A few days late but no less relevant I'd finally like to take some time to weigh in on the vote a week ago today to allow openly gay youth to be members of the Boy Scouts of America. A decision that was not only totally inappropriate, but also ignored the voice of the membership at large.
There's a reason the National Council didn't put this issue to a direct vote from the membership: it would have failed. A survey of the rank-and-file members of the BSA found that over 60 percent of the membership rejects a change in policy that would allow gays to be in scouting openly. Yet when it came to the vote, the results were entirely flipped from what the rank-and-file support.
Around 61 percent of the delegates choose to ignore the feelings of the membership at large and approve this policy change. According to some reports, no dissenting opinions or viewpoints were
even allowed to be presented to the delegates before they voted, a huge
overreach by national leaders should that prove to be true. This can be equated to the current national feeling about ObamaCare. In a recent survey, 54 percent of voters, including about one quarter of Democrats, support returning to a health care system that is pre-2009. House Republicans have voted to repeal ObamaCare 37 times. So what do Democrats do? They keep on shoving ahead with implementing the program, ignoring the public at large.
John Stemberger, founder of OnMyHonor.Net and a leading opponent of the policy change, cites figures that should be quite alarming for national BSA leaders if (well now, when) the policy change goes into effect. According to his estimates, the BSA is now facing a drop in membership of between 200,000 and 400,000 youth. That does not even count any adults or volunteers associated with those youth. Other figures I have seen include an estimated loss of $44 million in revenue for the BSA. That amount is many times greater than any amount of funding former corporate donors have withdrawn in the past couple of years.
As Stemberger has said in many interviews, Scouts is not supposed to be about sexuality at all. Scouts has never been about banning gays, its been about banning gay activisim, he has said. And he's right. Now that gays are allowed in the BSA openly, sexuality has unavoidably been thrown into the BSA. Under the now outgoing "don't ask, don't tell" policy , if you will, gays could still be scouts and sexuality was never discussed. The focus was on advancing, camping, cooking, hiking, etc.
But now the focus will turn to sexuality. And that's not where it should be. Parents should be allowed to discuss homosexuality and being gay with their children on their own timetable. But now because gays will be openly allowed in scouting, those kids, some as young as 6 years old, could find out about it at anytime, even if the parents aren't ready to have that discussion. Simply put, that is not okay.
Personally I am now winding down my involvement in the Boy Scouts of America, as are my brother and father. I am an Eagle Scout. I still work with my troop as an Assistant Scoutmaster and will be attending my third summer camp as an adult in about two months time. But I cannot continue to be part of an organization that has caved to minority interests, violated its own morals and betrayed the beliefs and values of the majority of its membership. Summer camp this year will be my last for quite a while, if not forever. My father is leading summer camp for the troop this summer and it will be his last major project with our troop. My brother is only a Board of Review away from earning his Eagle and once he does so and attends summer camp, he will be out as well. We may still hang around, but in very limited rolls and we will probably not reregister in January.
Will we ever go back? That remains to be seen but I don't count on it. I eagerly wait to see if there will be a movement to found an organization similar to the American Heritage Girls, an alternative to the now liberally dominated Girl Scouts, for boys, possibly "American Heritage Scouts." I would be willing to contribute the founding of such an organization should the opportunity arise. As for the BSA, it has signed its own death sentence. Things will only get worse, not better. The lawsuits will not stop, cases of abuse will not stop and will probably increase if gay youth attempt to have sexual contact with other youth. And within a few years, groups like NAMBLA will have open access to the BSA. When that happens, abuses will really take off.
Jimmy Williams
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