Last week, the Boy Scouts national council voted (61% in favor) to approve the membership resolution which allows openly LGB youth to be members of the program (as far as I can tell, there is nothing either way about gender identity, I’ve seen some conflicting reports, so I’ll keep digging).
Which means that children that start off in Cub Scouts (or Boy Scouts, Venturing, etc), are able to come out and be their honest selves. An amendment to that membership policy to allow openly LGBT adults was sent to committee and it looks like won’t be acted on for a while. The new membership policy goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2014, leaving time for the national organization to update their youth protection, anti-bullying and other programs.
Of course, this creates a strange situation where youth can come out as gay, would have to leave their troop when he turns 18, but could remain a youth member of a Venture Crew (or Ship or Post) until he is 21.
And this also brings about the biggest hypocrisy, which anyone with half a brain can see: The BSA is proud of you and happy to have you until you’re 18, but after that, you don’t meet their moral code and have to be kicked out. That somehow, non-heterosexual adults are dangerous and immoral.
People on both sides were outraged, which was to be expected I suppose.
On the right, we have the hate-groups proclaiming that this is the end of the BSA, and that they should still be discriminating against children. Yes, let that sink in. These are groups advocating that a group should be discriminating against children, simply for how they were born.
They scream and yell that this will lead to straight kids sleeping in tents with gay kids. But they need to remember that that has been happening for over 100 years. The big lie is that the membership ban is a policy that’s been in place for over 100 years. The BSA itself is 103 years old, the membership ban was not added until recently (the 1990’s), and then reinforced in 2000 via the supreme court case.
This is not about sex (or politics as many add), it never has been. Any sexual contact in Scouting is inappropriate, just as it always has been. I’ll never really understand the obsession those on the right have with gay sex. Seriously, they think about it more than I do, or any LGBT friend that I have.
And to reiterate…again…there is no link between homosexuality and pedophelia. I’ve written about it extensively, The case against discrimination.
But they need to realize the public component to sexuality, that’s the missing piece. A Senior Patrol Leader talking about scheduling his Eagle Scout project around a dance he is attending with his girlfriend is the public side of sexuality. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, just the scheduling woes of a typical teenager. But for a gay kid, having to tiptoe around details in his life is a minefield. And not exactly trustworthy either.
No one is asking or saying that Scouts are completely open about every facet of their lives with other members of their troop. But tight bonds form, lifelong friendships are forged and a whole patrol works so closely together that it’s like a family. And hiding such a big part of your self, even a fact that has no bearing whatsoever on your abilities as a Scout, is asking the impossible.
What those opposed to this also need to remember is that the BSA is faith-based, but does not subscribe to one particular faith. You can’t impose your own doctrine onto others or use it to set policy. And there are plenty of religions that reject the idea of homosexuality as sin.
On a side note to this, I get a certain amount of glee watching the folks at On My Honor freak out over all this, but their membership (and again, you can’t hold everything random facebook group members say against the group itself, but when it’s the vast majority like this, you start to make some connections) gives Christianity such a bad name. The amount of misogynistic, anti-muslim and anti-jew speech, on top of the homophobia, is just appalling.
And on the other side, we have those who gnash their teeth and rend their garments because the change doesn’t go far enough. This is a stepping stone to full equality and a huge step in the right direction. They need to remember that this is the more important step, the one that protects the youth.
The BSA is a youth-led organization; it exists for the youth. Adults that are threatening to leave because this isn’t enough need to check their egos at the door and see this as the positive step that it is. There are going to be gay kids that need your support in Scouting: be there for them and keep pushing for change from within.
And again, anyone with half a brain can see that the adult membership ban won’t be around for much longer, and kids can see the inherent hypocrisy of the current membership policies.
The BSA is a private organization, and still has the ability to set its own membership standards, just as any private organization does, that is what came out of the Dale v BSA case in 2000. The government did not step in and make this happen, it is a new policy enacted by the voting members of the national council, a private organization setting its own membership standards.
There is no gay agenda to destroy the BSA or the foundations of the United States. There is only a wish to be seen as equal, to be treated fairly and to offer every single youth the chance to be part of a fantastic organization.
And we need to remember that this is a big step forward, the BSA is no longer discriminating against children: treating every youth with basic human decency. This is not adding sexuality to the Boy Scouts, this is simply acknowledging that LGBT youth exist.
Scouts for Equality and the Inclusive Scouting Network (along with the HRC and GLAAD) continue the fight, even though we don’t know how long it will take. But more change and full equality is coming.
Today we celebrate. Tomorrow we continue the fight.
All my best,
Mike
This is actually the second time I’ve written this out (I got distracted, surprise surprise and I timed out), which means I’ve lost the list of links I had here. But suffice to say it’s the normal hate groups predicting the end of the BSA and in this case, demanding that we keep hurting kids (and the leaders that voted for the change, seriously, there were calls for drownings). By this point, you can probably recreate what they said on your own, so we’ll let them keep their filth to themselves. A few other councils have announced they are in support of a fully-inclusive membership policy, so it’s nice to see that spread across the country as well and the opposing group to Scouts for Equality is trying to form their own national group, but since they can’t find one that hates the right people, they are mulling making their own new organization from scratch. Which will be great once they get sued for using Merit Badge (which has a copyright) or anything else similar.
