The official BSA acceptance of gays as scouts and scoutmaster was worded in a kind of "local option" way, which allowed Church-based troups to set their own standards...so while it changed the national organization BSA's standards, it didn't necessarily effect your local troup.
The wording on transgenderism though is broad--and seems to require all troups to agree.
Of course I agree with you--why would a church want to be connected to a larger organization which accepts and "celebrates" sexual perverts at all? I think it's mainly because the BSA is old, with a great reputation--and inertia kept people from leaving.
That's probably why they so quickly adobted the trany thing too.....BSA figured there'd be no mass exodus. They would be wrong though--parents will not let their sons participate in group that celebrates perversion, I predict a certain--even if slow--death for the BSA.
thanks. I didn’t know none of that. It now makes sense.
amazing what i don’t learn when i only scan headlines.
WBill Jr. is in Cub Scouts. The Community that we're in is *very* conservative, and thus untouched by all of this homosexual/transgender nonsense - but that doesn't stop me from keeping a close eye on things by volunteering and making sure it stays that way....
When he started a few years ago, the pack was around 40 kids. Now, it's 13. We've stopped recruiting at the schools this year, because in the two prior years, we had a total of one (1) kid show up to all of the events. I was in charge of recruiting, and believe me, it wasn't for lack of effort. There's just no interest.
All of the other cub scout packs in the area report similar issues.
I've heard a litany of excuses from various local leaders as to why the drop off... "Video Games" "Afterschool Sports" "Karate Classes" ....yeah, like none of those existed 6-7 years ago. Nope, the only thing that's changed are these new policies. Upper leadership are fools not to recognize it.
I've not pulled WBill Jr. out, because he really enjoys scouting and would look at my actions as a punishment. Additionally, we're really helping the kids who participate - the ones who don't have a Dad in the picture are especially receptive...one kid's Mom was "terrified of guns", so with her permission I taught him how to shoot. Just BB's at the camp range, and archery which I'm abysmal at, but we needed to start somewhere. Once he got over his initial fear - precipitated by his Mom, I'm sure - he had a blast. It was one of the more fun things I've done over the past year.
So - I volunteer, and work my butt off to be sure that all this homo/gender nonsense is kept at arm's length. But at this rate, there won't be any Scouting by the time my grandkid's generation comes along
BSA's flagship program, troops for boys 11-17 years of age, has been in a constant decline since membership peaked in 1973. It has been analyzed to exhaustion, and they are well aware of it. The big bolt from BSA over homosexuality occurred during 2013-14. The National Executive Committee, i.e., ~27 volunteer national officers (virtually all executives from Fortune 500 companies), commissioned a study which predicted the worse case scenario would be a decline in overall membership (all age groups, including adults) would be ~12%. And they were fine with that. Since 2013 when BSA voted at its annual business meeting to amend the membership standard to include open homosexual youth, they went on in 2015 to vote for inclusion of open homosexual adults. Now in 2017 the transsexual barrier has fallen - they didn't even wait to put it to a vote before the annual business meeting in May.
Youth Membership Statistics
Year Tiger/Cub/Webelos Troop
1970 2,438,000 1,916,000
2015 1,261,340 840,654
change -48.3% -56.2%
These numbers agree with you prediction that BSA is dying, but the trend has been in place for ~42 years. What would really be interesting to compare would be the U.S. Census statistics for male youths 10-15 years of age for 1970 and 2010. BSA calls this statistic TAY (Total Available Youth, which they get from local school systems). I imagine it would paint an even grimmer picture.