Eagle Scouts - Boy scouts of America

[Edward]

Bryn you don't have the same haircut as Mom. Her hair is short in that picture.

Seriously though, I guess I ought to say something noble about scouting since I'm now the only Scout not to have done so. I say, the church says to do it, so I do it. They said be a Scout, and I was. 'Nuff said.

Frankly, I'm glad I did. Sure, I'm the only Scout who hated camping, was scared of fire, and couldn't tie knots, but there was so much more than that--concepts such as patriotism and honor are vanishing from our society as "liberty becomes liscence" in a world of degrading morals and ideologies. Scouting teaches more than just discipline and wilderness skills. It requires, in plain, regulatory rules, that Scouts learn principles of citizenship and government, environment and conservation, family values and personal finance, medical skill and leadership traits--and that's only from the few required merit badges. It compels Scouts to pursue interests and adopt more, and opens their world to a greater view of society. I believe its existence is inspired, and of much greater influence than Baden-Powell ever could have anticipated, and I am sure he was guided in his efforts to create the scouting program.

[Ian]

This thread makes me proud to be an American. My sincere hope is that we may all do our duty to our country, because really, we are all scouts. Long live America, from sea to shining sea.

[Ian]

ok, that last post was sarcastic, i just wanted to use the new emoticons.

[Tuly]

Some of you might have heard that I'm back in scouting in our stake primary. I just took the on-line youth protection training. Even if you don't have sons it's just good training to protect all of our children. I got trained at the ocbsa.org website ( you don't have to be BSA member). It only took 30 minutes, at the end you get a cool certificate.

[Tuly]

I just finished our stakes 11-year old scouts 5 mile hike ( which I did not get to go with the boys and leaders, because Emma needed to be dropped for her gig). I organized it and met then as they returned. I wore my scout shirt. When I put it on it brought so many wonderful memories to me. I love scouting and what it stands for in its truest form. I'm so excited for my grandsons future in scouting. I am a scouter!

[Tuly]

Unfortunately I have been some what inactive about what is to happen to Boy Scouts of America this coming Wednesday 2/6. This article cleared up some misconceptions and now is time to act.
This is from United Families International blog. They as well as other organizations added this phone list.

New Meaning for “Morally Straight”
In Homosexuality, Parenting on January 30, 2013 at 11:31 am

Carol Soelberg

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) will announce next week whether they will retain a long-standing policy of not allowing homosexuals to serve as volunteer leaders or whether they will now allow individuals who are openly homosexual to participate in the scouting program.

The Boy Scouts of America have been under attack from homosexual activists for many years and with integrity and courage, they have withstood the onslaught, but it appears the unrelenting pressure has weakened their resolve. A January 28 statement from BSA leadership offered this explanation:

“Currently, the BSA is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation. This would mean there would no longer be any national policy regarding sexual orientation, but that the chartered organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting would accept membership and select leaders consistent with their organization’s mission, principles or religious beliefs. BSA members and parents would be able to choose a local unit which best meets the needs of their families… The policy change under discussion would allow the religious, civic or educational organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting to determine how to address this issue. The Boy Scouts would not, under any circumstances, dictate a position to units, members or parents.”

Some would say that allowing each Scout council and each troop the option of determining whether or not to allow homosexual participation in the program is an acceptable compromise. But those with that attitude and understanding fail to recognize that this proposed change to the Boy Scout policy would signify acceptance, normalization, and validation of behavior that many individuals find unworthy of the stated goals and mission of the Boy Scouts.

Whether or not a particular troop chooses to allow homosexual volunteers and leaders, this potential change in policy puts all parents and their children in the untenable position of paying dues and allegiance to an organization that has now given the stamp of approval to same-sex behavior.

And what will happen to each of these individual councils and troops should they choose not to follow BSA’s lead to accept and endorse same-sex behavior?

Tony Perkins of Family Research Council warns:

“The BSA would peel away the national prohibition on open homosexuality and pass the political hot potato of “sexual inclusion” to individual troops–most of whom won’t have the financial means or the will to beat back the coming onslaught. A new policy would only shift the attention to local councils, who would be under unfathomable stress to fall in line with BSA headquarters. And as homosexual activists well know, it will be a lot easier to pick off one council at a time than to take down the entire Boy Scouts of America.”

One of the main concerns regarding this change in policy would be the destruction of parental confidence in what their children are being exposed to as they participate in Boy Scout programs. We recognize that there are well-meaning homosexuals who desire to be a part of the scouting movement. But when one defines himself by his sexual practices that changes perception and alters the terms of natural male interaction. Innocent boys will too quickly become not so innocent as sexual orientation, of necessity, becomes a part of troop dialogue and culture. Involvement in scouting has been a protection from sexual preoccupation not exposure to it.

This possible change is not something that the majority of Americans would like to see. A recent Gallup Poll showed that only 42 percent of Americans support a policy of allowing openly gay adults to serve as Boy Scout leaders. If a poll were taken of strictly parents with sons participating in Scouts, I am certain that level of support for gay scout leaders would drop substantially lower. One has to wonder who BSA is trying to serve – corporate sponsors and gay activists or the boys and their parents – the people the Boy Scout organization exists for.

United Families International continues to value the values of this 100-year-old-organization that has done so much for young boys and men, but we view this possible change as comprising those values and places BSA supporters in a position of compromising their own if they remain in association with the Boys Scouts.

Please email the National Offices of the Boy Scouts at: nationalsupportcenter@scouting.org

Select BSA Board Members:

* David L. Beck: (801) 240-1000
* R. Thomas Buffenbarger: (310) 967-4500
* Keith A. Clark: (717) 763-1121
* William F. "Rick" Cronk: (925) 283-7229
* John C. Cushman III: (904) 393-9020
* R. Michael Daniel: (412) 297-4989
* Jack D. Furst: (972) 982-8250
* T. Michael Goodrich: (205) 328-9445 ext. 200
* Earl G. Graves: (212) 242-8000
* Aubrey B. Harwell Jr.: (615) 244-1713
* Stephen Hemsley: (800) 328-5979
* Larry W. Kellner: (713) 468-4050
* Robert J. LaFortune: (918) 582-2981
* Joseph P. Landy: (212) 878-0600
* Francis R. McAllister: (406) 373-8700
* Scott D. Oki: (425) 454-2800
* Arthur F. Oppenheimer: (208) 343-4883
* Tico A. Perez: (407) 849-1235
* Robert H. Reynolds: (317) 231-7227
* Matthew K. Rose: (909) 386-4140
* Nathan O. Rosenberg: (949) 494-4553
* Roger M. Schrimp: (209) 526-3500
* Marshall M. Sloane: (781) 395-3000
* Rex W. Tillerson: (972) 444-1000
* David M. Weekley: (713) 659-8111
* Togo D. West, Jr.: (202) 775-1775

[Ian]

back in 2000, when the boy scouts were sued for this, the church filed this amicus brief in the supreme court.

[Lily]

isn't David L. Beck (first on your list) the general YM president?

[Lily]

also, it looks like a decision won't be made until the annual meeting in May.

[Tuly]

Correct. That is the David L. Beck that was Ian's mission president and currently General YM's president. Here is the news that Lily mentioned.

chicagotribune.com
Boy Scouts of America delay vote on ending ban on gays


10:54 AM CST, February 6, 2013


DALLAS (Reuters) - Boy Scouts of America board members on Wednesday delayed until May a vote on whether to end a longstanding and controversial ban on gay membership.

The century-old youth organization had been expected to vote on the matter at a board meeting in Dallas on Wednesday. The Boy Scouts upheld the ban just last year but faced sharp criticism from gay rights groups.

"After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America's National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy," the Boy Scouts said in an emailed statement.

In the interim, the board will continue its consultations with other scouting representatives and the approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on a membership standards resolution in May, the statement said.

The Boy Scouts touched off fierce lobbying by groups both for and against changing the policy when it said on January 28 it was considering removing the national restriction based on sexual orientation and leaving the decision to local chapters.

The national executive board, which lists more than 70 members, has been meeting privately since Monday at a hotel near Boy Scouts headquarters in Irving, Texas.

Many local chapters have said they were waiting for the board to render a verdict before weighing in. A coalition of 33 councils that represent about one-fifth of all youth members has asked the board to delay the vote for more study.

More than 22,800 people have registered comments with the Boy Scouts on the group's Facebook page since it announced it was considering lifting the ban.

A national poll released by Quinnipiac University on Wednesday found a solid majority of registered voters, 55 percent to 33 percent, favored ending the ban.

Men supported lifting the ban by 49 percent to 39 percent and women by 61 percent to 27 percent, according to the Quinnipiac nation poll of 1,772 registered voters surveyed from January 30 to February 4 with a 2.3 percentage points margin of error.

Gay rights activists, who have said it would not go far enough to lift the national ban but permit local bans to stand, said they were disappointed by the decision to put off a vote.

Activists including Jennifer Tyrrell, a lesbian from Ohio who was forced out as a den leader, delivered more than 1.4 million signatures to the Boy Scouts Monday on petitions seeking an end to the policy.

"A scout is supposed to be brave, and the Boy Scouts failed to be brave today," Tyrrell said in a statement Wednesday. "The Boy Scouts had the chance to help countless young people and devoted parents, but they've failed us yet again."

Supporters of the ban including the group "Save our Scouts" plan a prayer vigil Wednesday at Boy Scouts headquarters.

The Boy Scouts won a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2000 that upheld its right to ban gays, but the organization has come under increasing public pressure in recent years from activists.

Youth membership in the organization, which prides itself on teaching boys life skills such as camping and leadership, has declined 21 percent to less than 2.7 million since 2000.

Gay rights activists have also been pressing corporations to withhold contributions to the Boy Scouts while the ban stands, including UPS, Merck and the Intel Foundation.

The Boy Scouts has also faced criticism for keeping from public view decades of reports on child sex abuse in the organization. It released thousands of pages of files covering 1965 to 1985 in October under a court order.

Two board members have said publicly they support a change: Jim Turley, chairman and chief executive of Ernst & Young, and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson.

[Tuly]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued the following statement Wednesday regarding the decision by the Boy Scouts of America to postpone a vote on membership standards:

“The Church is following this proposed policy change very closely. We believe the BSA has acted wisely in delaying its decision until all voices can be heard on this important moral issue.”

For 100 years, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has enjoyed a strong, rewarding relationship with Boy Scouts of America as both organizations have worked to build and strengthen the moral character and leadership skills of young men.

The recent announcement that BSA planned to make a policy change in its standards for membership and leadership has triggered intense debate from many segments of society..

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is carefully assessing the consequences of this policy change on the Church’s program to build and strengthen young men, but it has not commented on it and a decision will not be made until we have assessed all of the implications.

The Church cautions others not to speculate about the Church’s position or to assume that individual Latter-day Saints inside or outside the Scouting movement speak for the Church. Neither has the Church launched any campaign either to effect or prevent a policy change.

[Ian]

U.S. Boy Scouts set to end ban on gay members : spokesperson
8:37pm IST

By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Boy Scouts of America called to end a long-standing ban on openly gay members, a spokesman said on Friday, but the organization's board must still vote in May on whether to ratify the resolution.

If the vote is approved, "no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone," Deron Smith, the organization's spokesman, told Reuters.

Smith noted that the decision drew from three months of research, surveys and discussions and was "among the most complex and challenging issues facing the BSA and society today."

The deliberations over whether to admit openly gay and lesbian members to the Boy Scouts has divided organizers, polarized its corporate and religious sponsors, and placed the group at the center of a nationwide debate over gay rights over the past two years.

"This is a historic change for the Boy Scouts," said Patrick Boyle, whose 1994 book "Scout's Honor" examined sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America.

"You have a more than hundred-year-old organization changing what it considered a fundamental belief just a decade ago. That says a lot about the Scouts and a lot about how far the gay rights movement has come in the United States."

(Reporting By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian; Additional reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by Vicki Allen)

[Steve]

"You have a more than hundred-year-old organization changing what it considered a fundamental belief just a decade ago. That says a lot about the Scouts and a lot about how far the gay rights movement has come in the United States."

You said it, Mr. Boyle!

[Tuly]

[Ian]

Boy Scouts Proposing to Lift Gay Ban for Youth

By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer
NEW YORK April 19, 2013 (AP)

Under pressure over its long-standing ban on gays, the Boy Scouts of America is proposing to lift the ban for youth members but continue to exclude gays as adult leaders.

The Scouts announced Friday that the proposal would be submitted to the roughly 1,400 voting members of its National Council at a meeting in Texas the week of May 20.

Gay-rights groups have demanded a complete lifting of the ban, while some churches and conservative groups want it maintained in its entirety, raising the likelihood that the new proposal will draw continued criticism from both sides.

Indeed, the BSA, in making its announcement, estimated that easing the ban on gay adults could cause widespread defections that cost the organization 100,000 to 350,000 members.

In January, the BSA said it was considering a plan to give local Scout units the option of admitting gays as both youth members and adult leaders or continuing to exclude them.

On Friday, the BSA said it changed course in part because of surveys sent out starting in February to about 1 million members of the Scouting community.

The review, said a BSA statement, "created an outpouring of feedback" from 200,000 respondents, some supporting the exclusion policy and others favoring a change.

"While perspectives and opinions vary significantly, parents, adults in the Scouting community and teens alike tend to agree that youth should not be denied the benefits of Scouting," the statement said.

As a result, the BSA's Executive Committee drafted a resolution proposing to remove the ban on gay youth while keeping it for all adult leaders.

"The proposed resolution also reinforces that Scouting is a youth program, and any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting," the statement said.

The BSA described its survey as "the most comprehensive listening exercise in its history."

In a summary of the findings, it said respondents supported the BSA's current policy of excluding gays by a margin of 61 percent to 34 percent, while a majority of younger parents and teens opposed the policy.

It said overwhelming majorities of parents, teens and members of the Scouting community felt it would be unacceptable to deny an openly gay Scout an Eagle Scout Award solely because of his sexual orientation.

Included in the survey were dozens of churches and other religious organizations that sponsor a majority of Scout units.

The BSA said many of the religious organizations expressed concern over having gay adult leaders and were less concerned about gay youth members.

Many Scout units are sponsored by relatively conservative religious denominations that have supported the ban on gays in the past — notably the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Southern Baptist churches.

The survey tried to gauge the proposal's impact on financial support. Local Scout councils said 51 percent of their major donors opposed easing the ban, while a majority of Fortune 500 companies supported a change.

Since January, the Scouts have come under intense pressure from activists and advocacy groups on both sides of the membership debate.

In Indiana, for example, there's an ongoing campaign demanding that the United Way withhold funding from the Scouts until the ban is lifted. In California, the state Senate is considering a bill aimed at pressuring the BSA to lift the ban by making the organization ineligible for nonprofit tax breaks.

On the other side, the conservative Family Research Council has been circulating an online petition urging the BSA to keep the ban. And in Utah, the Boy Scouts' Great Salt Lake Council — one of the largest in the country with 73,400 youth members — said a survey showed that more than 80 percent of its leaders opposed lifting the ban.