The Boy Scouts of America vs. The Radical Left of America

I have been an adult volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America for over a decade. I believe that there is no finer organization for the training of young boys to be upstanding young men in the world.

It is a long program, spanning ages 6 through 18 and there are no short cuts. The BSA is a Meritocracy, that is, all advancements are earned and scouts are reviewed by adults at every step up the ladder to Eagle. They learn first aid, how to work as a team and eventually how to lead a team. It is they who decide what they want to do, where they want to go, plan how they’re going to do it and who among them they want to be their leaders. The adults are there for guidance. This has been the model for over 100 years.

The Boy Scouts of America is one of the oldest and most benevolent organizations in these United States. Any child of any color and any religion can join and be a part of the troop. The BSA has a place for them.

And you can be gay, just not openly gay. That’s the caveat. It’s not an issue because it’s none of anybody’s business, really, if you are or you aren’t. Just don’t make it one.

But factions of the political Left in this country are using the current BSA policy as a hammer, and although overruled by the Supreme Judicial Court in 2000, continue to wage a media war against them.  

Why do these people want into the Boy Scouts so badly? Can’t they just start their own scout troop?

If they really cared that much about gay scouts having no organization of their own, then why haven’t they chartered their own openly gay scouting troop? There is nothing stopping any body, government organization or private citizen or organization from starting a scouting troop, is there? You just can't call it the Boys Scouts of America but there's nothing holding anybody back. Let someone start an openly gay troop and let the multitudes run to them.

Sure, they wouldn't have the National or World Jamborees but the BSA didn't have them in the beginning either. The BSA built up their organization brick by brick into the long standing pillar of stability, achievement and youth education you see today, more than 100 years after it started. It is a long running success story built on self-reliance, training, teamwork and personal achievement. Basically it's for everything the political Left is NOT.

This is why I don't believe that this issue is about the exclusion of gays from scouting. For me this issue was aways one of Sovereignty. The BSA and its sponsors have every right to choose how it wants to run its organization, period. It’s a private organization chartered mostly by churches.

If the chartering organizations don't want openly homosexual boys or leaders in the troops they sponsor, then they shouldn't have them and shouldn't bow to pressure to accept them. If the parents of scouts have an issue with openly gay boys sleeping in the same tent as their kids, they have every right to protest and every right to leave scouting if they so choose.

Forcing acceptance of openly gay individuals into the Boy Scouts of America will achieve neither unity or acceptance. It will only fuel further division and people will vote with their feet. Reaction will be swift and could lead to fracturing and turmoil among the ranks of long standing volunteers and their children.

But the Left will take that, rather it wants that to continue the conflicts that divide us as a nation. That way they can fight on; receive their funding from who knows where and continue to be the obstacle to, rather than the force for, good. That's what Anarchists do.

I see no upside for such a policy change.

May God bless the BSA.