Disappointing…
By Glinda
A good friend of my son’s is in a Boy Scout troop (well, Cub Scout webelo, to be exact) and my son has been bugging me to allow him to join the Cub Scouts. He wouldn’t be in the same troop as his friend, but he’s willing to give it a go.
And then they had to come out with this.
I fully realize the Boy Scouts is a private group and can dictate membership as they see fit, but it is very discouraging to see that they promote an official agenda that is discriminatory. Although I did read somewhere that the Boy Scouts do receive money from the Department of Defense, so perhaps they aren’t as totally private as they would like to say they are.
So as a parent what do you do?
Do you try to locate a local troop that may not heartily embrace the “official” BSA party line? I have heard that in my area, many of the troops march to the beat of their own drummers, so to speak.
Do you try to work and change from within?
Or on principle, do you refuse to join an organization that holds beliefs counter to your own?
I’m very interested in what you all have to say.
July 19th, 2012 at 2:18 pm
There are other organizations (4H, Campfire USA, Earth Scouts, etc.) which offer similar activities without this sort of discriminatory nonsense. I think your son is also old enough to understand if you explain to him “They don’t let certain people join, and I think that’s wrong.”
July 23rd, 2012 at 12:28 am
He is definitely old enough to understand that reasoning, he is just currently focused on the Boy Scouts because of his friend.
I’ve looked into 4H, but our local clubs’ times don’t work well for us.
Earth Scouts, here we come! 😉
July 30th, 2012 at 11:08 am
Neither of my boys are in the Boy Scouts for the very reason that they are discriminatory and have made no secret about it for years.