wmturner

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will once again say that it is the Chartered Organization who owns the unit. It is their unit, lock, stock, and barrel. It is understandable that some may come to feel a sense of "ownership" in their unit. They are entitled to their feelings, but they are not entitled to any real ownership in the unit. The unit still belongs to the CO.

The CO of every unit I've been associated with has been very arms length.  There was less a feeling of ownership than one of duty, that is, it was a community service to sponsor a scouting unit, so they did.  Outside of monolithic orgs like LDS, I can't see a huge % of CO's making the effort to exclude a gay applicant, and definitely not making the effort to fight a legal battle over it if they get targeted.  Maybe I've just been in the company of apathetic CO's... but that's my experience.

Fred - The Supreme court would have to get a change up to lean very heavily with extreme liberal judges for them to ever come up with a verdict that a religion must stop practicing their religious beliefs and comply with any equal and civil rights that go against their beliefs..

I believe that the connection of "protected" units with "unprotected" units via a common organization (BSA) will be the loophole that the activists use to attack the churches.  Legalities may not matter, though, because few attacked churches are likely to have the money and will to fight, and so will need to solve the problem by acquiescing or asking the unit to leave, and that's what they'll do.  Over time, as openly gay Scouters and staff increase, the culture of BSA will trend leftward toward GSUSA, and the general atmosphere will become untenable for conservative CO's. As they leave, the transformation will complete itself.

The protection to choose for a CO is very narrowly drawn to unit-serving volunteers.  But Scouts interact with many leaders who are either from other units, or who are paid BSA employees (camp staff is the big one).  So the protection is cold comfort unless the unit wants to live in isolation from the rest of Scouting.

I just returned from camp, where the challenges are very clear to me.  Camp staffing, with its zany and dramatic nature, will attract the "out and proud" gang like flies to honey.  Yes that's a stereotype, I believe it's true enough to apply here, and I'll continue to hold it, so thanks in advance to anyone who can avoid criticizing my belief for its own sake.  Anyhow, this stands to revolutionize the atmosphere at an affected summer camp... a revolution that would IMHO accelerate camp attendance declines and property selloffs ala GSUSA.  But maybe that's all in the plan; some of these properties are worth a mint.

With BSA having shown willingness to capitulate as needed, the blood is in the water; and conservative CO's, natural-boy-only units, and the Duty to God will all be shown the door before the process is over.  It's almost indecent for BSA to claim it will continue to have Scouters' backs in those areas, because it won't.  Sometimes life is hard, and your only choices are appeasement until you cease to exist, or saying "no thank you" and either prevailing with pride or going down in a blaze of glory.  We all have our druthers, but I can tell you if they'd chosen the latter path I'd be ready to lie down on the tracks for them.  As of 2013, though, as soon as I knew this would happen, not anymore.