Category Archives: Boy Scouts

Twin Brothers To Face Different Treatment From Boy Scouts

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Liam And August Easton-Calabria, Twin Brothers, To Face Different Treatment From Boy Scouts.

I wrote a long diatribe on this the other day for a Scouting for Equality post on Facebook, because the Boy Scouts incense me.

I’m sure it was because I was a Boy Scout. Patrol Leader. Order of the Arrow. One of a league of Eagle Scouts-in-everything-but-name who didn’t finish their Eagle Project on time and so stupidly lost out on calling themselves that. Also, gay.

Scouting has shifted to a crazy right-wing organization that bears no resemblance to the organization that I knew and respected. Scouting taught me to stand up and be counted, to tell my own truth, to always remember that a Scout is brave.

There’s no bravery in what Scouting says to these brothers.

Boy Scouts’ Gay Debate — Religion Beyond the Right

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“I find it perplexing the way the ‘moral values’ phrase is used,” said the Rev. Mark Greiner, the pastor at the Presbyterian church that Ward attends. “Concern for the environment, concern for workers’ rights: those are moral values,” he told me. “But the phrase ends up being limited to matters of human sexuality, as if Jesus was primarily concerned with what people did with their reproductive parts. It’s crazy-making.” Greiner wants the ban on gay scouts and leaders lifted.

via In the Boy Scouts’ Gay Debate, Religion Beyond the Right – NYTimes.com.

From Frank Bruni’s excellent column in the Times. It’s a great quick read. I am so appalled and disgusted at the Boy Scouts of America I just can’t see straight.

Boy Scouts Gay Policy Decision Delayed

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Boy Scouts Gay Policy Decision Delayed.

GetImgVlt1.aspxWho’s shocked by this? Yeah, me either.

Back in the day I was a Boy Scout. I was an Eagle Scout in everything but name. I loved scouting. It taught me just about everything I needed to know to be a good man.

The Scout Law says,

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. There’s no asterisk that says “except if you’re gay.”

Maybe the organization can wrest itself away from the far, far right that has co-opted it in recent decades and made the Scout Oath and the Scout Law meaningless. Let’s hope.

After all, remember: a Scout is brave.

Gavin Newsom: Honoring the True Principles of the Boy Scouts

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In defending this hurtful and discriminatory policy barring gay youth and leaders, the Boy Scouts of America are simply standing on the wrong side of history. And in doing so, the Boy Scouts are hurting the very people that it aims to serve: the young men who participate in scout programs.

via Gavin Newsom: Honoring the True Principles of the Boy Scouts.

Terrific piece on HuffPo today by California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom. He’s bang on the money. As a gay man and a former Boy Scout, I can tell you this: today’s scout leadership is defying the very principles that Scouts are supposed to life by.