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jennythereaderBoy Scouts of America: Reinstate Cub Scout leader who was removed for being gay.
The Boy Scouts are generally a good organization. The lessons and skills my husband, my brothers, and many of my friends learned through scouting helped to make them the wonderful men they are today. I would love for my potential future sons to have the same opportunities.
But if I were considering signing a little boy up for an extracurricular activity today the Boy Scouts wouldn't be on the list. It would take some work to find a place (or more likely, multiple places) that would teach the same range of outdoors skills, day-to-day life skills, and good citizenship, but right now it would be worth the effort. The problem with the Scouts is that just as I wouldn't want my children fed a spoonful of poison along with a plateful of healthy food, I don't want them taught intolerance along with all the valuable lessons.
I wouldn't sign a child up for a program that barred people from participating because of their ethnicity, and I don't feel that discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation is any better.
(For now, I'm not worrying about the fact that it's a single gender organization. I'd prefer that the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts would merge into a single organization as has happened in some European countries, but I accept that there are also good arguments to be made for staying single gender. I'm also not worrying too much about the requirement that Boy Scouts be monotheistic. Again, I'd prefer more openness, but it seems like a battle for another day.)
The Boy Scouts are generally a good organization. The lessons and skills my husband, my brothers, and many of my friends learned through scouting helped to make them the wonderful men they are today. I would love for my potential future sons to have the same opportunities.
But if I were considering signing a little boy up for an extracurricular activity today the Boy Scouts wouldn't be on the list. It would take some work to find a place (or more likely, multiple places) that would teach the same range of outdoors skills, day-to-day life skills, and good citizenship, but right now it would be worth the effort. The problem with the Scouts is that just as I wouldn't want my children fed a spoonful of poison along with a plateful of healthy food, I don't want them taught intolerance along with all the valuable lessons.
I wouldn't sign a child up for a program that barred people from participating because of their ethnicity, and I don't feel that discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation is any better.
(For now, I'm not worrying about the fact that it's a single gender organization. I'd prefer that the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts would merge into a single organization as has happened in some European countries, but I accept that there are also good arguments to be made for staying single gender. I'm also not worrying too much about the requirement that Boy Scouts be monotheistic. Again, I'd prefer more openness, but it seems like a battle for another day.)
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Date: 2012-06-01 08:12 pm (UTC)Like I said, there are good arguments on both sides of the single gender/mixed gender question, and not just in scouting.