Boy Scouts USA going fundie?

[Rosa]

I never let my boys join scouts (daughter either, but she didn't show an interest). But, I do know of several boys, who were Atheists, who joined local troops. The troops knew they were atheists, but just skipped that nasty 'theist' bit in the oath for them. Also know of other Atheist kids who were turned away by troops. It kinda depends on who is running the local troop.

The problem with the local troops being more welcoming than national is that it means if you get one locality that's not, they can hurt a lot of kids.

Whenever the quality control is coming from the lowest level of an organization, and not the top, you've got a serious management problem.

This has been a big deal for us because my partner was a Scout his whole life and not having our son in kind of breaks his heart. But the alternatives around here aren't very outdoorsy or have their own issues (like the Campfire use of fake Indian stuff, which is especially awful given how many actual native youth organizations we have around here.)

[contrary]

i was a lifelong girlscout, from a long line of lifelong girl scouts.

as i recall from my own scouting days, you are "supposed to" believe in *A* god or *A* higher power, but it doesn't have to be THE god (Whomever that is).

i love GSUSA. i'm glad i have two girls so i don't have to deal with the BSA, because...well...no way on that.

[pomology]

I think Girl Scouts is an organization that seeks to empower girls, and encourages service, independence and self-sufficiency. So since fundies aren't into empowering girls, I can see why GS would be way too secular for them.

Right on, Austin. As a Girl Scout for many, many years I'd say that is exactly what GS does and why fundies wouldn't like it.

[turquoise]

My son was in Cub Scouts for a few years. They met at a church, but the troop itself wasn't particularly religious. There was a requirement to learn about your faith to get the various Cub Scout ranks, but at least in our den, it was very low pressure. You could either work to earn some sort of faith emblem, or you could just talk about it at home with your parents. We did the latter (I think most people did, because it was a lot less work) and it was no big deal.

For Scouts who wanted to do the faith emblem, there were a lot available for different religions---various Protestant denominations, Catholic, Eastern churches, LDS, Islam, Hindu, and Buddhist, among others.

It may vary from place to place, but our group seemed to be pretty relaxed.

[TMS]

There was an openly bisexual teen in my son's BS troop at the last place we lived, and nobody had a problem with it.

[denimjumper]

I'm a Webelos 2 den leader in the cub scouts, so I may have a better perspective on my little corner of scouting.

Scouting is not necessarily Christian. You've got that part wrong. You can be ANY religion and be a scout. There are specific badges for everything from Jewish to Mormon to Hindu as part of a faith committment if you want to earn them.

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Awa ... wards.aspx

Can you be an atheist and be a scout? Sure, but the scout motto includes:

•Duty to God and country,

•Duty to other people, and

•Duty to self

Churches sponsor troops but you don't have to GO to that church to be a member of the troop.

My son enjoys scouting, he likes camping and the activities. One thing I have learned is that every cub pack and every troop of boy scouts is different.

My daughter did Girl Scouts and HATED the girly "let's dance and discuss make up" aspect of her local troop. But other troops did not do this. It depended on the leader.

[contrary]

yeah. i know those girly troops exist, but my troops certainly weren't like that! our leader was big on self-sufficiency, camping, and badgework.

[denimjumper]

yeah. i know those girly troops exist, but my troops certainly weren't like that! our leader was big on self-sufficiency, camping, and badgework.

My DD12 wants to be a boy scout. They seem so much more her personality than the girl scout troop. Most of the girl scouts died out by the time they hit 6th grade anyway whereas that's where the boy scouts take off.

[PennySycamore]

My DD12 wants to be a boy scout. They seem so much more her personality than the girl scout troop. Most of the girl scouts died out by the time they hit 6th grade anyway whereas that's where the boy scouts take off.

Your daughter might want to look into Venturing when she's a bit older. Boys and girls can join Venturing (the old Senior Scouts) when they are 14 or 13 and completed the 8th grade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturing_%28Boy_Scouts_of_America%29

Camp Fire is also coed, but it's not as widespread, unfortunately, as are the Boy Scouts. It is inclusive, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campfire_Girls

http://www.campfireusa.org/index.aspx

[treemom]

Apparently Girl Scouts USA is just too awesome for the Boy Scouts, because they actually encourage girls to, you know, be people.

Girls and women are involved in both Venturing and Sea Scouts. The far more troubling problem for me is that leaders can't be gay.

[treemom]

I don't have any problem with other people having their boys in Boy Scouts, but we stopped supporting them when they made a big deal of not agreeing with teh gay.

This was a huge challenge for us. We have opted to work from the inside because scouts was an organization that we liked overall. I am bothered by their pseduo non-sectarian BS and the gay leaders issue. But we continue to participate in hopes that the more people like us in there that eventually it will change.

[treemom]

It is not that Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is ruled by Mormons it is that a huge part of their youth membership is Mormon. Scouting is the official activity for boys while there is a church sponsored group for girls. With that arrangement it stands to reason that BSA is catering to a huge potion of its customer base. That helps to explain why the BSA has a draconian stance on religion and Gay issues. Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) has always had a separate structure from Boy Scouting in the United States and has always had, contrary to popular belief, a slightly feminist stance. (I have research if anyone wants to see it, I am just too lazy at the moment to pull it all up.)

The thing about BSA is the policy is there but in most troops it isn't followed. My brother has spent a lifetime in Scouting and I truly credit it for breaking him of his nearly pathological shyness and low self esteem. His troop leader was gay and everyone, including council officials, knew. No one cared. He was an amazing leader and volunteered more time than anyone can tally. Even bought a 16 passenger van just so he would be able to drive the troop anywhere and they wouldn't have to fund raise. My brother's troop is not a totally unique case, gay and non-religious leaders all over the place at National Jamboree. I don't like BSA policies but I think the organization is still worthwhile.

While I am on my soapbox about scouting in general one organization that will never see another dime from me is United Way. They have consistently given more dollars to BSA than to GSUSA. There has been an historical problem with a disparity of funding for Girl Scout Troops versus Boy Scout troops. This has historically existed because men were the highest income earners and men were once boys involved in Scouting. My problem is that we are still grappling with that paradigm and United Way is helping to propagate that.

edited for late night typing riffle

I am glad to hear this.

I will say that the reverse is that Girl Scouts fundraise at around the 200% level of boy scouts. And I suspect that is why you see some of the funding differences to. Our council has lots of active Venturing Patrols and Sea Scout Ships where approx 50% or greater are made up of girls and women. So I am ok with the discrepancy in UW funding in our area because we are doing a really good job and outreach in venturing.

I also am not a big fan of GSA precisely for the reason Venturing is so popular around here. They aren't big into high adventuring.

[longskirts]

Girl Scouts have always seemed way to girlie to me. Like they are not so much about empowering girls as teaching them a gender stereotype. Their website actually used to have a lot of stuff like how to flirt, how to kiss, how to get boys' attention. It looks like they've taken that part of the site down, but still... I just don't think they always choose the best messages.

[treemom]

I have a friend who is Buddhist. When he was little, he wanted to be a Boyscout, but the local troop wouldn't let him join because he wouldn't acknowledge a creator. He was invited, through friends at school, to join a troop run out of the local Mormon temple. Had a great time for years, and said they never bugged him about religion.

I never let my boys join scouts (daughter either, but she didn't show an interest). But, I do know of several boys, who were Atheists, who joined local troops. The troops knew they were atheists, but just skipped that nasty 'theist' bit in the oath for them. Also know of other Atheist kids who were turned away by troops. It kinda depends on who is running the local troop.

Officially you don't have to acknowledge a creator/prime mover but rather a diety. Buddhist has no implicit diety so that will pose issues and like you have experienced/heard it depends on the troop. For my son it has been a non-issue.

[treemom]

There are some Boy Scout troops organized by Buddhist temples, particularly those temples of the Buddhist Churches of America which is in the Jodo Shinshu tradition. I do not know how the Buddhist Boy Scouts get around that supreme being thing, though. Yes, there are Buddhist Girl Scout troops and Camp Fire groups, too.

Simply that the Supreme Being is inside them basically.

[Austin]

Girl Scouts have always seemed way to girlie to me. Like they are not so much about empowering girls as teaching them a gender stereotype. Their website actually used to have a lot of stuff like how to flirt, how to kiss, how to get boys' attention. It looks like they've taken that part of the site down, but still... I just don't think they always choose the best messages.

As others have said, that may depend upon the particular troop (or leader). The national organization does not seem "girlie" to me at all, just in looking at their website. I don't see any of the stuff you're talking about.

http://www.girlscouts.org/

[treemom]

Also, while I'm on this subject, don't go saying that you wanted a "Judeo-Christian" girls' organization when there's nothing Jewish about it, since it's pretty evident that you've gone out of your way to excise anything non-Christian from your program. That kind of shit pisses me off so much; aside from the fact that the Jewish and Christian traditions have wildly different attitudes toward and interpretations of some pretty fundamental religious concepts, "Judeo-Christian" is almost invariably code for, "Really just Christian, usually fundie, but we'll call it 'Judeo-Christian' so that we can bat our eyes and pretend Jewish or other people who complain are just intolerant douchebags."

This. Everytime I have heard someone call something a Judeo-Christian concept it is never a concept I came into contact with as a Jewish child/teen/adult but is almost always some BS I heard at Liberty University.

[SquirrelySquirrel]

I'm so happy I have a daughter and don't have to shoot down BSA. I'm not a fan. And she's not the type who would want to join the boys even though they are doing cooler stuff than the girls are (locally).

As for GSA, it's largely dependent on the troop leader. When I did Brownies as a kid, we met in a church basement and did stupid crafty bullshit and ended every meeting holding hands and singing Kumbayah. We never did anything remotely cool and learned nothing. My daughter does want to do this (but she wants to do every darn thing she hears about) and we've told her 'no' right now because she already has 3 extracurriculars outside of being in Kindergarten, and that's enough. From what I hear, they don't do much more than I did as a kid and I haven't been able to discern if the leader pushes any religious agenda on them.

[treemom]

I've noticed the differences between BSA and GUSA when I was young- my school always allowed the boy scouts to do stuff at the school: fund raisers, recruiting, etc- but wouldn't allow any other group to do so except for one presenation done by the CampFire people. Hubby was a boy scout, and made it all the way to eagle scout. I think i've seen his award crammed somewhere in a dark corner of our attic, lol.

My daughter's classmates are in Girl Scouts- a lot of them, and I've gotten a few emails letting me know it is time to join!! eleventy!! and I replied simply that Sevy was more of a sports type of gal instead of a Scout girl. Even if she asks, I probably wouldn't let her join scouts. I just don't feel OK having her be part of something that doesn't seem to "fit" her needs (interpreters are not welcome, I've seen a few fights over this issue with groups like BSA, GUSA, CampFire, etc- sports are a better bet, thanks to the wrestler Hamill and Ashley Fiolek for X-games, who is my daughter's current hero. It's a irony considering Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of GUSA was deaf).

end soapbox rant :)

That is dissapointing. I am glad you have found something that worked for you. I suspect this is another case of crappy local interpretations as we have had interpreters at our cub and boy level.

[longskirts]

The national organization does not seem "girlie" to me at all, just in looking at their website. I don't see any of the stuff you're talking about.

http://www.girlscouts.org/

As I mentioned, it looks like they have taken it down from the national site. But it used to be up there.

[treemom]

There was an openly bisexual teen in my son's BS troop at the last place we lived, and nobody had a problem with it.

The official language is scouts can be LGBT but leaders can not.

[Austin]

This was a huge challenge for us. We have opted to work from the inside because scouts was an organization that we liked overall. I am bothered by their pseduo non-sectarian BS and the gay leaders issue. But we continue to participate in hopes that the more people like us in there that eventually it will change.

I commend your approach, and think it is terrific. Our boys had other options in close proximity that were more inclusive by mission statement or whatever, so that's the direction they chose. And at that time, I was already making waves in the community re: comprehensive sex ed, so I'm sure I was already viewed by some of the other scout parents as an ebil librul. :D

I think that parents with kids in scouting - and the scouts themselves - are the ones who are most likely to bring about change in the organization.

[treemom]

As others have said, that may depend upon the particular troop (or leader). The national organization does not seem "girlie" to me at all, just in looking at their website. I don't see any of the stuff you're talking about.

http://www.girlscouts.org/

It isn't girlie, but it significantly less high adventure than BSA. Which is unfortunate for them because they lose so many to venturing and sea scouts.

[treemom]

I commend your approach, and think it is terrific. Our boys had other options in close proximity that were more inclusive by mission statement or whatever, so that's the direction they chose. And at that time, I was already making waves in the community re: comprehensive sex ed, so I'm sure I was already viewed by some of the other scout parents as an ebil librul. :D

I think that parents with kids in scouting - and the scouts themselves - are the ones who are most likely to bring about change in the organization.

I am not patting myself on the back. A lot of it is because I actually like the boy scouting organization and found campfire to be lackluster. Plus my son defintely is more outgoing, etc in a group of all boys for the moment so it fits him better than a co-ed organizations. He tends to think a bit much about what the girls are thinking about him.

In other words, we do hope we help change the organization but mostly we just wanted Thomas to experience it.

[pomology]

yeah. i know those girly troops exist, but my troops certainly weren't like that! our leader was big on self-sufficiency, camping, and badgework.

Same. I suppose some aspects of Girl Scouts can be girly, but in my experience it never was. Besides, if you earn a Silver, or Gold Award (I earned Silver) you have to do a ton of work not just on your project but to prepare for your project and it's generally an empowering experience.