Posted on 08/15/2004 9:05:41 AM PDT by BraveMan
Scouts Canada ceased to serve any useful purpose the day they became all-inclusive, all-sensitive, and all-tolerant.
Big Canadian real estate is on the market. A rather sizable chunk of Lord Robert Baden-Powell's Empire is available for investors, homebuilders, fishing resort prospectors, or blacktop barons. Scouts Canada is pounding in "for sale" signs at the entrances of a number of Scout camps across the country, including at least twenty camps in Ontario. But don't worry. No Boy Scouts will mourn the loss of their summer camps, for the Boy Scouts of Canada no longer exist.
Thinking they could become more inclusive, the Boy Scouts of Canada Board of Governors decided in November 1998 to admit females, atheists, agnostics, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals into troops. Although established troops were not even allowed to remain all-male groups, Scouts Canada approved the establishment of the world's first all-homosexual troop in 1999. The troop marches in homosexual pride parades and loudly symbolizes what Scouts Canada calls its commitment to diversity.
Scouts Canada's new non-discrimination code reads: "Scouting is a worldwide, multicultural movement. We welcome people to membership regardless of gender, race, culture, religious belief, sexual orientation or economic circumstances. Youth members are strongly influenced by the behavior of adults. We need to be sensitive to the traditions and beliefs of all people and to avoid words or actions which "put down" anybody."
And so, in its attempt to include everybody and everything, Scouts Canada is effectively dead.
Budgets have run dry. Troop halls and old campsites sit vacant. Professional staff salaries are severed. Membership is mostly decimated. In the past, membership roles consistently exceeded 300,000. Around the peak in 1965, there were 320,000 Boy Scouts. Today, despite a one third population increase in Canada over four decades and a doubling of the demographic possibilities (with female members), Scouts Canada has dwindled to a puny 130,000 and it is rapidly declining.
Open to all, there is a certain liability that accompanies the mixture of sexes and sexual preferences at Scout Camp. It is no coincidence that Scouts Canada's costs for liability insurance against sexual molestation claims increased dramatically by 2002 when, lacking adequate finances, Scouts Canada canceled its sex abuse insurance, and with it many "high risk" activities. Without the insurance, a single pedophile could potentially annihilate Scouts Canada forever.
Esprit de corps has evaporated. Last year, wearing a uniform at official Scout events became optional. Scoutmasters were deprived of the authority to demand the wearing of uniforms. "It's time to stop bickering about the clothes we wear," said Ms. Bonita Brick, chair of the National Scouts Youth Committee that handed down the uniform decision. "Accept the reality of change."
It seems that change is not so attractive to the traditional core of Scouts Canada. "It is disheartening. Everything seems to be going down and down," laments veteran Scouter Bill Stauttener, who manages Union Marsh Scout Camp which is set to go on the chopping block.
Eastern Ontario's Camp Apple Hill is expected to sell for just $30,000, a bargain considering that it is 300 acres. "It's very heartbreaking and very distressing," says three-decade Scout leader Pat Tugwood.
It may be a sad affair for some who've been around Canadian Scouting for a while, but I say good riddance to Scouts Canada. They ceased to serve any useful purpose the day they became all-inclusive, all-sensitive, and all-tolerant. The Scout Oath and Scout Law are obliterated in the land of the red maple leaf north of Parallel 49.
It is doubtful that this organization can be resuscitated. Political correctness, having infected whole institutions, does not easily reverse. But we Americans might well consider this malady and contain it at the border.
"In meeting the challenges of a multi-faith society which is increasingly gay-positive, the [Boy Scouts of America] might follow the lead of Scouts Canada," urges a writer at ReligiousTolerance.org. And thus the far Left attacks the Boy Scouts of America, relentlessly for the past two decades.
There are prices to be paid by the BSA for standing on traditional moral values, but none so severe as this eulogy of Scouts Canada. In America, United Way funding may be cut, cities and school districts may abandon the Scouts, courts may order the Scouts to leave public property. But so long as the Scout Oath and Law remain intact, the Boy Scouts of America can survive.
Goodbye, Scouts Canada. Political correctness is sure grand, eh?
And atheist youth groups "discriminate" against believers. What's your point?
Name one, if you would. And if they are totally private it is their right.
Oh, so "discrimination" is only wrong when perpetrated by religious people but is a "right" when atheists do it. Thank you so much for clearing that up.
Go to the American Atheist website. They have a full time youth director.
It is their right. It's also the right of the Scouts to set their own standards as well.
A tax exemption is not a subsidy, by the way. The idea that it is comes from the socialist worldview that all money belongs to the state. Nor is allowing an organization to use public facilities an endorsement.
This mandatory tolerance crap is just another form of totalitarianism. No wonder so many all-encompassing despotisms are atheistic.
I could go along with that on a federal level, but only if taxes and the government were reduced to levels allowed for by the constitution. If the government were just a minor player in our lives that ran the court system, minted our money and guarded our borders against invasion then tax funding and public facilities for the Boy Scouts would not be an issue. When the government is involved in virtually every aspect of our lives however, saying that an organization must exist completely outside of it is discriminatory in itself. If you're going to cut off funding for the Boy Scouts for religious reasons, then by the same logic you should cut off medicare and medicaid in Catholic hospitals, AA, military chaplains, student loans, the GI bill and probably half of all other government programs.
gcruse - is using 'troll' statements to pose a false argument and stir up emotions.
The basic rational for any kind of public (or governmental) support or funding is and should be based on the contribution a group makes to society as a whole. BSA (as well as religious groups, in general) are considered to contribute to and benefit society - that is the justification for public monies and support. Restrictions in membership on the basis of religion, sex, behavior, achievment, etc. are entirely justifiable based on the aims of the organization - you can't force a synagogue to Bar Mitzvah a 13-year old Muslim (as much as gcruse may 'feel' for the poor boy) or force a minor seminary to take in an atheist to study for the priesthood. However, tax breaks and government preferences exist for both.
gcruse should take some time to mature in its understanding, argument structure and questions.
I didn't see the opening ceremony, don't have a TV. I consider that secular humanism, or whatever people want to call it, stems from the rebellion in the human heart against the natural authority of God's supremacy. It seeps out and creates various atheist, utopian, and relativist philosophies, each of which is founded upon a basic internal contradiction - that there is no supreme authority, yet the propounders of said atheist philosophies present themselves and their world view as "right".
If such relativists really believed in relativism they would never say a word about anything (other than, for instance, "pass the mustard, please"). And they certainly wouldn't debate with honest monotheists.
>>Works for me. Just don't look for any public funding or special taxpayer treatment.
So, that is only to be expected for purely secular organizations? In many cases today, these are de facto anti-religious in nature, preaching a doctrine this is its own "religion".
Spot on, and I didn't mean the ancient Greeks invented humanism, but that their civilization celebrated it and passed it on as a philosophy to the modern world.
If such relativists really believed in relativism they would never say a word about anything (other than, for instance, "pass the mustard, please"). And they certainly wouldn't debate with honest monotheists.
That is the most clever and succinct expression of what I've been trying to say that I have ever read. Kudos!
Define "special public privileges". That's a pretty vague term. Do you mean to imply you don't believe they have the right to utilize any public facilities?
Actually I don't think a group should need to contribute to society to use public facilities. So long as they are members of our society and their actions are not hurting anybody then they should be able to use the facilities that are available to the public. If the local rocket club or Dungeons and Dragons players or even the local Pentecostal prayer group want to use the meeting room in the library or the picnic area in the park and they make the proper reservations, then more power to them. They pay their taxes and they should be able to make use of the public facilities so long as they play by the rules.
Just a further reflection of what has happened to Canada as a whole.
A once-great country has gone to total s**t due to rampant liberalism. That's a fact. Been there too many times; seen it with my own eyes.
Thank you kindly.
Of course, I consider any ability anyone has is simply a gift from God, so I can't take any credit. It's how we use our gifts that counts!
Calm down, take a few deep breaths, and remember that the world is essentially meaningless. Then you can stop hyperventilating over subjective moral hang-ups (about "honor," "taxation," "rights" or anything or any other such groundless societal or personal conventions) and concentrate on (as Little Jeremiah so aptly suggests) things like "pass the mustard please."
Good gravy, you act like your trying to save your "soul" or something. Or perhaps those of your opponents.
Would an ant get all worked up about these things?
No, but government money spent on Catholic hospitals helps subsidize that religion.
Boy Scouting's doom was sealed when they allowed women and girlie-men into positions of authority
Wow. Just . . . wow.
I've never seen anyone's stream of thought engage in a move like that before.
Aren't you dizzy after something like that?
Besides, life is merely a combination of biochemical reactions. It means nothing. Stop worrying about things.
Uh uh uh, no such thing as "should."
But at least it's good to know you don't think secular schools should be teaching religious things like "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not steal." I just hope you don't think they should teach your hang-ups about where your taxes go. That would be hypocritical and inconsistent.
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