Posted on 02/20/2005 12:33:50 PM PST by stm
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. Despite that 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 behaviour 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?
bookmark bump
As an Eagle Scout myself, I can attest to the scouting program's efficacy in keeping adolescent boys on the straight and narrow.
I'm glad that here in America, we haven't given up the fight.
The left is nothing but puke in human form.
That is one very sad story.
But perhaps a new scouting orgainization could be organized in Canada that has none of the PC board members from the old organization.
The whole point was to destroy it anyway. It succeeded in destroying it because the leaders felt a little heat, caved in, which opened the door for it to be taken over and have its throat cut like a tied up goat.
for the ping list
thanks for keeping the list going
And Canadians respond by..................... S.I.L.E.N.C.E....
Whats in the water up there.. valium.?.
Well we've still got the Cadet program. I think this is part of the reason the Scouts have been downplayed in Canadian culture. The Cadets are a more military-like organization and provide even greater opportunities to thier members. For example, Air Cadets have the chance to get both their Private and Glider Pilot Licenses (like I did). And I've met some of my best friends (and my girlfriend) in Cadets. Every other Cadet or former Cadet I've talked to has had the same sort of experience.
Yes, and once again TRADITION bites the dust for
fanaticism based on egoist desires.
Canada.... LMAO!!!
"The left is nothing but puke in human form."
Oh man, that'd make an excellent tag-line!
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It was the first thing the Nazis killed off when they took over. Ditto Castro in Cuba.
But perhaps a new scouting orgainization could be organized in Canada that has none of the PC board members from the old organization.
But perhaps a new scouting orgainization could be organized in Canada that has none of the PC board members from the old organization.
This is a classic illustration of how the anti-human, soul-destroying left goes about "preparing the battlefield" for takeover.
The principle is painfully simple: Destroy existing societal institutions which represent and nurture a sense of community. Hollow them out of their meaning, and let the empty husks fall where they may.
By the time the murderous, ghoulish forces of the Left are ready to crush the community once and for all, there will be little left worth fighting for. The people, too dispirited to resist, will fall like overripe fruit.
Canada as a political entity appears to be close to this terminal condition.
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