Boy Scouts of America prohibit Atheists, Agnostics, and Homosexuals.

jayteecork

From today's featured Wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_membership_controversies

Thought this was very interesting, and a complete surprise to me.

Zillah

How else do you plan on stopping the commies?

stevejazzx

Zillah wrote: »

How else do you plan on stopping the commies?

PDN

The Boy Scouts of America is, and always has been a religious organisation (but not specifically a Christian organisation). I would say the homosexual issue is fair game for debate, since not all religions prohibit it.

But why would atheists or agnostics want to join a religious organisation?

5uspect

PDN wrote: »

But why would atheists or agnostics want to join a religious organisation?

It's the militant uniforms TBH.

Coriolanus

One of the main problems with it in the US is that local juniour and middle schools often have rescource-sharing arrangements with the local pack, and while there's nothing wrong with them getting to use the gyms, pools or whatever, there's been several instances of scout recruiters being given classtime in which to promote the organisation. Other problems have been with the same schools refusing LGBT or Humanist oriented students from starting their own chapters in the school, because their organisations are discriminatory. IIRC there were a few courtcases on the whole thing at the start of the 00's.

It's not quite as black and white as that anyway. For one thing, local packs are run by local parents and it's not unknown for policies to be bent and broken to allow for local proclivities. Think about the difference in attitude between grassroot GAA opinion and HQ in recent years.

And as for why an atheist would want to join the Scouts, well, what boy doesn't want to run around a forest at night with a knife? The scouts kicked ass when I was in them as a kid, disregarding the Ár nAthair before and after every meet.

Antbert

PDN wrote: »

But why would atheists or agnostics want to join a religious organisation?

It'd sort of be like if Youth Defence turned me down for membership. I'd be more annoyed if they welcomed me.

Some non-radical Christians should start their own scouts and leave these unpleasant people to make themselves look hateful and unpleasant.

Coriolanus

Antbert wrote: »

Some non-radical Christians should start their own scouts and leave these unpleasant people to make themselves look hateful and unpleasant.

The can and do. There are packs associated with the Japanese-American emigre populace that are tied to Buddhist temples, not christian churches.

Antbert

Nevore wrote: »

The can and do. There are packs associated with the Japanese-American emigre populace that are tied to Buddhist temples, not christian churches.

As religions go, Buddhism would be the least of my worries. But how about making scouts where religion is irrelevant? I'm not asking you personally, as I doubt you have much to do with founding American Scout organisations.

Dades

How do they enforce these rules? Or do they?

I was in the cubs and scouts. Great craic they were too.

Coriolanus

That's the point I'm trying to get across.

CSAHQ is a big monolithic bureacracy that sometimes gets caught up it's own ass. They however have nothing to do with the day to day running of the "packs". They're run by parents and grown up scouts. These people can and do ignore the statues handed down by HQ.

Quint

It explains a lot. Somehow, as soon as religion gets involved, it becomes nerdy and boring. I think Homer Simpson sums them up nicely when he walked in on Bart reading his boy scouts book:
"If it isn't the leader of the wiener patrol, boning up on his nerd lessons"

seamus

Scouting was founded on very religious principles and in particular theistic worship and evangelism.
Some scouting organisations have been slower to change than others, and since homosexuality, atheism and agnosticism are incompatible with all major theistic religions, it would make sense that an organisation which holds theistic principles at its core would disallow such individuals from joining.

It's a bit like complaining that the Roman Catholic church never elects an atheist Pope.

As an aside, the scouting organisations in Ireland were very quick to cleanse themselves of religious control/obedience during the Celtic Tiger era, probably primarily in response to the sex abuse scandals.
They are completely open to all religious faiths (including non-faith, one would have to assume).
This is probably due to the relatively small and primarily volunteer nature of the organisation here in Ireland - in the States, much of the hierarchy are fully paid and the organisation receives huge amounts of money from the various religious factions in each state.

Permabear

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robindch

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Baden-Powell's manual needs rebranding -- Scouting for Boys doesn't mean quite what it did a century ago.

PDN

robindch wrote: »

Baden-Powell's manual needs rebranding -- Scouting for Boys doesn't mean quite what it did a century ago.

If the rumours about Baden-Powell are true, then maybe the double-entendre was deliberate in a Frankie Howerdish sort of way.