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Should the Boy Scouts end their ban on gay members and leaders?
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President Barack Obama said Sunday that gays should be allowed in the Boy Scouts, weighing in on one of the storied American institutions facing proposals to end long-held exclusions.
The president’s comments in a pre-Super Bowl interview on CBS come ahead of this week’s meeting of the Boy Scouts’ national executive board. A proposal to open up the Scouts’ membership to gays is expected to be discussed and possibly voted on at the gathering in Texas.
The Boy Scouts emphatically reaffirmed the no-gays policy just seven months ago, but announced last week they were considering changing the stance. Instead of mandatory exclusion of gays, the different religious and civic groups that sponsor Scout units would be able to decide for themselves how to address the issue — either maintaining the exclusion or opening up their membership.
The White House said in a statement last August that Obama opposed the gay ban. Obama, like presidents for the last century, serves as honorary president of the group. The president’s comment Sunday was his first since the group announced it was considering a policy change.
“My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does in every institution and walk of life,” Obama said. “The Scouts are a great institution that are promoting young people and exposing them to opportunities and leadership that will serve people for the rest of their lives. And I think nobody should be barred from that.”
Do you think the Boy Scouts should end their ban on gay members and leaders?
Absolutely, and it should be a complete ban that does not allow individual troupes to continue to discriminate.
I’ve read that some troupes may be allowed to continue to discriminate, in part, because they meet in a location (often a church) that advocates discrimination. There is a simple answer to this – move.
The Boy Scouts like to claim that they teach boys to do what is right. They need to lead by example.
Look, I’m not sure exactly how old your are, but try and think back to when you were 14. At that time I bet your hormones were raging. Who do you think a gay boy is going to try to get close to? Once again, you let feel good emotions dictate over basic common sense.
I don’t know much about you either but I suspect you have had very little, if any,ifexposure to gay people. I doubt you have ever had an in depth discussion with a gay person. I have had lots on exposure and many discussions. I’ve had several gay people on my staff reporting directly to me. I have never had an uncomfortable moment with any of them and I have absolutely no qualms about gay boys or leaders in the Boy Scouts.
Do you base your homophobia on actual experiences or just what you imagine?
Gee Rich do you employ a lot of hormonal adolescent boys? There is a reason you dont let your 14 year daughter on camp outs with 14 year old boys.
I fully support gay rights, on every topic. However I dont think they get to push their way into private groups. The Boy Scouts WAS a private organization, they dont allow girls, and back in 1916, since their congressional charter so that they could eliminate the “Lone Scouts of America”; I’d say their right to choose which boys are allowed to join is over. Let them drop their congressional charter, become a private organization and then no, they can then choose who they want in and who they want out. Until then you are an organization representing the United States, and therefore all constiutional rights are granted. Only qualification you need to start in the BSA, is that you are a male.
Chrzan,
You posted “I fully support gay rights, on every topic. However I dont think they get to push their way . . .”
You don’t get to say that you fully support the rights of a specific group of people and then turn around and disrespect them in practically the same sentence.
Any organization that uses public (tax) money or facilities in order to operate needs to comply with all existing civil rights laws.
Having said that, if the BSA were an entirely privately-funded concern, it should be allowed to exclude anyone it likes, for any reason.
Frankly, the concept of the Boy Scouts creeps me out. It was founded in Britain just before World War 1, as a thinly-veiled means of getting adolescent males indoctrinated into the (then) military precepts of selfless duty to god, king, and country. In other words, the purpose of the Boy Scouts was to produce Good Soldiers, and lots of them. Unfortunately, the long-anticipated War ignited before this could be effectively realized.
As with the idea of concentration camps, the closet anglophile who became chancellor of Germany in the 1930s promoted a variant of the Boy Scouts, renaming it after himself. The names were different but the objective was the same: indocrinate young people from childhood into blind loyalty to a nation’s military and political establishment.
Here in the USA, the fortunes of scouting rose and fell with the public’s perception of the military: it gained ground during the Eisenhower years but lost popularity during the late Vietnam era. It has experienced a resurgence in membership with the ascendency of the unending War on Terror.
Now that the US military has been recently brought into conformity with current civil rights law, there is no reason why the paramilitary training organization called the Boy Scouts should not follow suit, since to do otherwise would be to betray its core charter- to produce the soldiers of tomorrow’s USA military forces.
It it chooses to do otherwise, it risks becoming irrelevant, like the modern-day KKK. Which, honestly, may be the best outcome society in general could expect.
Almost forgot the Young Pioneers, the Soviet answer to the Boy Scouts. Unlike the BS, the YP were slightly more progressive in that they accepted both sexes and also changed one element of the loyalty triad from “god” to “communist party”. However, their core objective was unchanged.
” indocrinate young people from childhood into blind loyalty to a nation’s military and political establishment.”
You sound shocked that a despotic ruler would do something like to this his citizens. What’s next, he sends millions to their death in concentration camps?
If I sounded “shocked” to you, you don’t get out much.
Whoops! Fed the troll! My bad!
A superior retort is: no, I am not shocked that a despotic rule would do something like that to his citizens. What I find dismaying is that a democratic society such as we have in the USA would use the very same tactic in order to achieve exactly the same objective.
I don’t really hate the BSA, but I can’t honor their existence. They are perhaps a necessary minor evil, like ROTC. But to deny what its core purpose is-a way to shape young minds into becoming unquestioning servants of the political establishment- is to prefer ignorance over awareness.
Argh! Fed the troll AGAIN! If this keeps up, he won’t fit under his bridge.
“the closet anglophile who became chancellor of Germany”
Who also, loved the fact that no one, but his soldiers had access to guns.
Not exactly true; but putting that aside, he also loved to hate Jews, Gypsies, gays (except those in his employ), and (toward the end) his own military’s high command. How is your comment relevant to this discussion?
that isnt true, he allowed all germans citizens to possess guns. It was only the jews he wouldnt allow to have or own a gun.
Abernathy,
Google German Weapons Act 1938.
You’re wrong, wrong wrong.. The Treaty of Versailles, 1919, disarmed the German people. Hitler rearmed them.
There is no connection, no correlation between an free and democratic society and gun ownership. Nor is there any connection, any correlation between restrictions on gun ownership and tyrannical governments. There is absolutely none.
Whatever the case maybe, at some point we can not protect everybody from everybody else based on the possibility something could potentially happen. Along with ending this ban on homosexual membership in the Scouts should also go all this religious crap that says a boy must believe in something! Why is that necessary? I also agree if public facilities are going to be used and the schools are an example, there should be no discrimination what so ever, Recruitment for cub scouts happens at many elementary schools and that too should come to a stop if there is no complete ending to the discrimination of both sexuality and religion.
The religious aspect was an artifact of the original British Boy Scout creed, which centered on loyalty to god and king (the divine right of kings to rule being a central pillar of royalism). This had to take on a slightly different interpretation when the BSA was established (there being no kings allowed here) but found new viability during the Cold War when it was seen as another way for our society to differentiate itself from the Godless Commies.
Fun to see the Christian haters out in full force preaching acceptance. And, really????Comparing Scouts to Hitler??
It never ceases to amaze the fear that a simple group that teaches honor to, God, Self, and Country can raise in the left wing minds.
God haters have been trying to shut down Scouts for decades, That the boys coming out of scouting are honorable decent people has never sat well with the God haters out there.
Do carry on with your hypocritical ‘diversity’ message
I would venture to say, just as in the military there was gays before it was okay, a lot of closeted boys became eagle scouts without it being known they were gay. So that being said your right a lot of boys did comeo out of scouting as honorable decent people even gays.
See how the heathen rage.
Williamson,
The Jesus I was taught about in Sunday School was a Jesus who hung around with society’s outcasts—tax collectors, prostitutes, little kids, and people with unspeakable diseases.
Given your eagerness to dismiss everyone who doesn’t agree with you on every point of Christian theology or Biblical interpretation as a Christian hater, I’m convinced that if you tripped over Jesus on your way to wherever, you’d neither recognise the man nor accept him.
You embrace a religion of rejection and intolerance and hate. Fine. In this country you can practice any religion you want. That’s your First Amendment right. But the First Amendment requires you to allow other people their right of faith and conscience.
As is your modus operendi, you hurl accusations at me with no evidence I have EVER even once acted as you describe. What your post has to do with Boy Scouts is a mystery. I just pointed out….like you have..to quote Ms Belle ” In this country you can practice any religion you want. That’s your First Amendment right. But the First Amendment requires you to allow other people their right of faith and conscience.”
So exactly why wont you let the Scouts? The Scouts are forcing no one, but lats of people are making demands on the Scouts.
Williamson,
And I quote: “Fun to see the Christian haters out in full force . . . .”
The Boys Scouts is an organization that has proclaimed itself open to all boys. Yet they have a long history of discrimination based on race, religion, gender. They have a long history of violating their own ideals and values, and a long history of changing their ways only under pressure.
You want to be homophobic, suit yourself. But homophobia, like a lot of other phobias, is unacceptable in polite civilized society, including many Christian denominations.
Ms. Belle
The Boy Scouts are open and accept all boys that accept their mission.
On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.
Trustworthy,
Loyal,
Helpful,
Friendly,
Courteous,
Kind,
Obedient,
Cheerful,
Thrifty,
Brave,
Clean,
and Reverent.
You of all people are huge on protecting the children, and the rights of all must be sacrificed in the name of safety of even one child. So the idea that a 17 year old that defines his existance by how he sates his sexual desires, be excluded from being alone with 12,13 etc, year old boys, is all the reason needed…….for a private group who’s membership is voluntary and open to all boys that agree to strive towards the Scout Oath and Law.
Williamson,
Ok, you’ve convinced me. The Boy Scouts of America is a really creepy, adolescent sex obsessed hate group
Its not just people on the left that dislike religion. I’m a registered Republican, But being a “patriot” the constitution means equal rights for all… Gay, Strait, etc. If you are a legal US citizen you are garenteed these rights by the blood of my brothers that stain the battlefields. Some people on my side of the fence forget that freedom of religion and equal rights also is for the people we dont agree with. Be them Athiests, Catholics, Buddists, Gays, Straits, Democrat or Republican. These basic rights are for everyone. Our system has taught us to fight each other instead of accept each other. This example of the BSA falls under this same problem. If the BSA wants to limit its membership, then they need to become a COMPLETE PRIVATE organization… and NOT have a congressional charter.
Well said, sir.
As a former scout, I think they should drop the ban. As a congressionally-chartered organization, they need to drop the ban or drop the charter.
As an aside, I was active not only in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, but also Explorers – a co-ed branch of the Boy Scouts…
instead of forcing yourself into a God centered and moral based organization and demand they accept non believers and bend to amoral values, why not just start your own organization?
Uh… maybe because society has a moral duty to ensure that all of its members AT MINIMUM aren’t abused by the institutions that it endorses?
Jack who’s morals are you using? The Scouts are acting on their moral duty……….you demand that they change theirs to align with……exactly what?
“align with… exactly what?”
Contemporary societal values (“morals”) that find discrimination contemptible when perpetrated o abetted by a government that is self-described as being “of the people and for the people; or by a franchisee of that government.
I don’t give a hoot what discriminatory or even ridiculous rules of conduct church groups or other “special interest organizations” care to foist on their own membership. They just have no right to impose these “morals” on the general public via government leverage.
I think, Williamson, that Lorenz made the “align with . . . ” perfectly clear.
We live in a society where all human beings have value simply because they are human and because they are human and because they have value, are entitled to the equal protection of the law.
The Boy Scouts can continue to discriminate against LGBT people if they so choose but there is a price to be paid for this. More and more of the rest of us have come to see this kind of discrimination as inherently immoral and the reasons justifying it as inherently disgusting.
Moral and ethical principles cannot ever be absolute. It is immoral to tell a lie. But if the consequence of telling the truth is to send innocent people to their deaths, then you lie. We all know this. We all know that a strict and rigid adherence to “principle” is not something to be admired. It’s a sickness. It even has a name. It’s called the “Raskolnikov’ Syndrome”. It’s what happens when individuals decide that they are the sole arbiter of what is moral and what is good.
We, as a society, have decided that what is moral is determined by how we treat each other, not by a rigid adherence to Bronze Age Era rules governing sexual behavior. Five thousand years ago women who committed adultery were stoned to death in a brutal public ritual. In the Middle Ages homosexuals were burned alive. Back then such behavior was considered an enforcement of God determined moral values. We consider such enforcement barbaric
If the Boy Scouts keep this up, they will be increasingly marginalized, increasingly irrelevant, increasingly archaic. This is not 1916 anymore and hasn’t been for a very very long time
Another former Boy Scout here.
Do I think the Boy Scouts should get rid of their “ban”? Absolutely. What kind of message is it to be exclusionary? It’s the same old trick as segregation. Just in a new age form.
Do I really care? No, they’re a private organization that is completely voluntary. If they want to be bigots, let them, I’ll just call them bigots and won’t have anything to do with them. They’re on the wrong side of history. They’ll figure it out sooner or later.
Got a question for Williamson.
Does the Reverand Fred Phelps represent the views and moral values of Christians? Does he speak for Christ? Is his theology the correct Christian theology?
Why or why not.