[Sacajaweau]

Call it anything you want....the kid is solicitating for homos.

[Procyon]

5% of scouts attain Eagle Scout status. It takes, on average, 4.5 years to earn it. The average age upon award is 15.5 years. My understanding is that the cutoff age is 18. If you are that age aren’t we talking about mixing foxes with chickens, especially if the fox is thinking he’s gay? The assumption is that a “clean” scout is celibate. Methinks this young man needs to put away childish things and move on.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The BSA is right to turn him down, but I feel sorry for him because he is confused. If he just was dealing with unwanted homosexual ideation, he could have dealt with it privately with counseling (spiritual or psychological) or at least without self-advertising. But to publically announce oneself as "gay" is to announce, not just an inward leaning, but an outward advocacy.

"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?