Scouting for All's Protest At The BSA's Annual Meeting Being Held In Chicago, Illinois May 19-21

Scouting For All ^ | 5/5/04 | Unknown

[RonF]

Location of Events

Hyatt Regency

151 East Wacker Dr.

Chicago, IL

Schedule Of Events

Wednesday, May 19

Press Conference Begins at 1100 am in front of the Hyatt Regency Hotel

Protest All Day in front of the Hyatt Begins at 1200 noon until 5 pm

Thursday, May 20

Protest All Day in front of the Hyatt Begins at 8 am ends 5 pm

Candlelight Vigil in memory of GLBT youth who have taken their lives because they felt like they didn't belong. Time TBA. We will walk from a determined location to the front of the Hyatt Regency with lighted candles. Each light will represent 100s of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth who have taken their lives because they felt rejected, like they didn't belong. Location to meet: A park located north of the Hyatt Regency on Michigan Ave. At Oak St. Near the intersection of Michigan and Lake Shore Dr. Meet at 6 pm

Friday, May 21

Protest All Day in front of the Hyatt Hotel Begins at 8 am ends 3 pm

Togehter We Stand And Together We Will Continue To Make A Difference

We invite community leaders from various groups to step forth and participate with us. Together we stand and together we will continue to make a difference against social injustice. We'd like to have representatives from the GLBT, religious, non-theist communities as will as civil rights groups, PFLAG, GLSEN, and GLBT / GSA youth groups to participate in the Press Conference, Protest, and Candlelight vigil. Please contact Scott Cozza as listed above.

[RonF]

I had to edit the title to make it fit; SFA needs an editor badly.

The BSA, like any other not-for-profit corporation, must have an annual meeting of the corporation. This year it's in Chicago. They spend a few days voting up the slate for the Board of Directors, awarding the Silver Buffalo, giving the Annual Report, talking about the various accomplishments of the past year and the issues they face and the programs coming up in the next year.

SFA is an organization made up of a number of people, including Scouts and Scouters and ex-Scouters and Scouts, who feel that atheists and avowed homosexuals should be allowed to be members of the BSA. Even passing on the issues of homosexuals in Scouting, apparently "Duty to God" and "A Scout is Reverent" didn't register with these people.

Among other activities, they act to put pressure on organizations that support Scouting, trying to get them to stop doing so. For example, on their web site they encourage people to write or call a city council that just voted to donate some money to their local Scouting organizations. SFA intends to show up at the BSA's annual meeting and protest. I'd show up too, to tell them what I think of their position, but I'm going to be out of town (one of my children is graduating from college out east). If any Chicagoland FReepers are so inclined, you might want to check this out.

[Old Sarge]

Old Sarge will not be posting to this thread.

Sarge is currently self-administering stress relief, in the form of gnawing on the corner of his desk, as a result of reading the article.

To say nothing of the physical illness and revulsion involved.

Sarge will be present for duty, once the work order for the desk is filed, and his new upper plate is fitted.

Thank You.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - SECULARIZATION OF AMERICA

[Hodar]

Why doesn't the SFA just start up their own program, instead of demanding that everyone else conform to theirs? I can't imagine that any responsible parent would put their children in their program; but that is another discussion.

[50sDad]

I have a secret confession, a horrible, personal secret that I have kept from all of you, and from everyone I knew in high school. It embarasses me, but it is part of who I am. I knew that if it got out, people would shun me, and stare at me, and rideicule me. It has driven me to dispair, but I cannot hide it any longer.

I always suspected that I was...well...different. This personal, private...tendency...caused me horrible anguish, and made me feel like an outcast from the rest of the kids at school, so much that I am emotionally scarred today. But I have begun to see that the problem is not with me, not with who I feel I am, it is with everyone else who will not accept me for who I am, or even if they do, don't really, not on the inside, no matter how they lie. I have come to realize that we must have legislation that forces everyone to once a day, every day, stand up and tell me that I am accepted. I will no longer hide my secret self, no matter how distasteful it may be to all the outmoded, backward-looking bigots in the world!

Yes! That's right! I am a Trekkie! And I want a big wad of cash, right now!

[gilliam]

Scouting for All has done this every year since before the Supreme Court case against the BSA. Every year they get fewer and fewer people to turn out. Last year, I think they had less than 10. Don't give them free publicity.

[Buffalo Bob]

They took their lives because some pedophile stuck his wee-wee where it didn't belong, and they (secretly) felt ashamed. They were recruited into the Homosexual lifestyle.

[Dutch14]

Moral issues aside, the BSA is a private organization. Therefore, it has the right to make limits on who they choose for troop leaders.

[RonF]

The SFA's position is that the BSA has been hijacked by the right-wingers in Irvine and no longer expresses the principles of the Scout Oath and Law. Inclusion of homosexuals and atheists would restore the BSA to it's original principles. I happen to think they're wrong about that, but that's their position. I suppose it's arguable that an atheist can conform to "morally straight", at least in their actions, but I don't understand how they can reconcile atheism to "Duty to God" and "A Scout is Reverent".

In order for a Scout to be excluded on religious grounds, he or she (yep, girls between the ages of 14 to 21 can join Venturing, folks) has to actively deny the existence of any kind of supernatural influence on this life or the next. "I don't know, I'm thinking about it" is actually acceptable. That answer won't serve for an adult, though. He or she has to actively believe in something. Note that the Youth application has nothing in it about explicitly accepting the BSA's Declaration of Religious Principle, whereas the Adult Application does.

Homosexuality is different. Direct references to it in the BSA's public documents (up to a few years ago) are few. Back in my day as a youth, homosexuality was pretty much equated with pedophilia. It's now the BSA's official policy that this is not true, and that the exclusion of homosexuals is based on moral grounds. What's going on specifically is that the representatives on the BSA's Relationships Committee of the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormons, and others have put it out that if the BSA allows avowed homosexuals to join, they'll strongly consider quitting the BSA.

The opponents of the BSA's policy made much of the lack of public comments from the BSA as to the disqualification of homosexual leaders. But they have to realize that to the majority of people, banning homosexual leaders falls under the rubric of "common sense". The BSA doesn't have an official policy that the leaders can't run meetings naked, either. The policy wasn't written because there was no need to.

Pesonally, I would allow a given unit to have openly gay leaders as long as the leader's status was made known to the parents before their kids joined. Then people would be free to vote with their feet. BSA units can already accept or exclude people in other protected classes (e.g., women), so they should have the same rights to accept or exclude gays and lesbians. Understand that if you live in an area where there are very many Troops and Packs, there's probably at least one unit near you that has at least one gay or lesbian leader. As long as they keep their private lives to themselves, BSA policy is that they are allowed to be members. It's "avowed" homosexuals that are banned, not all homosexuals. What exactly constitutes "avowed" is pretty much left up to the local Councils, as long as the person involved doesn't get their picture printed in the local paper leading the local Gay Pride parade down Main Street in uniform and doesn't give newspaper interviews detailing his or her sexual orientation (this last is what James Dale did).

Homosexual youth members pose a different problem. This is an age where kids are trying to figure how to accomodate their sex drive and sexual identity. This is a program where almost all the kids carry knives and sleep in tents together under stressful conditions. Misinterpretation of sexual signals between mature experienced adults is common. How much more so between inexperienced adolescents? What are you going to do? Ask the gay kids to wear pink triangles? Have the gay kids sleep together? Sorry, we cannot countenance sex between unmarried couples in Scouting for moral and health reasons. Have gay and straight kids sleep together? One misinterpreted comment or gesture and you'll have real trouble. Gay kids do need a program like this, but I don't see how to make it work.

[Ohioan]

The Boy Scouts Of America & A Leftwing Agenda.

[Jonah Hex]

Sorry, Trekkies are officially classed as "Nerds, helpless" in the social classification standards. Since "Nerds, helpless" usually grow up to be "Geeks, techie" and assume control over the corporate infrastructure, they're not considered dis-empowered or oppressed and are ineligible for social compensation.

Some "Nerds, helpless" actually move on to become "Geeks, filthy-rich (see Bill Gates)", some parents actually encourage their trekkie offspring to indulge in their obsession.

By the way, I am not Spock.

;-)

[lilylangtree]

"who have taken their lives because they felt rejected, like they didn't belong"

Because they couldn't recruit others to become queers. Poor babies!(sarc) Now they want to blame a fine, decent organization like the BSA, who refuses to let queers in to recruit other young one. As a mother of an eagle scout, I say keep the queers away from our children.

[50sDad]

I am not Spock.

Well I am. That's my other horrible secret!

[Jonah Hex]

Man, having sex once every seven years has got to be a bummer. That's almost as bad as being married.

;-)

[Hodar]

Bump... And thanks for a very well thought out and reasoned response. IMHO, you are 100% correct on your assumption that the Christian churchs that have (and continue) to go out of their way to sponsor the BSA will withdraw entirely from the program, if homosexuals and athiests are allowed to direct the BSA. This would run diametrically opposite to everything the churches represent, and it simply would not be possible for them to allow their resources to aid such a program.

Without the support of these churches, the BSA will simply collapse, and I think this is part of what the liberals want. The BSA teaches responsibility, discipline, self-reliance, support for our country, and a belief in God. All of these are things that liberals despise.

[Hacksaw]

Scouting For All's national membership:128

National headquarters: founder's garage

Actual scouting events scheduled for the year: trip to Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh

Number of media syncophants 199+E10002

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

I feel your pain - I, too am a Trekkie. But I am also afflicted with a condition far worse. I am the nerdiest of the nerds, the geekiest of the geeks - I am a Dark Shadows fan! Now where's my bundle of cash?

[hedgetrimmer]

SFA intends to show up at the BSA's annual meeting and protest

A play right out of the anarchists cookbook. The idea that you distrupt and destabilize institutions to destroy society has been used with great success by communists worldwide.

Of course the BSA would never disrupt an SFA meeting. They understand that in a civilized society and in our Republic, people are constitutionally guaranteed the right of association, and also understand that creating contempt for society and destablizing it does not promote Americanism or American ideals.

If someone told the SFA, "you are acting like a bunch of communists", how do you think they would respond? Would they admit they know what they are doing?

[50sDad]

On Prarie Home Companion a few weeks ago they said; "Did 'ja hear they're bringing out a Playboy magazine just for married men? It's just like the regular one, except the centerfold is the same one every month."

I love that joke!

[50sDad]

UFO, SPACE: 1999, Randell & Hopkirk (Deceased), Logan's Run (TV), Genesis Two (NOT the one with John Saxon, he was too "James Bond" and ruined the character of Dylan Hunt), anything Harryhausen, The Giant Gila Monster, anything with giant insects...I tell you, I am going to have more money than Bill Gates!

Incidentally, go rent "Matinee" with John Goodman. A great movie, and a great 'period piece' of the early 60's.