A little over a year ago, the supreme cour ruled that the Boy Scouts of America has the right to impose a gay ban on their group.

The ban stopped any gay boys, as well as gay leaders from joining the group.

In my opinion the ruling was extremely unfair and discriminatory. What disturbed me was the way this group of people who are meant to represent justice could be so prejudeced. Should people like this be allowed so much power?

I thought this might make an interesting discussion.

Read the GLAAD article here: http://www.glaad.org/org/publications/documents/index.html?record=2791

Let the games begin!
Winnie :0)

------------------
~~Scarleteen Advocate~~
"Watch the Gillian Anderoson blowup doll!"

Keeper of:
Scully's bra (EA)
Mulders Wheelchair (SE)
Scene where S tells Sk she's pregnant. (Req)
Scully's green suede jacket (Unn)

Even gay BOYS not allowed in? Aren't gay people excluded enough without being refused the chance to learn about the wilderness and such? HOMOSEXUALITY IS HURTING NO ONE IN THIS SOCIETY. Except maybe the homosexuals being treated so terribly in this nation. I find it terribly unfair, and I can't believe the people American could allow ANYONE to be denied of their basic rights.

Who knows, maybe the Boy Scouts will start banning black people, Hispanic people, people who work at K-Mart, people who live in trailer parks, the possibilities are ENDLESS.

That aside, I too find this truly sad and distressing. I actually did Girl Scouts for a while as a kid and I loved it (even given I missed a bit of the point, seeing it as something of a competition for badges, but that's me). In addition, our scout leader was an older gay woman, and she made a profound impact on me, and was really one of the first role models as I had as a non-hetero person, something which is incrtedibly valuable. As valuable say, as a young child in early education, which is generally very female-dominated in terms of staff, being able to also have a male teacher and see that they can be nurturing, too.

Sending the message that anything but heterosexuality is unaccpetable is ultimately not sending a message of empowerment to boys (or girls), and that's where the Boy Scouts just really made a blunder, because they've made it clear they aren't about what they claim to be. But it is a real pity and it is very upsetting.

------------------
Heather Corinna
Editor and Founder, Scarleteen

My epitaph should read: "She worked herself into this ground."
-- Kay Bailey Hutchinson

Now, I do have a problem with Boy Scouts ban on gay people, but legally, they can make that choice. I'm not American, but if I were, I simply wouldn't be a Scout, to show my disliking for their bigotry. However, legally speaking, as a private group, we have to respect that bigotry (erm).

The Boy Scouts are a private organization. In that, they have the right to limit their membership to whoever they see fit.

*HOWEVER,* Boy Scout troops often are allowed to hold meetings at PUBLIC schools on PUBLIC land in PUBLICLY-OWNED buildings, and *this* should not be allowed to continue, whether as a supposed "service to the community" or not - not because they don't allow gay males to join, but because they are a private organization.

If we limit the rights of a private organization to make rules for itself regarding its membership, we're stepping on EVERYBODY's rights.

------------------
~lemming, Scarleteen Advocate

Of course, one thing I dont quite understand is how are they supposed to know their members sexuality? Will it be in their oath (or whatever they do) or thier membership form. Surely someones sexuality does not have to affect their membership of a club which has nothing to do with sex, or atleast I think it has nothing to do with sex , I would not know as there is no way anybody is getting me near a club like that. It would be the Young Socialists for me (if they existed).

------------------
~Sallynha

However, I do think that as a private organization, they need to provide their own places to meet. This is a bit of a peeve of mine, seeing as the boyscouts used *my* middle school for meetings. My dance team had to reschedule practices (or move them to the cafeteria, which gave many of us shinsplints because of the concrete foundation) and change performance dates because of them.

The government needs to support it or not, and not do this one foot in the door crap.

------------------
Brittany
Scarleteen Advocate

as much as i hate the ruling, and wish that the Boy Scouts of America would be an inclusive organization, I do recognize that because they are a private organization, they are allowed to make their own rules. so i'll take it sulking.

the scouts themselves, by and large, are not homophobic. not my boyfriend, not his friends, not any eagle scout i've ever met. but because the BSA are a private entity, we simply recognize their right to make their own rules. that doesn't make the rule okay, though.

but at the root of things, wouldn't simply having a *boy* scout group be discriminationg based on gender anyway? i think what we really need is an organization for all youths regardless of gender, creed, orientation, size, shape, colour, etc., with that sort of politica and social clout.

I think that there are certain cases where perhaps human rights should come over the rights of of private groups/individuals. Maybe this is one of 'em. I'm undecided so far.

Perhaps scouts are a private organization, but should that mean they can practice discrimination?

It reminds me of the private schools over here. They get more government funding then the public schools. They are still considered private.

This may just be my twisted mind, but I can sort of draw a parallel between the boy scouts and the Klu Klux Klan. They both build huge campfires. They both don't want anything to do with homosexuals...must be my twisted mind :0)

Hugs & Scully,
Winnie :0)

------------------
~~Scarleteen Advocate~~
"Watch the Gillian Anderson blowup doll!"

Keeper of:
Scully's bra (EA)
Mulders Wheelchair (SE)
Scene where S tells Sk she's pregnant. (Req)
Scully's green suede jacket (Unn)

However, I agree w/ Lemming 110%. It is a private organization and they can admit who they please. Brownies has already changed so much since i was a Brownie ... to accomidate the changes to society. They're bending somewhat ... Just not that much. And b/c it IS a private organization, they can do that.

------------------
When mom found my diaphram, I told her it was a bathing cap for my cat.
~ Liz Winston

I've been a Girl Guiding woman since I was 7 years old and joined Brownies. I was a stellar Brownie, an even better Guide, I went to an International event at age 13, I got both my Canada and All Round Cord (the year before they phased it out), and was considered one of the best girls to pass through the local group.

After three years away from Guides, I signed up as a leader for the same group I'd come out of. The women who lead in my city still recognize me.

I was a mostly outed lesbian when I signed the forms, though no one but my co-leader knew it.

And the story pretty much ends there. The girls adored us both, we had a blast, the moms thought I was wonderful, and I bowed out at the end of the year with some serious thinking to do about my life. They were sad to see me go.

GGC (Girl Guides Canada) has no policy on lesbian leadership, though it's pretty much a 'don't talk about it' situation. I don't think the BSC (Boy Scouts of Canada) have a no-gays policy either. I am aware that the GSA (Girl Scouts of America) have specifically stated that they will NOT follow the Boy Scouts lead (in fact, I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that some of the higher ranking Girl Scouts _are_ lesbians...)

I know that it's the right of the Scouts to chose who they admit... but that just plain sucks!

My 2 cents, anyways.

From the user agreement:

quote:

---

You agree, by registering to use this service, to adhere to all of the following guidelines. You agree that you will not use this board to post any material which is knowingly false or defamatory, deliberately inaccurate, abusive, hateful, harassing, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law.You agree, by registering to use this service, to adhere to all of the following guidelines. You agree that you will not use this board to post any material which is knowingly false or defamatory, deliberately inaccurate, abusive, hateful, harassing, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law.

Users may have their privileges suspended or permanently removed with or without warning for any of the following:

* harassment of any sort of other users, groups and/or staff via the boards or e-mail (and that includes religious prosletyzing)

---

What about people who have other sexual practices that don't fit into some people's visions of what's normal?

Girlscouts on the other hand are not a religously based organization. Even in their pledge you can pledge to Satan if you wanted to. A couple years ago the changed it so that you pledge to whatever your higher power is. They do not exclude homosexuals. In fact i had an assistant troop leader who was bisexual.

But the boyscout have the right to exclude anyone they want. They can exclude you for not believing in God as well. If you go to church and become a member but you are homosexual and it is against that churches morals do you think that they have the right to say we cant have you here as a member anymore? I think so. If you are going to be part of a religous organization you should fallow their rules.

If a group truly is private, you're right: it's their right to make their own guidelines, however discriminatory (my mother, by the way, is Christan and has a female partner, and one of my favorite professors was a lesbian minister, so it might be more apt not to say those are "christian" morals, but that particular groups idea of such) and destructive they may be, within the letter of the law.

But taking or courting public funding or strong-arming public groups into working with them isn't respecting that division and ISN'T within the letter of the law. Same goes for churches or any other group which accepts public funds or courtesies or tax breaks -- they can't have it both ways. If you accept public funding of any sort (even in barter) then discrimination laws apply.

------------------
Heather Corinna
Editor and Founder, Scarleteen

My epitaph should read: "She worked herself into this ground."
-- Kay Bailey Hutchinson

Both my son and I have been proud members of Scouts Canada.

------------------
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

- Albert Einstein

http://www.scouting.org/nav/about.html

quote:

---

Originally posted by PixieDust:
who of you would want to join such a group that promotes closed and narrow minded views and hatred like that

---

While I wholeheartedly agree with you on this matter, I think perhaps the use of the word "hatred" may be a bit too strong. Maybe "ignorance" would be a better term to use in this situation. When I think of hatred, I think of extremists who believe in the extermination of a group they deem "undesirable." I don't think the Scouts fit that category.

In this case, I think the Scouts are promoting a sense of ignorance and intolerance to a fairly sizeable portion of the population at large. Admittedly, this is not much better than promoting hatred, but I still think a fair difference exists.

------------------
"Verdugo, Engine 14; you can cancel all units responding to this structure fire...this is just a dishwasher gone bad."

While i believe that you can believe in God, and Jesus while being gay, it is by whole against christian morals. The bible explains quite clearly that sex is meant only after marriage, and a marriage is between a man and a woman and therefore homosexuality is against their moral laws. (most other mentions of homosexuality are in the old testement so they apply more to the jewish faith)

However, christians also are taught to hate the sin but love the sinner. On the surface it seems that banning gays from scouting is against that idea, but it really isnt. Churches wont exclude you if you join their church and you are outright sinning (like adultry and things you KNOW are sins) but if you keep up the behavior then they can and likely will ask you to leave.

I am sure gays can JOIN the boyscouts, but if they stay gay (or are making a big scene about being gay) then they can and likely will ask you to leave.

The last two words in the boyscout pledge is "morally straight" (by straight they do not me heterosexual exactly, just inline or correct to their standards) One of their main goals is to teach young men their morals for living. If their morals conclude that being homosexual is wrong then so be it. Dont join. Dont give your support.

But i would like to say a few things here. This website is about not judging others morals. We do not breed ignorance. But who is to say your morals are right but theirs are wrong? Most of the parents who put their sons in the Boyscouts want the same moral standards as the boyscouts. The boyscouts are not an anti-gay group. They are a morally based group and one of their morals is that homosexuality is wrong. Some people (many people) are against having more then one sex partner EVER because it can spread disease easier. Are they wrong? No! Just different. The boyscouts just dont have the PC set of morals.

So why dont you stop judging a MORALLY based PRIVATE organization because they want to uphold their morals which they are entitled to.

Eating pork or shelled fish, shaving hair near the temples, marking bodies with tattoos, wearing blended fabrics or having sexual relations with women during their menstrual cycles, all of these things are no-noed in the Bible.

I'm not mocking Christianity or the Bible, mind you, I'm just saying that times change, and most of Christianity has made changes for these things. Why is it willing to let some 'rules', for lack of a better word, go, but not others?

And what does a black person in a country club have to do with this? There is no rule that country clubs set that blacks are not allowed. They discriminate based on income, not race.

Starting a new trooping organization sounds fine. But what about the campfire boys and girls (formerly only girls) and the explorer scouts? They are open for anyone and everyone no matter gender, race, creed, or sexuality. Explorers have been around for a while, and personally sound much more interesting and practical that any other scouting organization.

Or perhaps we should start a scouting group where sex doesnt play a role at all! Where you dont have to ask little Johnny is hes gay. Because sex does not belong in the scouts. The only reason that being gay will get you kicked out of the scouts is if you make a scene out of it and you make a pass at another scout. But i think in any of the scouting organizations if a scout makes an unwanted pass at another scout they should ba warned, then move to banning from scouts if it continues. I am sure if you just have a gay kid in the scouts and he doesnt go around flaunting his sexuality then he will be fine.

And dont give me any of the "be proud of being gay" stuff. Be proud! Please be proud of who you are, but there are certain times where you should just not flaunt it. Sex doesnt belong everywhere, certainly not scouts.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Etch:
Sex doesnt belong everywhere, certainly not scouts.

---

I think that is exactly the point many posters in this thread have been trying to make, Etch.

------------------
Heather Corinna
Editor and Founder, Scarleteen

My epitaph should read: "She worked herself into this ground."
-- Kay Bailey Hutchinson

I'm afraid when you say things like "...if they stay gay...", and how people wired differently than you sexually are not morally straight, then a closing paragraph claiming that you are not against homosexuals just sounds like the fine print legalese that the radio and TV announcers have to say so fast at the end of the ads.

I ran into a quote a while back that you would do well to remember. "The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision."

I haven't been christian for a long time, but I don't remember that specific theology lesson, by the way, that christians should forget half the book 'because of Jesus'.

And what i said about STAYING gay is the stance that most parents in the boyscouts have. Let me put it another way, if they are showing sexual behavior or intentions that are against policy then they can and likely will be kicked out.

My stance is that the boyscouts are entitled to their own set of morals whether you like it or not. You should not say that it is immoral to believe homosexuality is wrong. Just like they should not say it is immoral to have sex before marriage. Just because their morals are not the same as yours do not mean they are incorrect or immoral.

quote:

---

What if I were to say that I didn't think that rape or murder were wrong, would you also say that was just peachy too, no moral problem.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Etch:
My stance is that the boyscouts are entitled to their own set of morals whether you like it or not.

---

Well thats just it, I don't like it. And I don't want any of my tax money going to a group of that sort. Since the Scouts receive federal funding, they have lost some of the rights that a "private enterprise" would have. As such, I think that if ths Scouts want to continue their policy, they should not be given any Federal money to support such a stance.

------------------
"Verdugo, Engine 14; you can cancel all units responding to this structure fire...this is just a dishwasher gone bad."

quote:

---

Originally posted by Etch:
Or perhaps we should start a scouting group where sex doesnt play a role at all! Where you dont have to ask little Johnny is hes gay. Because sex does not belong in the scouts. The only reason that being gay will get you kicked out of the scouts is if you make a scene out of it and you make a pass at another scout. But i think in any of the scouting organizations if a scout makes an unwanted pass at another scout they should ba warned, then move to banning from scouts if it continues. I am sure if you just have a gay kid in the scouts and he doesnt go around flaunting his sexuality then he will be fine.

---

What, though, is 'flaunting' one's sexuality? I think that there's a different standard applied to homosexuals than to heterosexuals on this matter. For instance, if a straight male talks about a date he was on last night, and the word "woman" or "she" surfaces anywhere in the talk, no one thinks anything of it. However, if a gay male does the same thing, mentioning the word "man" or "he" in connection to it, many people seem to think he's flaunting his sexuality. Granted, scouts won't likely be talking about dates, but you understand my point.

In most settings, I think a straight male or straight female making a pass at a member of the opposite sex wouldn't be considered "making a scene" -- it would just be part of the normal relationship between the sexes -- yet that's how you refer to a scenario in which a male scout makes a pass at another male scout. Yep, I think there's definetely a double standard.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Etch:
Peter, My stance is not against homosexuality...

---

Etch...

I don't know you, your sexual inclinations or anything else.

I do know the words you've typed on the page and those are the words I reacted to. If you mentally edit my posting to include "...the words you write make me think..." at the start or end of each sentence, I'll continue to stand behind them 100%.

If your life is different than your words, please consider changing one or the other. The consistency will settle your stomach better.

Sex SHOULD NOT BE PART OF SCOUTING, gay straight and everything inbetween. I get pissed at my brother when he comes home from scouting and tells me some stupid story a fellow scout told him about some girl. Why are they talking about dating when they should be talking about community service or camping?

I dont go around talking about my dates with anyone unless its in an appropriate situation. I didnt talk about boys when i was in girlscouts. I talked about how I didnt understand how to chrochet the stupid dolly blanket! And believe me, when I was that age I was beyond boy crazy.

And my words never said that *I* believe homosexuality is wrong. My words said that the scouts have a moral stance against it and that is their right so respect their morals like you expect them to respect yours. They dont have to allow homosexuals in to respect your's, and you dont have to condemn homosexuality to respect theirs. All you have to do is not worry about it. If you dont walk into a boyscout troop and say "I am gay" they will likely not give a rip. But i know for a fact that if a boy is always focused on sex or girls they get repremanded in the scouts. So it is not completely one sided here. The only difference is straight boys dont get kicked out because dating girls is not "morally incorrect" to the scouts.

But lets forget all this liberal high mindedness for a second. Lets imagine for a moment that we KNOW we are morally right and they are wrong. Who here would be in favour of getting all Bolshevik on them if we were capable of doing so?

Finally, sex shouldn't be a part of scouting. Over and over you say that, Etch, but that's what you think - not what the Scouts as an organization seem to think. What they seem to think is that homosexuals shouldn't be a part of scouting.

If they banned any other group, there would be a public furor over this, and probably many calls for a revising of the dicrimination laws involved.

And as for the government not getting involved in private groups, well, I'd offer this: In this country, we have laws that protect people against discrimination (on the basis of sexual orientation, religion, race, political beliefs and so many other things) from landlords and businesses. Those people and organizations don't get any public money, yet the government feels it's in the public interest to protect its citizens in those areas...

------------------
"...we're all thinking the same thing/let's not settle for satisfaction/we are women and men of action/let's stop clapping let's start doing/a dream for the teens and in-betweens and twenties yet unseen"
-Braid