Free Republic

Make room, guys. The girls are coming to the Boy Scouts of America's national jamboree. For the first time, female participants will be among the more than 40,000 Scouts and leaders attending the national gathering that occurs every four years. The jamboree runs July 15 to 24 at the Summit outdoor adventure site in southern West Virginia.... Letting them participate was "just the right thing for us to do," Pritchard said. "This was just the next logical step for us to take, to give those members of our program an opportunity to enjoy what we have here as well, to...

Bookmark this thread. In the previous three bibliography threads, I have gathered links to 118 news articles posted on FreeRepublic concerning the decision of National Council to admit "openly gay" children to the Boy Scouts of America. This post rounds the number of threads up to 124, adding six more articles since my last post on June 15.This will be my last bibliography thread for the time being, since the issue has peaked in the news. * * *BSA Bibliograpy Part 4: New group trying to straighten out the Boy Scouts- Gay Scouts question badly misses the point Coach is...

A coalition of youth groups is creating a national organization for boys as an alternative to the Boy Scouts of America, following the Boy Scouts' decision to allow openly gay members to join, The Washington Examiner reported. The new organization will officially launch on Jan. 1, 2014, but will begin chartering new units around the country in November, according to a statement released Tuesday by the as-yet-unnamed group's interim executive director, Rob Green of Spartanburg, S.C. The group will be "distinctly different" from the Boy Scouts, with some similarities, Green said. For example, rank advancements from the Boy Scouts can...

A national coalition, which includes people formerly associated with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) as well as several other partners, announced Tuesday the formation of a new youth organization for boys that is founded on Christian values and principles. "Our vision is to be the premier national character development organization for young men which produces godly and responsible husbands, fathers, and citizens," said Rob Green, the organization's interim executive director, during a press conference call Tuesday. He added, "The new program will be an exciting and motivating outdoor-based program focused on leadership and character development for boys, and founded...

Bookmark this thread. In past weeks I have gathered links to 112 news articles posted on FreeRepublic concerning the decision of National Council to admit "openly gay" children to the Boy Scouts of America. This post rounds up some additional articles since my last post on June 15. Some of the stories were posted more than once; if the duplicates had more than a few replies, I have included them also. While my past two bibliography threads contained stories only about the "gay" scouts decision, for the time being I will link to any Boy Scout story on FR. The...

WH Price of The Spearhead clues us in on Scouting’s self-inflicted woes, as well as their sordid beginnings. If you have always bought into the mythology, this zinger from Price should blow your mind: That politicians and preachers today could talk about scouting as though its origins are godly, clean-cut and wholesome is, quite frankly, hilarious. The origin of scouting has more to do with taking scalps than it does with...

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, one of the largest nonprofit secular groups in America, ran an ad on Sunday in The New York Times asking why the Boy Scouts of America is maintaining its ban on nonreligious members after having changed its policy to now accept gay members. A pro-family group believes FFRF is right in its questioning. "The bottom line is, Scouting has now removed any logical or legal basis for protecting against the inclusion of openly gay scout masters, so in a sense this group is perfectly correct," Rob Schwarzwalder, senior vice president for the Family Research Council,...

<p>BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Four men are suing the Mormon church and Boy Scouts of America in federal court, saying they were sexually abused while attending scouting functions in Idaho.</p> <p>Attorneys Gilion Dumas, Andrew Chasan and Timothy Walton filed the lawsuit in Boise's U.S. District Court on Monday on behalf of the men, who are named only as John Does I-IV.</p>

WINNSBORO, SC (WIS) - Logan Robinson is going to need a bigger sash. He's come a long way in 10 years. Back then he was just a 7-year-old Cub Scout who enjoyed carving polar bears out of bars of soap. "For a 7-year old to have a knife and be carving something, it was awesome," said Robinson. "I was hooked right away." Robinson achieved his Eagle Scout rank by the age of 13. Most scouts quit when they hit Eagle. Robinson was just getting started. "If I didn't have something to focus on, I was just going to fizzle out,"...

Look at the similarities. As Gallia Watch explains, the French video that you can watch by clicking on the link just below this post title shows "the vigil held in Montpellier on the eve of the first homosexual marriage in France that took place May 29 in that city. Les Veilleurs (those keeping vigil), seated on the ground, and singing L'Espérance (Hope), their anthem, are confronted by the pro-gay crowd, standing, visibly more rowdy and drinking, carrying the multicolored banner of Gay Pride". It is easy to see the contrast between the beautiful, peaceful hymn sung by the Les Veilleurs,...

Bookmark this thread. Last week I linked on one thread 89 news articles posted on FreeRepublic concerning "openly gay" children being admitted to Boy Scouts of America. This post provides links to all additional articles posted on this issue since then to June 15 (as of time/date below). Creating this round-up of BSA news is to avoid flooding your in-box with pings as this situation is being hashed out in one or more articles daily. I will continue to follow up on FR postings and ping you once a week or less, unless there is a huge breaking story. For...

I've been advocating leaving the scouts since the vote, but that's the wrong approach. The BSA is worth fighting for. I went last night to the Boxwood Scout Retreat here in Tennessee to pick up my son from a week of scouting. As I looked around at the pristine property on the edge of Old Hickory Lake, and the decades of work it must have taken to build the facilities located there, I realized what a shame it was to give it all up without a fight. The BSA have assets on their books of over $1 billion offset by...

A week after national leaders of the Boy Scouts of America approved accepting openly gay boys as members, an area Boy Scout executive director and CEO announced that he will resign. Rob Green, Scout executive of the Palmetto Council of the Boy Scouts of America, announced Friday that he will resign June 30. The announcement was made in a five-page letter to friends and Scout associates. The resignation letter was anonymously forwarded to media outlets. Green confirmed his resignation to the Herald-Journal, but did not want to be interviewed. (To read the letter from Rob Green to friends and associates,...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) -- Caterpillar Inc. is no longer giving money to the Boy Scouts because the organization discriminates against homosexuals, a spokeswoman for the Illinois-based heavy equipment manufacturer confirmed Thursday. The company's move wasn't directly tied to the recent Boy Scouts decision to continue to bar homosexual adults from roles within the organization while allowing openly gay children to be scouts. Instead, spokeswoman Rachel Potts said, the company decided to cut off funding while reviewing a request for $25,000 that came in last year from a local group in Illinois. That decision was never announced publicly or communicated to...

Boy Scouts of America says it is disappointed Caterpillar Inc. will no longer give money to the group. But public relations director Deron Smith on Thursday thanked the Peoria-based heavy equipment manufacturer for its past support. Caterpillar spokeswoman Rachel Potts said Thursday that the Caterpillar Foundation has decided to withdraw its supports for Boy Scouts of America. Potts says the company believes the group's policy barring homosexual adults from serving as scout leaders is discriminatory.

The Southern Baptist Convention approved a resolution Wednesday expressing its opposition to the Boy Scouts of America’s new policy allowing gay Scouts, though it doesn’t explicitly call for churches to drop all ties with the organization.While some action against the Scouts was widely anticipated, given the denomination’s very public opposition to the change, the resolution takes a softer tone than many had expected. It also calls on the Boy Scouts to remove executive and board leaders who tried to allow gays as both members and leaders without consulting the many religious groups that sponsor troops. It passed overwhelmingly, but not...

HOUSTON (AP) - Southern Baptist Convention leaders have proposed a resolution expressing their opposition to the Boy Scouts of America's new policy allowing gay Scouts. The resolution also calls on the Boy Scouts to remove from executive and board leadership the individuals who earlier sought to allow gays as both members and leaders without consulting the many religious groups that sponsor Scout troops. While the resolution does not recommend that Southern Baptists drop ties with the Scouts, it expresses support for those churches and families that decide to do so. It also encourages churches and families who choose to remain...

The persecution of the Boy Scouts is just one more example of how pernicious it is to argue that tax exemptions equal governmental endorsement and subsidization. Our civil society is supposed to be diverse and tolerant. If our nonprofits aren’t allowed to hold sharply different points of view, to teach their members different outlooks on life, to disagree about the best ways of life, then our nation has ceased to be free, much less tolerant or diverse. ... Amazing, isn't it, that a gay rights group is attacking the Boy Scouts in a way that the Bull Connors of Alabama...

For Dennis Ebersole, the fallout from the Boy Scouts of America's decision to change a century of policy and allow openly gay Scouts to participate wasn't long in coming. "Within 12 hours of the announcement that the membership standards resolution had passed, I was contacted by five other members in my pack leadership committee, questioning whether they were going to continue Scouting," said Mr. Ebersole, a den leader with Cub Scout Pack 282 in South Riding, Va. The reaction was equally quick for Gary Hiden, an assistant scoutmaster of Troop 268 in New Market, Md., who has been involved with...

Do not suppose that your enemies will be placated by your surrender. You will be pressured to accept openly homosexual scoutmasters, then “transgender” girls who say they are boys or the Prince of Wales or male aliens from Alpha Centauri 3, then girls generally for all your programs, as they’ve done in Canada, only to see their membership go the way of the Church of Canada, since no one will stand up for someone who stands for nothing. 
 You have betrayed your friends to assuage your enemies. May they treat you more handsomely than you have treated us.