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20TH WORLD SCOUT JAMBOREE Sexual shenanigans spice up camp life It's nothing unusual, say teenage visitors Anucha Charoenpo Young love birds share an intimate moment yesterday during a party for participants in the World Scout Jamboree at Haad Yao beach in Sattahip. _ JETJARAS NA RANONG Scouts from Western countries say having sex and forming relationships is common practice among participants at the 20th World Scout Jamboree in Sattahip. They say they are well aware of the risk of sexually transmitted disease and take the necessary precautions. Rob Rolfe, 17, from Britain, said he believed some couples were having sex...

20TH WORLD SCOUT JAMBOREE Sexual shenanigans spice up camp life It's nothing unusual, say teenage visitors Anucha Charoenpo Young love birds share an intimate moment yesterday during a party for participants in the World Scout Jamboree at Haad Yao beach in Sattahip. _ JETJARAS NA RANONG Scouts from Western countries say having sex and forming relationships is common practice among participants at the 20th World Scout Jamboree in Sattahip. They say they are well aware of the risk of sexually transmitted disease and take the necessary precautions. Rob Rolfe, 17, from Britain, said he believed some couples were having sex...

Panel Looking Into Boy Scout Roster Inflation Scouting Officials Deny Wrong-Doing UPDATED: 2:19 p.m. CST January 5, 2003 DALLAS -- Almost three years after federal agents raided the offices of the Boy Scouts of America's large Dallas franchise, a federal grand jury is examining evidence and hearing testimony from government witnesses. The raid came after whistle-blower information that to boost charitable donations some of the organization's salaried recruiters -- with their boss' knowledge -- fraudulently inflated membership rosters for a minority scout program. Scouting officials have repeatedly denied criminal wrongdoing. They have said faulty membership accounting procedures led to...

The United Way chapter of Ventura County, Calif., has decided to stop funding local Boy Scout troops after more than a half-century of support because of the national organization's policy prohibiting homosexual scout leaders. "We were getting allocations from United Way of about $50,000 a year," Dave Graska of the Ventura County Boy Scouts told CBS News late last month. The charity had funded the Scouts for 57 years before it adopted a policy stating it would only fund "agencies that provide services ... without discriminating on the basis of ... sexual orientation." Dave Smith, president of the local United...

Darrell Lambert is prepared for a long struggle with the Boy Scouts of America, one decided by public opinion and not by lawsuits. The 19-year-old Eagle Scout, the subject of national attention after being booted out of the organization last month for being an atheist, doesn't think his recent appeal will reverse his situation. Not soon, anyway. Darrell Lambert of Olalla, who was kicked out of the Boy Scouts for being an atheist, has appealed the decision. But he says he won't go to court. "I'd like them to realize it is the moral thing to do." "I think eventually...

Darrell Lambert, the 19-year-old who was tossed out of the Boy Scouts last month for being an atheist, has asked the organization to reconsider. Lambert wrote a five-page appeal and sent it to the Boy Scouts of America's Western Region office in Tempe, Ariz., on Monday. In the 10 years he has been in the group, he earned 37 merit badges, attained the highest rank of Eagle Scout and was named assistant scoutmaster, a leadership position in his Port Orchard troop. His mother is the scoutmaster, and most of Troop 1531 supports him. If he didn't fight back, Lambert believes...

CAMARILLO, Calif., Dec. 26, 2002  (CBS/AP) After the June 2000 Supreme Court decision which affirmed the Boy Scouts' right to ban gays, about 50 local United Way chapters pulled their financial support - but that's only about five percent of chapters nationwide. (CBS) A Boy Scout is always supposed to be prepared, but the Ventura County, California, scouts were blindsided when, after 57 years, the local United Way stopped funding them, reports CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes. "We were getting allocations from United Way of about $50,000 a year," said Dave Graska of the Ventura County Boy Scouts. The United Way...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The California Supreme Court is considering prohibiting state judges from being members of the Boy Scouts because of its refusal to admit gays, the chief justice said.</p> <p>The move, announced Thursday, comes months after San Francisco's judges and others cut ties with the organization for the same reason. The San Francisco Bar association and other groups recently asked the high court to revamp the rules.</p>

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The California Supreme Court is considering prohibiting state judges from being members of the Boy Scouts because of its refusal to admit gays, the chief justice said.</p> <p>The move, announced Thursday, comes months after San Francisco's judges and others cut ties with the organization for the same reason. The San Francisco Bar association and other groups recently asked the high court to revamp the rules.</p>

Remove God from the Pledge, Abolish the Second Amendment and now, ban judges from Scouting?Is it time to Impeach the Supremes? On my Honor I will do my best To do my duty To God and my country...America... stand up for them! Commenting on Sacramento's Golden Empire Council of the Boy Scouts of America not applying for United Way funding,  council executive Doug McDonald says, "I don't think Scouting has seen its demise or will anytime soon," but he added that acquiring funds is more difficult. One California based organization is not so confident and urges patriotic Americans to draw...

Church grapples with Scout 'gay ban' By Barbara Forster / Correspondent Wednesday, December 18, 2002 Whether First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church will hold events for the Boy Scouts of America is a question without an answer. Although more than two dozen people turned out on Thursday, Dec. 12 to discuss the issue, conclusions are nowhere in sight. In fact, closure was not the goal of the meeting. "Many wish the issue would go away but we want to keep the issue alive in the church and in the larger community," said John Gibbons, reverend of First Parish. "We should...

<p>SALEM, Oregon (AP) -- A state appeals court on Wednesday rejected an atheist mother's effort to prevent the Boy Scouts from recruiting in schools because the organization requires a belief in God.</p> <p>The three-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals, upholding a lower-court ruling, said allowing the Boy Scouts of America to make brief in-school presentations with no religious content doesn't violate the state constitution's ban on government involvement with religion.</p>

Californians protest pro-gay United Way decision A Ventura, Calif., fund-raising drive protesting United Way's decision to stop giving money to the Boy Scouts because of their policy barring gay members has raised more than $30,000 in three weeks. The independent campaign was launched by community leaders and business executives who felt United Way had overstepped its bounds. Organizers of the drive said they will match every dollar that is raised. The money generated has already surpassed what the Boy Scouts' Ventura County Council stands to lose when the county's United Way chapter cuts off its funding next summer. The...

TITUSVILLE, Fla. (AP) - A Boy Scout leader faces charges that he fondled at least three members of his troop and showed them gay pornographic photos, police said. Robert King, 50, was held in Brevard County Jail on $75,000 bail Sunday after police charged him with lewd and lascivious molestation and exposure of sexual organs. King, who is married, confessed that exposed himself and showed the troop members pornography, Titusville police spokesman John Lau said. Lau said King invited at least five boys to his home on Friday under the guise of preparing to build a Christmas float. The boys...

WASHINGTON, Nov 27, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- The Boy Scouts of America will require criminal background checks of new adult volunteers beginning next year, it announced Wednesday. "New volunteers to the Boy Scouts will have to submit for criminal background checks as of this spring," spokesman Gregg Shields said. The checks will be based on new application forms in which the applicant gives permission for the checks to be done, he said. The forms must be filled out by adult volunteers for scouting's varied arms, including Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Explorer. Those who do not get...

<p>The city is allowed to rescind the free berth at the marina because of the group's ban on gays.</p> <p>SAN FRANCISCO -- The Sea Scouts are no longer entitled to a free berth at Berkeley's marina, an appeals court ruled Monday in a decision that lets the city enforce its policy of nondiscrimination toward homosexuals against an affiliate of the adamantly anti-gay Boy Scouts.</p>

FOUNTAIN VALLEY – Ben Narodick, 17, sat in his room studying the criteria for selecting his Eagle Scout project and noted a line indicating it should have a significant and lasting effect. The words shifted his thoughts to Sept. 11, 2001, and the terrorist attacks that left so many people with a lasting sadness and anger. An idea popped into his head: Build a monument in his hometown to all victims of terrorist attacks. And it should include a piece of the wreckage from the World Trade Center. Trouble was, this was a highly ambitious project and Narodick needed to...

WHAT is it about the Boy Scouts that turns folks who celebrate their tolerance into raging busybodies? What is it about the Boy Scouts that changes people who go out of their way not to be "judgmental" into common scolds? What is it about the Boy Scouts that transforms those who fret about somebody else "imposing their values" on society into authoritarians who would use society's instruments of power to impose their values on others? After all, here's an organization that does enormous good for millions of boys. Here's a Supreme Court-certified private organization that doesn't force any child or...

Last week, The Washington Post turned over the left side of the Sunday Outlook section cover to a disgruntled atheist Eagle Scout. In "For Me, It Was Never About God," Rick Weiss, a Post science writer and self-professed atheist, recalls camping and knot tying, and concludes that Scouting is really about learning "practical skills and an earthy self-reliance." Mr. Weiss piously sent back his Eagle badge to Scout headquarters over the Scouts' dismissal of Darrell Lambert, 19, a Seattle Eagle Scout who had declared that, darn it, he did not believe in God after all, so there. A weird sort...

City and Scouts square off over gay rights By David Scharfenberg Daily Planet Staff (11-21-02) Lawyers for the city of Berkeley and leaders of the Berkeley Sea Scouts will square off in a San Francisco courthouse today over gay rights and berths at the Berkeley Marina. The Sea Scouts organization, affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, paid nothing to dock its boats at the Marina for more than 50 years, until the city began charging the group a fee in 1998 because it failed to disown the Boy Scouts’ anti-gay policies. Sea Scouts leaders filed suit against the...