Posted on 01/02/2008 10:39:29 AM PST by Maelstorm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEOJNw4lmlI
IMHO, it was a lot more than slightly ambiguous and deliberately so.
His answer consisted of three parts: 1) He thinks the Boy Scouts do a great service, 2) he supports them making their own decisions on policy (no to gays in leadership), but 3) he thinks that all people should be allowed to participate regardless of their sexual orientation (yes to gays in leadership).
Me again,
If they aren’t following the 2 deep leadership principle, then they should be warned about that by Council. If Council is run by predominantly LDS, then they need to elevate the issue to Region. That is absolutely unacceptable.
Cheers,
SZ
In some ways, the LDS units have been out front. The LDS started a Vanguard program in 1928, and the BSA patterned the Explorer program after this in 1933. The Varsity program was started jointly by LDS units with BSA participation. It was finally adopted by the full BSA in 1983.
So there has been accommodation and give and take along the way.
Gee whiz—you’re a saint to give it a go. I wonder if one of the reasons the LDS people at my sons’ camp were so protective about others at camp watching what they were doing was because they weren’t allowing the boys to have enough leadership responsibility, etc. When you live with a ward chairman watching you, it’s hard to understand the importance of giving up control to the rank-and-file members. It’s about control and authority. Giving a boy room to fail as well as room to succeed on his own is very threatening to some people. Best wishes to you in your quest.
Interesting for an LDS to take this stance on Scouts.
You play with words, my friend.
A young kid who might think of himself as "gay" should certainly be allowed to participated in Boy Scouts, just like they should be able to attend church, or get a bank account, or join the Republican Party.
That doesn't mean we allow kids to practice or promote their gay lifestyle. The Scouts, with adult supervision, should teach kids to walk the straight and narrow.
Do you really propose we ask all youngsters who would join the Scouts to pledge on their sacred honor that they never entertained a gay thought??
And if they say yes, do we ban them for life?
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Think Mass. Not Utah.
Utah LDS is Scouts
See post #41 from someone who summarizes the clip. It says that Romney supports gay participation in the Boy Scouts.
This is serious.
Romney is now in the same category as Rudy with me. I simply cannot support him if he wins the Republican nomination.
Though I had serious reservations about his Mormonism, I was willing to overlook that if Romney proved to be a genuine conservative; however, what is now obvious is that he is a liberal through and through, and I WILL NOT vote for a liberal simply because he is a Republican.
I’ll see you at the primaries where we vote the RINOs OUT!
I didn’t see Romney differentiating between boys and leaders.
I’m no fan of mormonism either, but that does not mean that Mormons cannot be excellent conservative politicians. But it also means they can be excellent flip floppers, as our friend Mitt is.
I wonder what the FReeper Mormons would be saying if Harry Reid was running.
Reid’s mormonism is not his problem to me. It’s his traitorous politics.
Romney is just as liberal as Reid.
I will not support Romney or Rudy in the primary or general.
This pro-gay, boy scout position of his goes alongside his support for the gay agenda being the law at state level around the nation.
The Boy Scouts cannot tolerate open homosexual orientation in members or leaders without becoming something other than the Boy Scouts.
Mitt just lost points with many conservatives. Face it.
“Translation: Gays should be allowed to participate in Scouting.”
That’s right.
Romney’s statement in 1994 was clearly at odds with the BSA’s policy prohibiting boys or adults who openly identify themselves as homosexuals.
In fact, the BSA publicly rebuked him in the press after he made that statement.
And this is a rare issue on which Romney HASN’T flip-flopped.
In 2007, he refuses to honestly answer the question of whether he still opposes the policy. He says instead that each local Scout council should be free to decide the issue.
Which is nice-sounding feel-good pablum, until you realize that means he still opposes the BSA’s national policy that governs the issue for all troops nationwide.
The president of the USA traditionally serves as honorary national chairman of the BSA as well.
I know a woman who’s a member of Mitt’s own church, who’s also an active Scout leader, and she will not vote for Romney on this issue alone.
The LDS Young Mens Mutual Improvement Association researched Scouting and created MIA Scouts in 1911. In 1913, the LDS church became the first institutional sponsor of the BSA, with the right to run a LDS Scouting program instead of the BSA program. The LDS program is called Latter-day Saint Scouting. The program is NOT the BSA program; the LDS church describes LDS Scouting as affiliated with "Boy Scouts of America (BSA); Scouts Canada; the Scouting Associations of Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain; and other associations in Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa."
The conceptual difference is that LDS Scouting has a specific different goal for the Scouting program. According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Scouting is to help meet "the Aaronic Priesthood objectives of preparing young men for full-time missions, temple blessings, and righteous manhood." The ultimate objective of LDS Scouting is to help young men prepare to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood and prepare to serve a full time church mission.
To meet the LDS church's goals, LDS Scouting differs from BSA Scouting in many ways, including:
My primary contact with LDS Scouting was during the short period I was the Council Commissioner. We tried to create a new position for a Commissioner for LDS units, to meet their specific needs. One problem was that our Council's geographic boundaries were not church stake boundaries. One of the two church leaders (Bishops?) involved did not want the position to exist, and the second leader (the other stake Bishop?) wanted to select the Commissioner and have him report to the church leader.
LDS Scouts, leaders, and Troops are different from BSA Scouts, leaders, and Troops -- but they come from different programs which serve different purposes.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a strong partner of the BSA in Scouting. The LDS program must be meeting the church's needs, because Scouting is still the official male youth program for the church. But . . . it is a different program from BSA Scouting, for better or worse.
Anyone with different knowledge, please correct me. I knew nothing about LDS Scouting when I became Council Commissioner, except that none of the LDS leaders knew how LDS Scouting differed from BSA Scouting, and none of the BSA leaders knew how BSA Scouting differed from LDS Scouting. After working with the program, I know this much (he said, holding his thumb and forefinger about 1/8" apart).
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