Some day, Scouting will catch up with society
By Betsy Biesenbach
If you want to start a fight in my house, all you have to do is put the words “Boy Scouts” and “gay people” in the same sentence. It’s the only subject that will make my husband — a lifelong Scouter — stop speaking to me.
Biesenbach, of Roanoke, is a freelance writer, title examiner and author of “Bits O’ Betsy Biesenbach.”
October 11, 2012 - 12:05 AM
They also need to allow the atheists in too.
Better yet, just join the Campfire USA.
http://www.campfireusa.org/
This lady, along with many others, refuses to (or chooses not to) understand that Scouting has the right to be what it is…whether society likes it or not. If the Supreme Court of this country has upheld that right..AND IT HAS..then GET OVER IT!!!! Scouting has a right to exist as it is…and the rest of you have the right to spend the rest of your lives trying to change an organization that is doing fine without you. As Scott M has pointed out, there are many other groups you can join. Scouting must be offering an experience you can’t get outside the program…as evidenced by so many of you wanting to get in!! Go Scouts, Go Scouting…You folks are attacking an organization that doesn’t need you.
Another quick thought: What “SOCIETY” will tolerate, or approve, doesn’t make it good, or right. Pornography lives, and thrives, on cable TV, and the internet, does it not?
Searching Bear says, “If the Supreme Court of this country has upheld that right..AND IT HAS..then GET OVER IT!!!!”
I wish people that oppose abortion would adopt that attitude.
Yes well, I cannot deny that “Scouting has the right to be what it is”, I am just not certain that is something society as a whole can benefit from.
“Over two decades, the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/16/local/la-me-boy-scouts-files-20120916
There is no organization that is “holier than thou” and their exclusions have not protected boys (children) any more than the Catholic Church did. Excluding people and remaining private while you work with the public or children can lead to damage as well as good.
It is a well known, well documented fact that pedophiles insinuate themselves where there are victims. The Scouting efforts to protect pedophiles sends the wrong message to everyone and has befouled their mission as nothing else could. Maybe being private and exclusionary is not so great after all.
#5 “Yes well, I cannot deny that “Scouting has the right to be what it is”, I am just not certain that is something society as a whole can benefit from.”
1. Thank you for your tolerance.
2. Please let us know of your ultimate decision.
#6, it is the least I can do. Rest assured, my friends here will be the first to know my proclamation on the issue.
#2 Your “GET OVER IT” comment (complete with all those exclamation points — funny how ideologues of your stripe think multiple punctuation marks do a better job of getting your point across) confirms what I have long suspected about your kind, Searching Bear: Radical rightists aren’t big fans of debate.