Connecticut Council not enforcing gay ban

[trailwalker 10]

It seems one of Connecticut's Councils is not enforcing the gay ban.

 

http://www.ct.com/news/advocates/latest-news/nm-ht34ncboyscouts-20120814,0,5314304,full.story

[Mr. Boyce 13]

This will end in biting them in the but. Good luck in Connecticut!

[howarthe 42]

"The Connecticut Rivers Council isnt the only Boy Scout group that appears to be ignoring the national BSA mandate.

 

"Out in Minnesota, some conservative Roman Catholic leaders were stunned when their local scouting council recently declared it would continue its policy of admitting openly homosexual individuals. Scouting officials in New York City and Boston say they have routinely sidestepped the BSAs national anti-gay standard.

 

"David Knapp, a gay scouting activist whos been lobbying for years to change the BSAs discriminatory policy, says the majority of councils in New England have not enforced the policy.

 

[Basementdweller 608]

So who is going to blink first?

 

National

 

or

 

Local Councils

[frankpalazzi 62]

Seems to me it's all about the money.

[moosetracker 132]

All these rebel councils should find a way to link together for a united front.

[frankpalazzi 62]

"Way," "united,"....GOTCHA!

[NJCubScouter 1389]

Ah, the old comma in the link trick. You have to cut and paste the entire link to get to the article...

 

...which turns out to be yet another confusing and non-informative article about a council that has some sort of policy or practice that sounds like it might possibly conflict in some way with National's policy. Or it might not. Let's see what we have this time. First we have a quote from the "head" of the council (I thought at first they meant the SE, but later in the article a different guy is identified as the SE, so who is this guy? The council president?) in which he says there are gay leaders in the council. Well, demographically speaking, chances are he's correct. But are they "avowedly" or "openly" gay? That's what the National policy is about. So we don't really know what the council is doing about "openly gay" leaders, if anything, that is different from what National wants them to do. Then later we have a quote from the council's new SE, who does an acrobatic routine around the whole issue that would have earned him at least a silver in London, but does little to shed light on what this council may be doing that is out of step with National. None of the rest of the quotes are from anyone in any leadership position in the council, as far as I can tell.

 

So what have we learned? Mainly that, once again, a lot of people are engaging in "wishful thinking" on this subject, in my opinion. The idea that there are councils in open rebellion against the policy sounds like something some of us might want to hear, and even has kind of a patriotic, Washington-crossing-the-Delaware sound to it, and I think it is fairly clear that at least some of these councils would like to do something different from what National is doing, but I really don't see enough evidence that they actually do.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

[Hal_Crawford 15]

The guy referred to as the "head" of the Connecticut Rivers council is Steven Smith and he is the SE. The other gentleman is Dustin Shaver who is the SE of the neighboring Connecticut Yankee Council.

[NJCubScouter 1389]

Thanks Hal, I missed that they are from different councils.

 

Doesn't change my main point though.

[Oak Tree 15]

Here's a link without a comma in it: http://tinyurl.com/ctx535j

 

This is pretty open rebellion...they are signing the anti-discrimination statement. National would not let the Cradle of Liberty Council take that stance just a few years ago.

 

Either something is going to give, or else we're going to have a de facto local option, at least by council.