Thursday, September 6, 2012
Scouts of America, no gays?
Today's Dear Prudence letters included one from a young man who said, "The BSA has ruled that open and avowed homosexuals are not permitted in the organization." Umm, what? So, not only is it a religion based organization, but, they don't allow gay people to participate? And some of you thought I should let Lissa join The Scouts. How about NO.
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11 comments:
I thought that rule was recently overturned? Very recently.
actually that rule was upheld very recently, sadly....there are eagle scouts, who aren't even gay, returning their eagle scout badges in protest....
I knew it had something to do with some Eagle Scouts. I must have misunderstood. The churches are involved in the BSA, but our GSA was a school sponsored club. Mormons used to be deep into the Boy Scouts. But not the Girl Scouts. So, we had to join at school. My brothers troop was thru the church. My mother and g'ma were members back in the 60's.
rox
mormons sort took over the scouts i think beginning in the 80s...or the majority of it....there's a penn & teller bullshit episode about that.....also mentions the government contributions to it too if i recall correctly...it's like 29 minutes long....
here's the whole episode......
Sorry, I never liked being a Brownie or a GS; all we did was sell, sell, sell stuff; cookies, calendars, recipe books, you name it! And our Troop Leader was a big, fat, arrogant woman whose daughter was always getting away with everything because she was Miss Troop Leader's little princess. Little Princess grew up to become a slut, got knocked up 3 times and divorced twice. Hahaha
When my son went into Boy Scouts, I had to take him out. The troop leader thought it was a good idea to take the kids on a hay ride while the adults smoked and drank during the ride. Smoking on a trailer full of hay? Drinking in front of six-year-olds on what was supposed to be a fun Halloween outing?? That was it for Boy Scouts.
When my daughter was old enough she wanted to be a Girl Scout, so I signed her up. When I went to pick her up from her first meeting at the troop leaders house, there were four or five girls dancing on her dining room table and the rest of the kids were screaming and reeking havoc through the rest of her house while she sat in a chair with her hands over her ears. That was it for Girl Scouts.
I know it's not always like this and I shouldn't judge just from my experience but my family had really, really bad luck with troop leaders and the whole experience in general. I didn't find anything 'wholesome' about any of it.
i fled my first girl guide session in humuliation after they discovered i didnt know left from right. im dyslexic. all to the great relief of my parents who couldnt afford the uniform. and to be honest i only wanted to join because of the uniform. but last week we watched a really quirky movie about boy scouts that you and lis could enjoy together. its called moonlight kingdom. there are trailers on utube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N8wkVA4_8s
I love this blog and read all the time but never comment, just wanted to chime in here. I am a girl scout leader. Girl scouts and Boy Scouts are 2 completely separate organizations. Girl scouts has never prohibited gays. They bend over backwards to be inclusive, and the reference to God in the gs promise and law is meant to be generic and not to endorse any religion. I have never once talked about God or religion with my troop. But it really does depend on the troop leader, the leaders are the ones who decide which badges to do, what activities to do, how much crap to sell, etc, at least for the younger troops. As they get older the girls are supposed to decide for themselves. Scouts has been a great experience for my girls and me. I was never outdoorsy, but my girls wanted to camp so I did it for them and now I love it. When I learned that you can make a pan of brownies outdoors in a box oven I thought it was so cool, I never knew you could do that! City girls like me and my troop would never get experiences like that if it weren't for scouts. DD you should lead a troop, think of all the cool stuff you could teach those girls!
Well, I LOVED your story and it's was a nice compliment, but, if you think some of the parents of scouts who meet at a church here are going to welcome me..you'd be wrong. Actually, that particular church and I get along fine, I like most of those ladies, they do a lot for this town, but, there are joiners of Scouts. The middles, I call them. They don't sit on the fence. They don't give to the church or the scouts, yet they won't tolerate me. I can't figure them out, but, they're trouble. Uhh uhh.
I think my girls and I are lucky to have a really nice group of people who are involved in scouts here. I can understand that it does depend on who the active volunteers in the organization are, and I know that some ladies are nothing but overgrown mean girls. Sad, because girl scouts is supposed to be about sisterhood and helping others and it's unfortunate to have people in the organization who don't live by the GS law. But whaddayagonnado right? I learn a lot of interesting things about nature from your blog, and I can share that with my troop, so you still can be teaching cool things to girl scouts by extension :) you don't have to be a scout leader to teach girls about nature.
Thanks. I go on about things that interest me. Most of the things I like, kids like. I guess that's how it works when you pass down things.
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