Have anyone else taken note concerning the Boy Scouts

@firefly,

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If the issue was the Boy Scouts discrimination against nontheists, like atheists and agnostics, rather than gays, I'm not sure the proposal to revoke their federal charter would have even gotten those 12 votes.

Times are changing and in a very rapid manner or the Scouts would not be finding themselves between the rock and the hard place over not allowing gays to be scouts and I would not counted on a new vote on the issue of the charter being revoked only getting 12 votes if it would come up again over either the gay issue or the nonbeliever issue.

Oh nonbelievers the last I look in the US is around 15 percents and gays figure is as estimate as low as 1.7 percent up to five percents of the total population.

It would seems that you do not need to be a non-believer or a homosexual to think that what the scouts are doing is wrong or what congress had done with DOM act for that matter is wrong.

Quote:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/gay-population-us-estimate_n_846348.html

Gates' best estimate, derived from five studies that have asked subjects about their sexual orientation, is that the nation has about 4 million adults who identify as being gay or lesbian, representing 1.7 percent of the 18-and-over population.

That's a much lower figure than the 3 to 5 percent that has been the conventional wisdom in the last two decades, based on other isolated studies and attempts to discredit Kinsey.

One reason, according to Gates, is that until recently, few surveys tried to differentiate respondents who identified as gay or lesbian from those who sometimes engaged in homosexual acts or were attracted to people of the same sex. All were lumped into the gay category.

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@firefly,

First I would like to state that it is nice Firefly to see your posting once more on issues threads even if as always we do not agree on a damn thing.

Now for almost my whole life one of the few institutions in society that no one have a problem with and held in high regards were the Boys Scouts.

However due to their defense of keeping being both homophobia and anti religion freedoms at least if that freedom involved not being a believer they are killing that high regards in a ever increasing numbers of citizens.

For myself both I and my wife will do everything in our powers to keep the three grandsons from joining the scouts and I will take my time to let any firm that I do business with know that I would not view them supporting a homophobia and anti religion freedoms scouts at all kindly.

Of course that go for all level of governments that even think of granting them any support.

If they keep their current policies I can not but see them losing more and more financial supporters and their membership will keep going down.

Firefly you are right they have a right to be bigots but on the other hands the millions of citizens who they had declare as unfit to be a part of the scouts along with their children also have a right to do out best to shut down their support and ability to spread their bigotry to the next generation.

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@firefly,

Firefly wrote:

Is the American Red Cross "morally wrong" to retain their federal charter, along with the benefits it carries, because they are a private non-profit too?

Sorry perhaps I'm not following your logic on this part.

Are you claiming that the American Red Cross is discriminatory?
Are you alluding to the exclusion of men who have sex with men from blood donation?

This is due to their forced compliance to FDA regulations. The American Red Cross has lobbied the FDA to change this. The FDA has so far refused. The American Red Cross is not discriminatory to the best of my knowledge, except where mandated by law.

NPR 2007 wrote:

Now, with new techniques available to screen the blood supply for HIV/AIDS, the American Association of Blood Banks, America's blood centers and the American Red Cross say the ban is, quote, "medically and scientifically unwarranted," end quote.

But the Food and Drug Administration - or the FDA, which monitors the country's blood supply - recently announced it will continue to uphold the ban.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10540971

I'm not aware of any laws mandating the BSA to discriminate.
They do so of their own accord.

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@MattDavis,

earned how to make primitive pottery inthe esplorers. Finding and testing just the right clay was the hard part. "Wedging it" was next. Actually building coiled pots or pinch pots was easy.

I keep harkening back to some GOOD things I learned through my bried association with scouting.
The only real problem I had was that girls were almost an anathema to the scouting program. Im sure scouting could be , under the right circumstances, a nursery for nascent homosexuals. This, despite how the program advertizes itself.

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@farmerman,

I

Quote:

m sure scouting could be , under the right circumstances, a nursery for nascent homosexuals. This, despite how the program advertizes itself.

Like the "anti gay" Catholic church perhaps?

Some information concerning the scouts leadership covering up child sexual abused for decades seems to be starting to come out.

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@MattDavis,

Quote:

Are you claiming that the American Red Cross is discriminatory?
Are you alluding to the exclusion of men who have sex with men from blood donation?

In any case, it have nothing to do with a moral stand against homosexuality but a medical judgment and take note female homosexuals are not ban from giving blood only males who happen to be sadly in a very high risk group for HIV.

No test is prefect so depending on blood tests to stop HIV getting into the blood supply alone and taking blood donations from members of any of the known high risk groups would mean that there will be more cases of the transfer of HIV then there is.now.

Right now I am taking a drug that babies and females should not be exposed to by way of a blood transfer so I can not give blood until 6 months after my stop taking it and that ban is for medical reasons and logical just like not taking blood from any member of a high risk groups happen to be and depending completely on tests that are not 100 percents accurate.

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@MattDavis,

Quote:

Sorry perhaps I'm not following your logic on this part.

Are you claiming that the American Red Cross is discriminatory?

I was merely using the American Red Cross as an example of another private non-profit organization that has been granted a federal charter, along with the benefits such a charter bestows. And my comment was in response to BillRM's remark that it is "morally wrong" for private organizations to enjoy such benefits yet retain their autonomy.

Regarding the Boy Scouts, BillRM said:

Quote:

Their attempts to have it both ways that on the one hand they are a private organization and on the other they are enjoying all kind of special benefits at the hands of governments is morally wrong to say the least.

There is nothing "morally wrong" with a private organization having the benefits of a federal charter, and still retaining their Constitutional rights and privileges, and their autonomy from governmental control. That is the case with all groups which have been granted federal charters, including the Boy Scouts and the Red Cross. The Boy Scouts aren't being any more "morally wrong" in enjoying the benefits of their federal charter than are any of those other groups that have a federal charter.

A private organization is just that--private--regardless of whether or not it holds a federal charter.

The Boy Scouts right to discriminate, and to exclude atheists and agnostics from membership, is protected by their Constitutional right to assembly and by the "expressive message" of their organization--both of which were referenced in the Supreme Court decision I previously posted that involved the Boy Scouts.

So, my comments really had nothing to do with the American Red Cross policies, merely its similar status with the Boy Scouts, in terms of being a private non-profit, autonomous organization, which also holds a federal charter.

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@firefly,

Quote:

So, my comments really had nothing to do with the American Red Cross policies, merely its similar status with the Boy Scouts, in terms of being a private non-profit, autonomous organization, which also holds a federal charter.

In other word Firefly you are blowing smoke as the red cross does not ban gays or anyone else as far as I know from being a member in fact they are very welcoming to all groups in society.

Quote:

There is nothing "morally wrong" with a private organization having the benefits of a federal charter, and still retaining their Constitutional rights and privileges, and their autonomy from governmental control

Sorry could not disagree with you more as when the benefits they are taking are from the whole society and yet they are stating that some subsections of the very people the funding is being drawn from are not worthy of being members of their organization it is a morally wrong position to take and should be a legally wrong position to take.

Once more when the state and local governments would take funds from the black tax payers of the south that would then help build facilities such as swimming pools and then would turn around and tell those same citizens they can not use those very facilities it was on it face wrong to do that.

The analogy go further as the Federal charter of the boy scouts interfere with the abilities of other groups to set up similar organizations and it would be like the blacks in the south being told that not only are we going to build swimming pools with some of your taxes funds that you are not allow to use but we are then going to make it harder for you to build your own swimming pools.

For one thing you can not used the word pool or swimming pool for your own projects.

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Oh there is another example of how it should work when the government grant special rights and benefits.

Miami Dade County own a numbers of airports from very small ones to the Miami International and getting all kind of funding and support from the Federal government running into the tens of millions of dollars every year.

Miami Dade have a small field in South Dade that my utralight cub wished to used but the county at the time did not allow any utralight to used their airports and would not change their minds.

Well we went to the FAA and they look at us and they look at this small field and then told the county they needed to allow us to use that field and still the county would not allowed it.

So the FAA said ok but we will then removed all repeat all federal funding from all your airports including the tens of millions of dollars from Miami International.

To this day the club is flying out of the Homestead airport.

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@BillRM,

Stop muddying the waters of the atheist/agnostic matter with the Boy Scouts by dragging in the homosexual issue as well. They are two separate issues, and you chose to post a topic that concerns the exclusion of atheists and agnostics from Boy Scout membership.

It's a pity you don't understand that a private group has the right to freedom of assembly, and other Constitutional privileges and rights, that is just as important as the "right to bear arms" that the Second Amendment of the Constitution grants to you.

The Boy Scouts aren't depriving anyone of their "religious freedom"--as a private organization, they are exercising their right to be selective in their membership and to admit only those who subscribe to, and support, their spiritual aims and goals, and their statement of Religious Principle, and those who are willing to take an oath that pledges, "to do my duty to God and my country." Those spiritual quasi-religious aims and goals, and the oath, would not likely have nonbelievers, atheists, and agnostics among their supporters, and, to admit such people to membership, would likely have a corrosive influence on the organization's ability to attain or instill such spiritual goals.

That you disagree with the Boy Scouts having spiritual goals and aims, and a desire to instill these in others, is beside the point--as a private organization, they have a right to have them, and that's a Constitutional right you should be willing to defend, even if you don't agree with them.

Your logic, on the Boy Scouts atheist and agnostic membership issue, is as faulty as if you accused the United Negro College Fund of being bigots because they weren't handing out scholarships to white students. Private organizations can pursue their own missions, and aims, and goals, and it is possible to be exclusionary and discriminating without being "bigoted".

If people don't agree with the Boy Scouts policies, their donations and membership applications may dry up. I don't see that as any big deal. That's as it should be.

What I don't understand is why you would even insist that the Boy Scouts should admit atheists and agnostics when you oppose the spiritual component that is a prominent element of this organization's foundation.

Your aim appears to be to destroy that spiritual aspect of the Boy Scouts mission and identity--to try to completely secularize an organization that has always had a spiritual aspect and spiritual aims. In effect, you would like to destroy the Boy Scouts and re-make it in your image of what it should be. But the Boy Scouts, as a private group, have a right to preserve their spiritual identity, and would, therefore, have a perfect right to exclude you, for not sharing their spiritual aims. It's just that simple.

And, as I said before, your beef about the Scouts federal charter really is with Congress and not with the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts aren't doing anything wrong by keeping that charter--they are entitled to keep it, and enjoy its benefits, until Congress decides to revoke it.

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@firefly,

Quote:

Stop muddying the waters of the atheist/agnostic matter with the Boy Scouts by dragging in the homosexual issue as well. They are two separate issues, and you chose to post a topic that concerns the exclusion of atheists and agnostics from Boy Scout membership.

Sorry they are one and the same thing.

Being a begot over someone sexuality and being a begot over someone religions believes or lack of religions believes and taking benefits that come from the general population that include both groups is wrong and wrong for the same reasons and in the same ways.

Quote:

What I don't understand is why you would even insist that the Boy Scouts should admit atheists and agnostics when you oppose the spiritual component

What spiritual values would that be when they allowed non-believers in any god IE Hinduists to be members for example? Just that atheists and agnostics can not be moral citizens along with gays?

But once more I have no problem with them being bigots religion bigots or sexual bigots or a combine of both as long as they surrendered their Federal charter and no longer take taxpayer funded benefits in any form.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

I keep harkening back to some GOOD things I learned through my bried association with scouting

I think I learned first aid, and how to weave a belt in the Girl Scouts, I really don't remember much else. I also received on the job training, in how to be a door-to-door salesperson, by trying to peddle the cookies. That alone convinced me I wanted an office job some day.

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Times are changing..............

http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/600x4023.jpg

(L-R) Eric Andresen, former Scout leader, Will Oliver, Eagle Scout, Jennifer Tyrrell, former Cub Scout Den Mother, and Greg Bourke, former Assistant Scoutmaster, deliver boxes containing 1.4 million signatures urging the Boy Scouts of America to reverse the organization’s ban on LGBT Scouts on February 4, 2013 in Irving, Texas.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

What spiritual values would that be when they allowed non-believers in any god IE Hinduists to be members for example? Just that atheists and agnostics can not be moral citizens...

Quote:

Boy Scouts of America

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in the United States takes a hard-line position, excluding atheists and agnostics. The BSA has come under strong criticism over the past years due to their religious policy and stance against agnostics and atheists:

"Declaration of Religious Principle. The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God. In the first part of the Scout Oath or Promise the member declares, ‘On my honour I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law.’ The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of his favours and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members."

The Boy Scouts of America has accepted Buddhist members and units since 1920, and also accepts members of various pantheistic faiths. Many Buddhists do not believe in a supreme being or creator deity, but because these beliefs are still religious and spiritual in nature, they are deemed acceptable by the BSA since their leaders subscribe to the BSA Declaration of Religious Principle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Scouting#Boy_Scouts_of_America

The Boy Scouts aren't saying that an atheist or agnostic can't be a moral person, or even a good citizen, they simply maintain that, in their view, the acknowledgment of some higher power or deity is, "necessary to the best type of citizenship."

And, if you can't agree with, and support, that Declaration of Religious Principle, why shouldn't they be able to reject you as a member? Why should they accept anyone as a member who doesn't support their aims and principles? Why would any private organizations want to accept members who don't support their aims?

More to the point, why are you insisting that a private organization, which has aims and guiding principles you don't agree with or support, should accept you as a member? Why would you even want to join a private organization whose guiding policies you don't agree with?

The Boy Scouts would have perfectly legitimate reasons for rejecting you as a member if you asserted that you could not support their Declaration of Religious Principle or that you could not take, or would not take, their oath. They have every right to limit their membership to those who support their aims and principles--just as every other private organization is entitled to do.

And, until Congress revokes their federal charter, the Boy Scouts are entitled to retain it and enjoy its benefits. Congress, and specific governmental agencies, have granted the Boy Scouts certain benefits and it's absurd for you to contain to maintain that the Boy Scouts are "morally wrong" in accepting them. Your beef is with the government, for granting them certain benefits, not with the Boy Scouts for accepting them.

There are many other youth organizations for youngsters to join and adults to participate in, beside the Boy Scouts of America, and new ones can always be created to fill certain needs. So what's the big deal if they can't use the term "Scouts" in their title? Does that mean they can't fill similar needs for youth activities and have similar appeal to youngsters?

I'm inclined to agree with others here that the Boy Scouts of America have become increasingly irrelevant and their policies may not reflect the more liberal or inclusive views of certain segments of the population. But I see them more as being parochial rather than "bigoted", and as having more appeal for those who do share their guiding principles, which does mean they fill a certain niche for those supporters, particularly the many religious groups which back them.

If their policies cause the Boy Scouts of America to sink into oblivion, I'm not going to lose any sleep over that.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

Times are changing..............

Quote:

Atheists say Boy Scouts should lift more than gay ban
Wednesday January 30, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — Boy Scouts take an oath to do their "duty to God" and keep themselves "morally straight," which some see as supporting the long-standing ban on gay scouts and leaders.

With the executive board of the Boy Scouts of America poised to end that exclusion as early as next week, atheists want the ban on them lifted as well.

American Atheists President David Silverman applauds the proposal to let sponsors of local troops decide whether to accept gays, and says scouting should also welcome boys who don't believe in God.

But BSA spokesman Deron Smith says a change in the policy toward atheists is not being considered and that the BSA continues to view "Duty to God" as one of its basic principles.
http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/apexchange/2013/01/30/boy-scouts-atheists.html

The times may be changing, but the Boy Scouts aren't about to change their basic guiding Principles--and that's where the atheist/agnostic issue is significantly different than the homosexual issue. Gays, who chose to, can support those guiding Principles--including the Boy Scout Declaration of Religious Principle-- and the Boy Scout oath. Are atheists and agnostics willing to do that, and support those things? If not, they really have no legitimate grounds for insisting that the Boy Scouts, a private organization, admit them as members.

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@firefly,

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If not, they really have no legitimate grounds for insisting that the Boy Scouts, a private organization, admit them as members.

an unusually sensible opinion from firefly.....

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@firefly,

Quote:

The Boy Scouts aren't saying that an atheist or agnostic can't be a moral person, or even a good citizen, they simply maintain that, in their view, the acknowledgment of some higher power or deity is, "necessary to the best type of citizenship."

Strange is it not that this higher power nonsense or hundreds of higher powers in relation to Hindus is not needed when it come to Buddhists is it not?

An not to have a black skin oh sorry that the KKK oh let see not to be gay either when it come to the Scouts.

Quote:

More to the point, why are you insisting that a private organization, which has aims and guiding principles you don't agree with or support, should accept you as a member? Why would you even want to join a private organization whose guiding policies you don't agree with?

When this so call private organization would give up all the special rights and benefits they are receiving from my repeat my government that I had help paid for over my life time they can be as must a group of bigots as they care to be.

You had brought up the Red Cross charter Firefly well if the Red Cross would state that they would no longer help or aid gays or atheists nor would they allow those two groups to draw from their blood banks I would have a similar problem with them keeping their Federal charter.

If not just adults that these Scouts bigots are harming but the children that they are turning away as unfit to be in their programs to say nothing of by so doing so telling the children that are in the program that it is ok to shun such children.

I would not be so sure Firefly if I was you that if the scouts leadership does not change it tune and people give up on them doing so that their charter will be safe after millions of citizens sign petitions to congress not the scouts asking for their charter to be removed and given to a group that are not bigots.

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@hawkeye10,

Sorry this so call private organization Hawkeye have such close relationships with the government that the military will grant extra rank to those who enter into it being an Eagle Scout!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have no problem with them existing and remaining bigots but not also enjoying the benefits of having a special relationship with the Federal government.

Their Federal charter should be gone so other private groups can used the word scout or scouting and they should not get a dime of government funding that both gays and atheists citizens had also paid into.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

Their Federal charter should be gone so other private groups can used the word scout or scouting...

Since only 12 members of Congress voted to revoke the Boy Scouts federal charter, and 362 voted against doing that, the last time the issue came to a vote in the House, I don't think you should hold your breath waiting for that charter to be revoked.

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and they should not get a dime of government funding...

No level of government directly funds the operating budget of the Boy Scouts of America.

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Maybe the Southern Poverty Law center should considering listing the BOA as a hate group.............. Drunk

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; its legal representation for victims of hate groups; its monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and its educational programs that promote tolerance.[2][3][4] The SPLC classifies as hate groups organizations that it considers to denigrate or assault entire groups of people, typically for attributes that are beyond their control.[5]

1 Reply

Have anyone else taken note concerning the Boy Scouts

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