Boy Scouts still discriminate against lgbt -- petition

[Panich52]

I joined the Boy Scouts of America eight years ago, when I was just 7 years old. Being a Boy Scout made me feel like I was part of something special, and I especially loved doing Scout activities with my moms, Adella and Barb. They work really hard and don’t get much time off, so Scouting provided a great chance for us to spend time together as a family.

But I was shocked a few weeks ago when my troop leaders told my mom Adella that she's not allowed to participate in Boy Scout activities anymore, just because she's gay.

My moms are amazing parents, and it makes me so angry that anyone would say we're not as good as other families. My moms told me I could stay in Boy Scouts even though they weren’t welcome anymore, but no way was I doing that. To me, being a Boy Scout means being a good and honorable person, and that means standing up for my family.

My mom started a petition on Change.org telling the Boy Scouts to end its ban on gay adults like her and Barb. I'm really proud of my mom for fighting back – will you click here to sign her petition?

It makes me really sad when I think about how many kids are affected by this ban on gay parents like my moms. My little brother is only 4 years old, and he's always loved seeing me in my Scout uniform. I want kids like him to be able to join Scouts and feel proud of their families. The Boy Scouts shouldn't tell kids like my brother and me that our parents are "different" or "abnormal" just because they're gay. I think that's really wrong.

The good news is that the BSA is absolutely susceptible to public pressure on this issue. In 2001, the BSA went all the way to the Supreme Court to defend its right to exclude gay Scouts, but in 2013 the BSA voted to include gay Scouts after more than one million people signed petitions asking them to do so on Change.org.

My moms devoted so much time to me and to the Scouts, getting up early in the dark and cold to help me get the most out of a group that meant so much to me. Please help me fight back to help them, and moms and dads like them all across America.

Thank you for standing up for families like mine.

Nick Zamora, age 15
Converse, Texas

Petition:
https://www.change.org/p/wayne-brock-reject-the-boy-scouts-of-america-s-anti-gay-policy-on-adults

[DirkGently]

1. Time for the Boy Scouts to just go away.

I don't think there's any way to turn the BSA into a reasonable, fair-minded organization. It was founded by an admirer of fascists -- check the uniforms and is through-and-through with religious nonsense and ancient conservative views.

No reason we can't have an organization for kids to go camping and learn crafts without dressing them up like brownshirts and making them drone oaths about a hypocritical morality that never made sense in the first place.

ALLSCOUTS OF AMERICA?

[d_r]

3. Go make one

Until then, BSA is an organization that does a lot for youth. BSA serves a lot of children in poor urban and rural communities giving them constructive things to do with their time. It was difficult to make the change in membership policy that was made a couple of years ago. I pushed for it, but our society has a lot of people who have different world views. Some people think it was the best thing ever, some people think it was the worst thing ever. But what they have in common is that they all wanted what they thought was best for kids. I don't agree with what some people thought was best for kids, and they don't agree with what I thought was best for kids, but that was the common ground between the two sides and why some of the people who disagreed have remained and moved on and hopefully grown in their views. It was time for that change, and it should be time for further change, but we have lost over 20% of our members after the membership change. Children, parents volunteers, people making financial donations. Think about that, think about any organization losing 20% of its members. That hurtle is over and it is time to work on the next one. BSA will make it through that membership bump and will be better placed to take on the next challenge.

If you want to do something to make the world better and to help kids go do it instead of sniping and complaining about other people trying to. Make your spaghetti monster patrol and have at it. Or get involved with what we have and get to know people and talk to them and be supportive and move towards change. You don't change things by complaining from the outside.

[DirkGently]

4. Well, yes, you do change bad things from the outside.

... especially when the organization in question is beyond repair. You don't have to join the Catholic Church to call for reform of the Catholic Church, nor do you have to invent an instant replacement before pointing out something that is simply a bad idea.

The Boy Scouts was founded by an admirer of Benito Mussolini and Hitler's Mein Kampf, who wanted to protect young men from the frightening specter of communism. He created a rigid, paramilitary organization with uniforms modeled on the brownshirts, shot through with militaristic symbolism and religion, and its sad history of sheltering sex abusers and (ironically) rabid homophobia are not accidental. The time for the Boy Scouts has passed.

No one needs all that baggage simply to go camping.

Tim Jeal, who wrote the biography Baden-Powell, argued that Baden-Powell's distrust of communism led to his implicit support, through naïveté, of fascism. Baden-Powell admired Benito Mussolini early in the Italian fascist leader's career. In 1939 Baden-Powell noted in his diary: "Lay up all day. Read Mein Kampf. A wonderful book, with good ideas on education, health, propaganda, organisation etc. – and ideals which Hitler does not practise himself."[9]:5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Baden-Powell,_1st_Baron_Baden-Powell

I appreciate that plenty of people in scouting are trying to make the best of it, and others have gotten something out of it. But the BSA simply doesn't have anything special going for it to require we keep it around. The traditional trappings like the oath and the uniforms come from a bad place, and I look forward to the continuing demise of the "Boy Scouts" and its replacement by any number of better-considered organizations.

Edit: I DO like the idea of the Flying Spaghetti Scouts though. Could be the perfect antidote.

[d_r]

12. Patrol.

Flying Spaghetti Patrol. I just think it sounds better.

[MineralMan]

10. People from outside can, indeed, create changes in organizations.

And they should, when organizations discriminate as the BSA does. As for myself, I stopped supporting the BSA years ago, and donate to no organization that does support the BSA. I have also worked to end all government subsidies of the BSA. You say the BSA works for what is "best for kids." I disagree. By continuing to discriminate, it does just the opposite of that.

Rejecting the parents of a Scout, based on those parents' sexual orientation is vicious and ugly. I can't support an organization that does that in any way whatsoever. When they fix their discriminatory policies, then I'll revisit my decision. But they must fix them all, including their discrimination against atheists.

[d_r]

11. No I didn't say that

I said people who volunteer for the BSA want what they think is "best for kids" and they may not agree with me about what that is, and they may be wrong.

I am glad you are working so hard to bring about those changes that you demand.

[sharp_stick]

2. My sons Boy Scout Pack

has a member with two moms and one of them is a Den leader.

It might be because I don't live in a conservative infested shithole like Converse Texas.

[DirkGently]

5. The membership policy bans gay leaders though, right?

I am all for people subverting oppressively conservative organizations from the inside -- that is most certainly one way to improve them.

But I'd also like to see more alternatives that aren't built on the pretty much openly fascist foundation envisioned by Baden-Powell, a British Imperialist who loved what Mussolini was doing.

The Walt Disney Company has given notice to the Boy Scouts of America that it will pull all funding to the group starting in 2015 because of a BSA membership policy that bans gay leaders, the entertainment company said Friday.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/28/us/disney-pulls-boy-scouts-funding/

And of course the Girl Scouts have no such hang-ups. And sell awesome cookies.

Girl Scouts: The Girl Scouts of the USA’s LGBT-inclusive policies have drawn the ire of right-wing groups. “Girl Scouts of the USA and its local councils and troops value diversity and inclusiveness and do not discriminate or recruit on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, national origin, or physical or developmental disability,” reads a statement on the organization’s blog.

http://www.advocate.com/youth/2012/12/19/3-big-differences-boy-scouts-versus-girl-scouts

[Gothmog]

7. I am not active now but I used to work from within to change BSA policies

My troop basically ignored the BSA policy here and worked towards changing the policy. Our troop chairman has a LGBT son (who is an Eagle Scout) and he was active in raising this issue.

[Gothmog]

8. It is the call of the chartered organization

The Cub Scout Pack may be chartered by an organization that does not care. My temple's pack and troop ignored the BSA rules here. Basically, the only way that this would be an issue would be if a leader participated in gay pride event wearing their uniform (which is what Dale did in the SCOTUS case mentioned above).

[sharp_stick]

9. Thanks I didn't know that n/t

[d_r]

13. When they changed the membership policy

the original proposal for a change was to allow all local groups to make membership decisions. But there was the worry that there would be a few groups that would allow Gay boys to join that would be ostracised by groups that didn't. So the proposal became to nationally allow gay boys to members, but it didn't allow for national membership for adult leaders. That passed the majority vote of the membership, and as I said above, some groups then picked up their marbles and left.

It will have to evolve into allowing gay adult members and it will, and this family will be a part of that push.

[Gothmog]

6. Many Chartered organizations ignore that restriction

Scouting organizations are chartered by different groups and these groups are in effect the owner of the assets of the troop. Some chartering organizations are very tolerant towards LGBT rights. I have been active in scouting for a long time and my son was my Temple's troop first Eagle Scout. Over the years, there has been an understanding in our council (which is one of the largest councils) that BSA will not attempt to enforce any restriction on LGBT scouts and leaders and we will not go after the Council's United Way funding. My troop's old district (it has been divided into two districts now) used to have five or six leaders everyone knew were LGBT and noone cared. A couple of these leaders were at my training sessions for scoutmaster fundamentals a long time ago.

A large number of leaders have been working towards to LGBT rights for a long time and the relaxation of the policy on LGBT scouts was a start. When I first go involved, the BSA prohibited gay scouts. My temple basically ignored this rule or more appropriatedly, we never asked or inquired about the sexuality of any scout or leader. As noted above, there are a number of strong district leaders who are LGBT but no one cares.

See if you can find a troop charted by a different organization that is more tolerant.