9 July 2008
Another left-wing attack on Boy Scouts
Posted by admin under: Uncategorized .
The Center for American Progress is a liberal group that I’ve vaguely heard of. They’ve jumped on the bandwagon of similar groups that are trying to kick the Boy Scouts out of their headquarters in Philadelphia in their article “Killing Itself for the Right to Discriminate“. You might completely disagree with the national organization’s stance on not allowing opening gay men to be Boy Scout leaders. I know plenty of people in Boy Scouts who think the organization is dead wrong on this issue. Whether or not you agree with the BSA’s policy is beside the point that the article written deliberately misstates the truth.
First, the author Henry Fernandez states that Boy Scouts are not as welcoming as they once were. That’s not true. They welcome exactly who they always have and more. He also states that the BSA is on a moral crusade. Wrong again. Some individuals and groups have told the BSA to change. They said no. Those individuals and groups have sued the Boy Scouts who have had to defend themselves in court. That’s not a crusade. A crusade is when you launch an attack on someone else in an effort to force them to your way of thinking. Mr. Fernandez has the direction of this crusade backwards.
Mr. Fernandez does correctly note that the BSA has been losing the support of various city and county governments. What he does not discuss is exactly how many of these governments were forced into their positions through lawsuits or negotiated settlements. While he notes that support has been withdrawn he does not support his own argument that the Boy Scouts have been going out and demanding they receive a special status not granted to others. What he notes, although he tries to spin the meaning in the exact opposite direction, is that communities have always held Scouting to be a particularly good thing and have cooperated with the organization accordingly.
The kind of semi-lies expressed by Mr. Hernandez could be illustrated best to him if he was asked that famous question, “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?”. Maybe with the kitchen sink of issues he’s thrown at the Boy Scouts in his article.
Because I know both camps of Scouters, those who believe gays should not be allowed in Scouting and those who believe they should be allowed in Scouting, I’m sure that this free-association of mainly volunteers will decide where the future of the BSA will lead. Being beaten over the head with snide insinuations while the author tries to wear a halo does nothing to positively influence that process.
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3 Comments so far...
Brian Westley Says:
17 July 2008 at 11:05 am.
I’m interested in your statement that “They [the Boy Scouts] welcome exactly who they always have and more.”
Would you say the Boy Scouts welcomed atheists back when public schools were the largest chartering partner of Cub Scout Packs? Or would you say the BSA expected these public schools to break the law and violate the civil rights of their own students by excluding some of them on the basis of their religous views from a youth group “owned and operated” (to use the BSA’s own description) by a public school?
admin Says:
17 July 2008 at 4:34 pm.
I would say people who joined Packs recited the promise and did not object to the word God in it. At a certain point people assumed atheists would not want to join Scouting.
The old Scoutmaster of our troop told me about when a boy in the 70’s wanted to join, but had long hair and he told the boy to cut his hair if he wanted to join. I don’t recall if the boy joined or not, but after a while the Scoutmaster didn’t care. Many boys have joined with long hair and even mohawks. There was a time when minorities were discouraged from joining, but that time passed. I feel confident in my statement that Boy Scouts has become more inclusive over time.
I saw on your website your organization’s contention that Scouting has become less inclusive, but I dont’ agree. I think the lawsuits that have demanded admission to certain troops have caused the national council to be less accepting of regional decision-making. That has caused some areas to close off membership to gays or atheists where some troops may have not cared because they focused on the other aspects of Scouting. Overall, however, the organization has become more inclusive, not less so. According to PBS’ history detectives, Scouting started out as a group that only the well-off were welcomed into and that has certainly changed.
Brian Westley Says:
17 July 2008 at 10:01 pm.
If compared to the very start of the BSA, yes, they’re more inclusive now. But the BSA didn’t have a policy against gays until the 1970s (and it started as a “secret” internal memo, so most people didn’t even know about it — James Dale didn’t know the BSA had a policy against gays until he was thrown out). And when the BSA chartered units to public schools, atheists could not be excluded, because public schools can’t practice religious discrimination.
