid in the troop. Every normal molehill slight will be made a bigotry mountain, every funny look will be sexual harassment. For every kid that doesn't give a rip, there'll be at least one parent with grave concerns. So, it'll just be learning to deal with the new tension. Media will be a nightmare either way. First 15-yr-old that gets screwed by a 19-yr-old will be called a victim of "pedophilia" which is a joke. Or, worse, the victims will simply be ignored from now on, since they were never more to the media than a tool in the first place. A yes vote won't satisfy any of the weirdos and their "allies" since it won't allow adults, so we'll have another round of Kick the BSA. And in a year all we're going to get is a crusade over atheists with lots of "we won on gays" smearing in our faces. Maybe I'll add "invest in Valium" to my plans.

Well said.