Posted on 10/20/2012 3:41:29 PM PDT by redreno
PLEASANT HILL -- A gay teenager denied his Eagle Scout award because of his sexuality turned in an online petition with more than 400,000 signatures Wednesday urging the National Boy Scouts of America to change its policies against allowing gay members.
Ryan Andresen of Moraga marched into the front office of the Mt. Diablo Silverado Council on Ellinwood Way along with his parents and a former member of the same Boy Scout troop who came out as gay two weeks ago. Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, also attended and presented Andresen with a resolution honoring his achievements with the Boy Scouts.
"It went about as expected," the 18-year-old said of the meeting with Alan T. Young, the program director for the Council, which oversees Andresen's troop. "I did get a chance to ask what I wanted. I didn't choose my sexuality, just like he didn't choose his. So I asked what made me any less adequate than him. He didn't answer. That says a lot."
Andresen collected 410,564 signatures on an online petition his mother, Karen, posted on Change.org after her son, a student at Maybeck High School in Berkeley, was denied Eagle Scout status after revealing he is gay. Young did not address the media directly, but his office issued a statement that said Andresen was denied his Eagle Scout status because "he does not subscribe to (Boy Scouts') Declaration of Religious Principle' and does not meet Scouting's membership
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
please love me, i’m a butt pirate, please accept me and tell me i’m wonderful and great just the way i am. also by doing so you’ll admit you’ve been wrong all along.
Joining is voluntary.
If you don’t like the rules of the organization, go to another organization.
Also, let’s just enjoy the irony or hypocrisy that homosexuals are pushing to loosen the rules of perverts in the BSA in the same week that the BSA files of abuse are released to the public.
Homosexuals target boys who are troubled. They’ve been known to hang around them for years before making an overt move. Studies show that homosexuals targeting boys is the norm among them. So I think pin pointing a first homosexual encounter wouldn’t be possible.
He can’t be an Eagle but it seems to me he is qualified to be a Bluebird.
Yes, CNN was trashing the scouts hard because of those files.
Wonder how many lives they plan to ruin.
Bill’s a heck of a Scout ;-). #2 son will have his Eagle project underway before the end of this year, and then we have a long break because the next son is only 10 (Webelos 2, “Ice Dragons Patrol”).
Boy Scouts is a great organization for the whole family. We only wish that, as in most countries, boys and girls did parallel programs within the same organization. Practically everyone I know with Girl Scouts experience would like to have Packs or Troops of girls doing the same program as the boys!
No
You do choose your behavior though.
Very interesting since I had a similar experience when I was 15......I'll relay it when I have more time.
Not homo.
Mine ‘s signed by that POS too. But at least I have “earned in the Bi-Centennial Year” stamped on the certificate. That means more to mean than a worthless signature.
So.... he got 400,000 plus online signatures from faggies or faggie enablers?
Now, THAT’s sickening!
Amen!
It was drilled into me at my Eagle Board of Review that once you’re an Eagle, you’re ALWAYS an Eagle. Still live my life with the Scout Oath and Scout Law daily.
So.... he got 400,000 plus online signatures
___________________________
300 million people
one one-thousanth of one percent of the population of the US. No big deal.
Yep - there is a local candidate for City council who was molested in 1989. He got a lot of press last night pointing to the files on the SF ABC news. No discussion about how BSA is trying to protect youth.
Fact is that the mid 80s was a turning point for BSA on this front. What we do today is a vast improvement. One thing that is paramount now - report ANY accusation immediately to both BSA AND appropriate public authorities.
i say DONT give him an Eagle award. Note I am a Scout Master and my Council just avoided being married to the council involved with this stuff a couple weeks ago.
Fact is that if he had NOT come out as gay, he would have received the award. The official policy on such things is literally don’t ask - don’t tell. We don’t go looking for it, and will only enforce the rules if the youth insists on informing us in some fashion that he is gay/athiest.
"Gay" denotes a lot: not just "orientation" (which is, in itself, unbidden) but also a kind of outward identification, a social agenda, a politics, a self-selected community, even the cultivation of a certain set of expressions, styles and behaviors which constitute a subculture. That part of it is chosen; and the BSA has a right to say, "But not with us."
Would the Boy Scouts, say, have to OK a female award recipien or leader? One who made a point of saying, "Along with my other qualificatgions, I'm also interested in sexual relations with males?" And if not, why should they have to accept a male who says the same?
If nothing else, it sounds like they have a case for denying him the Eagle Award since he didn’t complete the requirements before his 18th birthday. That’s a hard and fast rule. Even homos don’t get to break it.
He probably wants to be a Scout leader himself one day, so he can take little boys off into the woods.
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