{"id":3210,"date":"2013-02-01T23:19:28","date_gmt":"2013-02-02T04:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/?p=3210"},"modified":"2013-02-01T23:19:28","modified_gmt":"2013-02-02T04:19:28","slug":"scouts-should-include-gays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/?p=3210","title":{"rendered":"Scouts Should Include Gays"},"content":{"rendered":"

My brother asked me what I thought about the recent rumblings<\/a> from the BSA<\/a>. Even with my involvement in Scouting for now, I really hadn’t thought much about it. When I did, it seemed obvious that it’s the right thing to do and there wasn’t much more to it.<\/p>\n

Then I figured, eh, why not write something up and put it here for all to see. To quickly summarize, I think the reasons to exclude gays are thin, and the reason for inclusion have mostly upside.<\/p>\n

To start, one of the core values for Cub Scouts is respect, which has as one of its meanings<\/a> “deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy; acknowledgment.” For that matter, the BSA’s own site reads<\/a> “showing regard for the worth of something or someone.” It’s hard to square this core value with the current policy.<\/p>\n

Shifting gears a bit, the fear that’s brought up by defenders of the status quo is the possibility of pedophilia and child molestation. But studies and time have revealed that both are a separate and unrelated thing from homosexuality. Thus, this reason has faded to the point of oblivion- if the fear still exists, it exists out of ignorance. <\/p>\n

If looking for arguments for<\/em> the change, I’d say look no further than a story like this<\/a>. A Boy Scout, denied the rank of Eagle he had earned for the sole reason that he was gay, received his Eagle pin from another Eagle Scout who came out as gay when he heard of the boy’s plight. Now, some might miss the forest for the trees and focus on the “dishonesty” of the older Scout never having revealed he was gay and earning something he “didn’t deserve.”<\/p>\n

And that would be a great shame. The fact is these two men had done everything required of them by Scouting to attain that rank. That means they had proven themselves “morally straight.” Are we really supposed to believe that by announcing a truth about themselves, they suddenly were not? By what reasoning could that possibly be true?<\/p>\n

I’d say there are also pragmatic reasons. There are areas of the country where the current policy likely works to depress membership. I had one parent explain to me that she almost kept her son out of Cub Scouts because of disagreement with the policy. Ultimately, she stuck with it because of her son’s friendships within the Pack and that it didn’t make sense to punish him for something he knew nothing about. If she was thinking like that, how many other parents use similar lines of thought and keep prevent their sons from getting involved? The Constitution certainly protects the rights of the BSA to run the organization as they see fit, but they can’t protect it from the consequences of those decisions.<\/p>\n

Another pragmatic aspect to consider is one of leadership. In this area, Scouting hangs on by the skin of its teeth. Part of the reason is it takes a lot of effort and time to organize all the different activities and meetings involved. The idea of casting good people away simply because of sexual orientation seems like a bad way to address that problem. While I know Scouting is robust in other areas of the country, I’m sure there are other locations where it’s similar to here. The bottom line here is that help is needed and tossing it aside because of sexuality is self-defeating.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is Scouting is a worthwhile endeavor for young boys. It promotes all of the sorts of qualities that we might want in our kids: resourcefulness, independence, grace under fire and a willingness to lead and be responsible. There is no reason those qualities can’t apply to gay Scouts and there is no reason gay men can’t help to foster those qualities in Scouts they lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My brother asked me what I thought about the recent rumblings from the BSA. Even with my involvement in Scouting for now, I really hadn’t thought much about it. When I did, it seemed obvious that it’s the right thing to do and there wasn’t much more to it. Then I figured, eh, why not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}