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?
Don't you love it when a plans comes together?
I don't know how Christians or anybody else can justify excluding nonreligious kids from Boy Scouting, either.
But that's not what happens, and you know it!
I've heard Michael Moore say exactly the same thing.
Your position in this thread is that of a politically-correct multiculturalist facist. No appreciation for or acknowledgement of institutions that built this country, and that have operated in a positive vein for many decades. Just tear the BSA down in the interests of the homosexual agenda, godless atheists, and the values-averse.
I can only go by what I read. I have no personal knowledge of the practice. My kid was BEAVER for pete's sake. That's a Canadian version of cub scout. Their salute was to curl up two fingers and make a clawing motion. At least that's how I recall it. It's been a long time. :)
Hey, I'm worse than that! Basically, as long as they aren't getting my taxes or special public privileges, they can do what they want. Is that cynical or what?
Why do you feel the need to put words in other people's mouths?
Who can? Apparently not everyone has the right to do this. You rationalistic types trumpet loudly that "man doesn't need G-d to tell him right from wrong" and then when a fellow human exercises his evolution-given "right" to invent a moral code you start screaming bloody murder, as though there were some "objective" moral standard that exists outside human invention.
You decide to live by "live and let live," someone else decides to obliterate whole populations . . . what's the dif? Both of you are doing what "seems right to you." Does the obliterator need to check with you as to what is right and wrong? Can't he decide for himself? Or do you think that people like you have some special "right" to decide what is right and wrong for everyone else because your "rationalism" gives you a "clearer view of reality?"
C'mon . . . you don't believe people have souls! What does it matter if someone discriminates or litters or wipes out an entire country? There can't be any metaphysical consequences. After all, it's not like people have "souls" or anything, is it?
Ever since your prececessor Jefferson you people have been claiming that your own subjective moral hang-ups are "self-evidently" true.
Unintended Consequences.......
I was just trying to figure if the answer was yes or no. It sounded like yes. People seem to dance around rather than own up to what they are supporting in this case.
I still thinks boys (and guys too!) need a place where they can be guys without women (and girls) giggling at them. (kinda like the military...)
Wish I had some extra $$$ to make a property purchase. Would make a great lodge for family and summer guests to enjoy.
"...wondered how Christians can justify excluding nonreligious kids..."
...wondered how people-who-are-concerned-about-their-country can justify excluding non-patriotic kids...
If you are suggesting that people can have values, apart from getting them instilled by religious or other indoctrination -- just what might those values be? And where would one go about getting them? (Being someone who considers himself respectful and reverential, but not overly religious, I would really like to know.)
If you were setting up an organization to reward children that you thought should be recognized and encouraged for something, what would that something be? Hmm?
My kids were beavers, too. There was no religiosity associated with Scouting, and never has been, AFAIK.
There may well be local Scouting groups more centered around church than most, but I'm sure that state-wide bodies can prevent that from getting out of hand.
Just because they're tenting doesn't mean it's a revival meeting!
The modern State, in Canada, the U.S., and elsewhere, is determined to destroy all social institutions not under their ideological control.
Orwell was right - us moderns are simply too stupid to get it.
This is not about multi-culturism.
This is about destroying a org. that instilled morals and values in boys.
Homos have won in Canada.
"Merits?" Are those "self-evident" too?
This is not happening in a vacuum. In the US, the Jaycees, the Lions, and almost any volunteer group you can name is losing membership, most of them down to critical mass where the next step is old-timer reunions with no current activity. The Canadian Scouts are not unique with this problem.
Please see #96.
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