This week, the Boy Scouts of America announced that a secret committee had met and agreed that the BSA’s anti-gay policies, which most recently have barred lesbian den mother Jennifer Tyrrell and forced a 19 year-old Eagle Scout to leave his position as a camp counselor after he came out, will not be changed. But there’s this:
Earlier today Change.org made an announcement that Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T and an executive board member of the Boy Scouts of America would be joining fellow Board member James Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young to help change the current Boy Scouts of America policy that bans gay scouts and leaders.
Stephenson will take over as chairman of the board in 2014. Then there’s this:
This January, Major League Soccer announced it was teaming up with the Boy Scouts of America to form a strategic partnership. It turns out that 2012 will be the only season this alliance will be in effect.
MLS didn’t say that the BSA’s anti-gay policy was the reason, but they support a number of gay outreach programs and they announced right after the BSA’s announcement, so you connect the dots.
The BSA board members behind this vote have to know that unless the BSA changes their policy soon, there’s no way that the CEOs of companies like AT&T or Ernst & Young will get near their organization, and no major sport or community organizations, other than some churches, will partner with them. Yet, they decided to double down on discrimination. That’s a hell of a commitment to policy that will take them out of the mainstream (where the Girl Scouts and Boys and Girls Clubs reside) and put them on the fringe. I wonder who’s behind this Komen-like behavior on the board, and when they’ll finally cave.
Hunter
If you wonder who’s behind the doubling down, just remember that the two largest sponsors of Boy Scout troops are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Roman Catholic Church.
‘Nuff said?
Hawes
When my eldest moved from Cubs to Boy Scouts this spring the first thing I had to read was a small book on sexual abuse. I didn’t know quite what to make of it, but clearly the organization is freaked the hell out by sexual abuse of their charges.
The problem is, there is a presumption that gay men just “can’t control themselves”. Somewhere in there is some serious projecting going on.
Until that false stereotype can be dispelled, it will be tough to move the issue.
Argon
You know you’ve come a long way when they hate you less than atheists and agnostics (another group of people that the global Scouting movement accepts but the BSA doesn’t).
Pen
The scouts ceased to be an organization promoting scouting a long time ago. The fact that they willingly kick out atheist and gay children puts them squarely in line with hate-group organizations like “Focus On The Family”. They’ll keep with their current policies for precisely as long as those morals dominate their controlling organizations.
Now let me ask: How soon do you think it will be until the Mormon and Catholic hierarchy change their ways and begin to support gay people?
Don K
@Hunter:
I didn’t know about the Catholic church, but I did know about the LDS church. Back in my working days I had occasion to be part of the interview process for my company among newly-minted MBAs. Every single BYU grad mentioned on his resume that he was an Eagle Scout (in addition to the mission to someplace).
So yeah, I’m guessing the BSA will be more than willing to lose a few national board members in order to protect their quasi-religious institution.
JoyfulA
The City of Philadelphia threw the Boy Scouts out of a city-owned building, after much reluctance on the city’s part and many attempts by the local BSA council to distinguish itself from the national BSA. The city has antidiscrimination laws barring it from, among other things, leasing a million-dollar building for $1/year.
And don’t forget the Boy Scouts have religious restrictions, too.
The local BSA council headquarters is not far from me. Maybe I’ll picket the place.
tybee
@Pen:
“How soon do you think it will be until the Mormon and Catholic hierarchy change their ways and begin to support gay people?”
when you can ice skate in hell.
Todd
As a former Boy Scout, I can say that I’ve long reached the conclusion that the BSA is a useless organization when we’re talking about kids beyond the age of 12. The program never seems age appropriately as the adolescents advance in age – it stagnates.
For instance, all too many Eagle projects involve single expensive and elaborate hiking trail enhancements (I walked across 4 of them yesterday trying to get my fat ass in shape), none of which are of real value to the community at large. Of course, the approvers are of one dim mindset, so who could expect different?
To top it off, they support their district activity with bullshit fundraising (think popcorn sales) which means that the local execs are impoverished losers.
I have a vivid memory of being 12, and sitting at a table at summer camp with one of the district execs. He had on a shirt with a bunch of patches and badges, greasy hair and was eating one of the sandwiches we were having for lunch. The bologna on the sandwich was a little green (I thought it was disgusting), and he was eating it with delight and proclaiming it good.
TheMightyTrowel
@Todd: The one eagle scout in the family painted the bleachers at his high school as part of his project. I never really figured out why. He also planned to go into the priesthood (RCC) until he went out of state to university and discovered women and booze (in that order).
jdrs0819
@Todd: I’m an Eagle Scout, and I didn’t think it stagnated, per se. Not with my troop anyway. I always enjoyed camping and stuff; and we did a variety of different outings. One was a “catapulteree,” where we built a catapult using only knots, and had to launch a softball a certain distance. Or the Klondike derby, building a dogsled out of just knots, and then dragged it around (the first one we made one without wheels, too). Or the black plastic camp out, where we could only make shelter out of black plastic. However, some of us formed our own Venturing Crew, which is co-ed and you can do until you’re older than 18. It didn’t pick up enough members and eventually died off, but it is a nice alternative.
My Eagle Scout project was a toy drive for homeless children. I agree that most Eagle Scout projects are useless, so I tried something different. Got over 200 toys and gave them out to the local homeless children for Christmas. Had a lot left over, so I shipped them down to New Orleans (this was all in 2005, the year of Katrina).
Tokyokie
Way back when I was a Boy Scout, I hadn’t yet developed the gaydar sense that I have now, but looking back on that time, I’ve realized that one of our troop’s assistant scoutmasters was, in all likelihood, gay. But so what? The guy truly loved the Scouting movement, and wanted to be involved with it, and it seemed to be his main activity away from the office. None of the kids really much liked him because he was so by-the-book and would ride you about not wearing your Boy Scout uniform on overnight campouts and that sort of thing and took all the fun out of Scouting. If I or any of my fellow Scouts ever felt uncomfortable being around him, it was because you never knew when he might give you a demerit for hanging your hat from your belt at the wrong angle or some such, not because we feared that he might make a pass at us. It just wasn’t an issue. If BSA would actually make the effort to communicate with gays rather than shun them, they might figure out that gay and pederast are not synonyms.
My troop was sponsored by a PTA group rather than a church, which might have been why this middle-aged bachelor assistant scoutmaster with no kids (much less ones in the troop) was tolerated.
Amanda in the South Bay
In the small town I grew up in, there were several troops, but only one actual Mormon one, IIRC. It was always an eye opener going to things like summer camp and camporee, where you could definitely see the influence of the Mormons.
jdrs0819
Also, I don’t know of others’ experiences, but Boy Scouts only fueled my hatred for the church and religion in general. Most kids hate going to church, and sometimes our one leader would force us to go to the Sunday-held service at the camps. It’s like, gee, finally we’re somewhere where my parents aren’t so I don’t have to be forced to go, and here you are saying I need to go. Plus, my one friend Ben would always be forced to go to church when we came back from camping on Sunday. It only added more to his hatred of going to church. Although, again, I think my troop was different than a lot of the others. We definitely knew our shit — always won the competitions at camporees — but we also were always the ones getting in trouble for shenanigans.
Pen
@Tokyokie: Their philosophy teaches that being gay makes a person an abomination, an affront to their dear and fluffy lord. The knowledge that gay people aren’t, as a rule, pedophiles would do precisely zip to change their perception.
Xenos
@JoyfulA:
One of the Bush administration defense laws makes this illegal. This is, of course, constitutionally unchallenged, so far.
MattF
@Tokyokie: Wouldn’t be the first organization that’s in denial about gay membership, needless to say. Pity we all have to plod through Acts I, II, III, and IV before getting to the inevitable finale. Just hope it turns out to be a comedy rather than a tragedy.
Tokyokie
@Pen: Oh, I realize that. That’s the main reason I don’t support BSA, nor organizations such as United Way that funnel money to them. As much as I thought our probably gay assistant scoutmaster was a pain in the butt, I admired his enthusiasm for the organization and can’t imagine the troop without him. Nor can I imagine why BSA would summarily reject people like him, but then, I don’t get the Log Cabin Republicans, either.
Pen
@Tokyokie: Maybe they go to the meetings for the free coffee? I don’t get it either, unless they’ve got a particularly compartmentalized mind and their “I got mine, fuck you” section overrides their “they hate me for being me” section…. not sure.
Tokyokie
@MattF: It’s been well over 40 years since I was in Scouts, so the assistant scoutmaster in question, if he’s still living, would be in his mid-80s at the youngest by now. I assume that a few years after I left the troop he eventually decided he was too old for that sort of thing any longer and retired without incident.
Tokyokie
@Pen: Yeah, even if you agree with them on all the issues other than the “they want me dead” part, the “they want me dead” part, if brought into effect, pretty much would preclude enjoying the benefits of the rest of the platform.
Brachiator
@Hawes:
It’s funny that the Boy Scouts have been shaken by their own sexual abuse and cover up scandals. And not too long ago, Rachel Maddow did a segment on a wingnut millionaire who tried to smear a reporter who was investigating the scout coverups.
This anti-gay crap seems like both hysterically misguided and a vile attempt at misdirection.
Wag
I loved cub scouts when I was a kid but only lasted a couple of years in the boy scouts. Initially it was cool, lots of great camping trips, including a winter camporee where we all earned polar bear badges by sleeping out in minus15 degree weather. Very cool, and really fueled my ongoing love of the outdoors and camping in general.
Then we got a new scout master who was into a masochistic bullying type of scoutIng where he encouraged the bigger faster kids to beat (yes, beat) the smaller slower kids ( read me and my friend). I lasted a week with him. This being rural Colorado, the next closest troop was 15 miles away, so I dropped out.
Todd
@TheMightyTrowel:
Simple. The Eagle Project is all too often about the stuff that the kid knows or does already, so too many involve hiking, their school, their church or their little league fields.
Those of us who discovered girls, cars and beer early skipped on the whole Eagle experience. Didn’t seem worth it.
@jdrs0819:
A couple of observations – for the kid that loves camping and backpacking, that’s great, but many more are sort of in the “meh” category on that (particularly socially popular or sexually active middle teens). Leadership functions and other bits of positve personal development are learned only by osmosis, if at all, in that environment. There doesn’t seem to be any personal development encouraged outside of the rote learning of merit badges, and there are distinct echoes of Baden-Powell (with concomitant pre-Great War philosophies) that are still evident.
And good for you on the Eagle project. You went outside the box.
DFS
I wonder who’s behind this Komen-like behavior on the board, and when they’ll finally cave.
I forget what exact percentage of the organization’s dues flow in from Mormon-chartered troops, but it’s a big one. The LDS church runs Scouting as surely as it does, say, the Utah legislature. At this point nothing will change short of the BSA blowing up and starting over.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
There are other options getting recognition is such liberal places as Cincinnati. The young boy’s quote at the end make it well worth the read.
Rafer Janders
@Hawes:
Not to be confrontational about this, but why are you letting your son join an organization that discriminates? If the Boy Scouts didn’t let in, say, Jewish children, or black kids, would you still allow him to join? If not, then why are you OK with him being a Scout even though you know that they discriminate against gays?
Todd
@Rafer Janders:
Then shut the fuck up, and understand that most people don’t define their lives by how much they support gay guys, nor should they.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Todd:
Wow such a nuanced, lawyerly argument.
Hoodie
Scouting has become an anachronism, its stance on sexual preference being only one example. My sons did scouts for a while, and we actually have a fairly liberal troop, but they just got bored with it because the leadership and routine is ossified. I think it’s an adverse selection problem not unlike the catholic vocations. Back in the day when every catholic family gave one kid to the seminary or convent, a lot of relatively normal folks ended up as nuns and parish priests and the Church more reflected its community. A lot of them still had extended family, which provided some grounding. Not so much these days. Now,a lot of priests I meet (my wife is catholic) are a bit disconnected and strange. The nuns are better, but a lot of them are from the third world.
From what I’ve seen of the scouts, there are few younger scout leaders, and the ones that are also tend to be a bit strange,e.g., religious nuts or just plain odd. In contrast to his scouting experience, my oldest did YMCA counselor training for the first time this year and, to his surprise, really liked it.
Walker
I was a member of a scout troop that was really an outdoor adventure club with nominal ties to scouting. Lots if backpacking, white water canoeing, and rock climbing. It was awesome.
Except that we often had to hide our scout affiliation. Wilderness areas often will not give permits to a scout troop. Scouts notoriously destructive and high impact.
I was an assistant scoutmaster to the troop for a while. But when the homosexual purges booted my old scoutmaster in the 90s, I left the organization and never looked back.
Jebediah
@Todd:
My Eagle project was building cold frames in the gardens at the local senior citizen housing complex. Perhaps that is related to me feeling like an old fogie from a fairly young age.
Todd
@Hoodie:
This.
Margarita
@Rafer Janders:
Speaking for myself, it’s a compromise of principles, pure and simple. If it were entirely up to me, I wouldn’t consider it. But it’s also up to another parent and the kid. There is a list of factors in the “pro” column and a list of factors in the “con” column.
Religious and sexual discrimination is a deal-breaker for me, so I will not be a member or contribute money. It’s a non-issue for the kid, however, because the local organization does not make it an overt issue, and the minute they did, he’d be out.
Raising a kid is full of compromises with the larger crap culture, alas. You figure that out pretty quickly.
brashieel
As someone who did the whole Scouting thing all the way through Eagle, it really bothers me to see the national organization keep doubling down on this bullshit. Scouting does a lot of good for a lot of kids, and could do more if the old men at the top could get over their bullshit hang ups.
That said, I still do some volunteer work for my old troop.
merrinc
@Margarita:
This. I wouldn’t let my son join Cub Scouts due to their discriminatory practices but when he turned 12 and we moved across the state from his dad and neither his dad or stepdad was keen on doing outdoor activities with him, he asked me if he could join Boy Scouts. I figured I had done a good job of ‘indoctrinating’ (joking!) with my liberal values by this point so I let him. Two weeks later, he came back from his first Klondike Derby, completely exhausted, incredibly filthy, and grinning from ear to ear.
He stuck with it 4 more years, though the last year was only with me pushing him. He loved earning merit badges, hiking 15 miles through the wilderness, cold weather camping, endless games of ‘Capture the Flag”, etc. It all started unraveling as he became more aware of their anti-gay policy. His dad’s only brother is gay and he didn’t appreciate being told that his uncle was not a moral person. Then he was inducted into Order of the Arrow (good lord, don’t get me started on the utterly stoopid things they made those boys do) and encountered the not so silent hardcore Christianist element that pervades Boy Scouting troops here in the south. That was the final straw and he gave up wanting to earn his Eagle.
This, and having been very involved in Girl Scouts for nearly 10 years, is what makes me so furious about BSA. It *could* be a great youth organization. But it’s controlled by the LDS, the Catholic Church, and the Southern Baptists.
Mnemosyne
@Rafer Janders:
Ruling by diktat is not the best way to raise open-minded children, especially when we’re talking about children who are 12 and up, which is the age that Boy Scouts are. Voicing your initial disapproval but letting them ultimately find out for themselves that you were right will have a longer-lasting effect than flat-out forbidding them from doing something.
I mean, I have no kids and this seems pretty obvious to me.
Interrobang
Homophobia is male-directed misogyny, so before the Mor(m)ons and the Catholic Church can give up homophobia, they’ll have to work on their misogyny problem, and that’s never going to happen.
Scott
The Boy Scouts are a great outlet for a certain type of boy who doesn’t quite fit in with today’s public high schools. Unfortunately, once again, adults are screwing things up. In the US, the Mormons have an unhealthy and outsized influence on Boy Scouts to the point where Mormon troops are separated from other scouting organizations. Their Scoutmasters have to be approved by the church. They are also known as Eagle factories. Too many adults view the Eagle badge as another resume item so Scouts have a warped view of what Scouting could be. Like everything else in this society, Scouting has been reduced to a material value to be hawked.
BethanyAnne
@Interrobang:
How the hell had I not seen that before? Wow.
I was an Eagle Scout, before I started to transition. Now it doesn’t feel quite right to still claim that. But I adored my time in my troop. I had the best Scoutmaster ever. I wish every kid could get as good a program as he made sure we had.
wrog
Short version: BSA used to be based in New Jersey. Then around 1980, they were forced to sell Schiff Scout Reservation due to rising property taxes, at which point they moved the national headquarters to Texas.
I would submit that the vastly increased wingnut influence since then is not a coincidence.
wait… wheels on a Klondike Derby sled? WTFF?
Suzan
Mormons stopped discriminating against blacks as a result, in part, of its association with the boys scouts. Someone (ACLU?) sued the boy scouts for discrimination against blacks and the day the case was scheduled for court, motions not the trial as I remember, the church announced God said blacks were okay.
The church, as we say in Utah, was also having problems in foreign countries at that period of time. Some countries would not allow them to build temples because of the ban on blacks. That, together with the boy scout issue, convinced God to intervene, and made young Mitt Romney pull his car to the side of the road and cry, for joy he says, when it was announced.
So who knows, the boy scouts may make Mormons change on gays as happened with blacks. Can’t think how that would work with atheists though.
Most boy scout troops in Utah are associated with the church but the church does not sponsor girl scout troops.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“Scouting has become an anachronism, its stance on sexual preference being only one example.”
Scouting isn’t stagnant. BSA is stagnant; the Girls Scouts seem plenty dynamic and in the 21st century rather than regressing to the 19th like BSA.
I wish the Girls Scouts would form a for-boys subsidiary that my son could join. BSA has enough of a presence in my city to both be not worth joining but still drain energy from the alternatives. There’s no 4-H close enough for that to be an alternative.
jonas
As a number of people have already pointed out, BSA is, and has been for generations, basically a community outreach service of the LDS church. Secondly, even if I weren’t creeped out a bit by the heavy-handed Mormon presence, I would be far more concerned about letting my son join an organization that promoted emotionally-stunted closet cases in their ranks rather than healthy, well-adjusted male leaders who were secure in their sexuality — hetero or homo. It’s always the former who you’ve got to keep the kiddos away from. Thankfully, I have daughters who are doing well in Girl Scouts, which promote diversity and have those great cookies to boot.
Rafer Janders
@Todd:
No, I think you’ve defined yourself pretty well.
john b
much like any organization like this, a lot varies from troop to troop.
there was very little in the way of religion in my boy scout troop. and most of what i got out of my involvement was leadership skills. we were very much about letting the kids govern themselves and organize as much of the trips and meetings as they could.
of course, by the time i was finishing up, my first scoutmaster (who had encouraged me as a fairly shy 13 year old to run for senior patrol leader — the kid leader of the troop), quit. he was replaced by a well-meaning, but not very talented leader who just seemed to want to help kids tick boxes in their merit badges and rank advancement and do little else.
anyway. the discrimination issues have always bothered me (even when I was in scouts I was aware of the issues, particularly with atheists as I thought of myself as an agnostic from a pretty young age). But my experience was that the discrimination was not visible in any way locally. Although i’m sure that is not true for every church. And the validation of bigoted views by the national organization probably slows progress at the troop level as well. the whole thing is quite sad.