The Boy Scouts of America: Cowards, More Than Bigots, If That’s Any Comfort
Reports that the Boy Scouts of America re-affirmed their ban on “open or avowed” homosexuals broke fairly late in the news cycle yesterday, so let me just touch briefly on the key points of the decision for any newcomers:
- The Boy Scouts of America issued its first official Position Statement regarding sexual orientation in 1991, stating “We believe that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirement in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed, and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts.”
- Variations on that general theme followed over the next few decades, including a specific ban on anyone who “hold[s] himself out as a homosexual” in leadership positions.
- An eleven-member committee was appointed to re-evaluate the organization’s position on sexual orientation in 2010.
- Yesterday that committee submitted a unanimous decision to continue abiding by the existing policies, retaining the recent wording prohibiting “open or avowed” homosexuals.
In some reports this is being portrayed as a new policy or a modification of an old one, which it isn’t; apart from some wording changes over the last two decades the basic idea has remained the same, and the 11-member committee didn’t write any new guidelines or policy statements themselves.
As a Boy Scout and an Eagle Scout (albeit one with a mixed view of that high honor), I almost wish I could say that this were a simple case of wrong-headed bigotry, and that the National Council could, over time, be swayed by moral and reasoned arguments.
It isn’t and they can’t.
The root cause is even more embarrassing in its own way: cowardice.
Scouting is a strange little world once you go beyond the level of volunteer Scoutmasters or less-than-minimum-wage camp staff and move into the domain of what we call “professional Scouters.” It’s very much its own church of self, in many ways, with a rigid hierarchy and strict standards of “success” and “failure” at every organizational level. A great deal of bureaucracy is devoted to measuring those successes and failures, from individual troops on up to district, area, and regional councils.
An outsider might reasonably assume that those benchmarks for success had something to do with Scouting values, but for the most part it’s purely a numbers game. “Good” councils have lots of active troops, positive recruitment trend lines, and high sales figures. “Bad” councils have declining membership or low income. Funds and favor from on high flow accordingly.
Your survival as a unit at any level, in short, is dependent on membership. The quality of the membership matters less (and the quality of the programs you offer those members even less still) than what you can show on paper.
“But wait,” you say, “wouldn’t that pressure the BSA toward more inclusive policies, not less?”
And it might, if not for a peculiar quirk of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known to most of us as Mormons:
“Where Scouting is authorized by the Church, quorums may participate in Scouting activities during Mutual. Under priesthood leadership, Scouting can complement the efforts of Aaronic Priesthood quorums and Primary classes in building testimonies in young men and boys.”
Non-Mormons might struggle a bit with some of the terminology there, but in layman’s terms this means that Scouting is the default activity that the church encourages leaders to enroll young males in. If you’re signing your Mormon boys up to do something, the church would like that something to be Scouting, until such time as they change their policy.
That means that the roughly 400,000 LDS-affiliated youths (out of about 2.7 million youth overall) are a minority, but a substantial and more importantly a guaranteed one. Unlike the other 2.3 million, the BSA need expend no resources on recruiting them. They’re freebies.
Unless — unless, unless, unless — church elders were to decide that some other organization would better “complement the efforts of Aaronic Priesthood quorums and Primary classes in building testimonies in young men and boys.” At which point membership would suddenly decline by about 400,000 overnight.
This stick-like carrot has been waved at the National Council for years now, and it works every time. “Scouting values,” as far as policy decisions go, bear an uncanny resemblance to LDS values, give or take a bit of magical underwear.
As cynical as I can be about the organization, the Boy Scouts of America was a huge part of my adolescent life. I think it shaped me for the better and I think crucial parts of its model — most especially the faith that young men can learn valuable lessons from only slightly older young men, and might even do it better than they would from adults — are worth fighting to preserve and maintain. But preservation of the membership numbers at the expense of our own organizational values would be disheartening to see even if it came without the added taint of bigotry.
Exclusion can never make a movement grow in the long term. Entropy always wins that game. How many potential members are we losing to less archaic-seeming youth groups and summer camps each year in exchange for 400,000 guaranteed members that may or may not be particularly active or interested in Scouting? We have no idea. But the decision is short-sighted at best even on a practical level, to say nothing of indefensible on a moral one.
Is it more or less reprehensible to discriminate out of petty fear, rather than deeply-felt personal prejudice? I have no idea. But either way I can’t help but think that, organizationally, our National Council is falling short on a few points of our Scout Oath and Law. I see little of courtesy or kindness in this latest re-affirmation of old, bad policies, and nothing at all of bravery or helping other people.
I don’t mean to come out of nowhere here, but I found your blog a couple of days ago and I absolutely love your writing! You are very gifted and sensible, and this latest post is one of the most reasonable and well-laid-out discussions of the Boy Scout decision that I’ve found anywhere on the Internet. Keep up your work, it’s great!
The kittens post, I know — I hope it wasn’t too misleading! As adorable as they are, the bulk of the content doesn’t feature them.
Well, the kittens are great, too…but most of all I think it’s refreshing to have a blog full of such variety, able to discuss many topics instead of harping on one point. Yours eloquently argued against blatant cowardice and can also write about life lessons inspired by cats. That, friend, is talent.
I think it would be both entertaining and informatvie if one of these Dudley Do-Right Eagle Scouts who has been booted for being an “avowed homosexual” were to all of sudden “disavow” and show up at their local Scout office with a certificate of completion from one of those “Pray the Gay Away” places and start going on about seeing the errors of my ways and how Jesus wants me to like vaginas etc. Would he be reinstated?
I don’t know that anyone’s tried. Could be interesting. Given that it’s all about the membership, I suspect they’d be pathetically eager to believe that gay members had been “cured” and could sign back up, as long as they stayed nice and closeted.
…not that that’s much of a mark of character for the BSA as an organization either.
I’ve said it elsewhere, but for historical perspective I’ll mention it again here, and you may do with the info as you wish… When the National Office of the BSA moved from Brunswick, NJ to Texas, there was a huge change in the ‘inner workings’ of the National Program. While the BSA has always been right-of-center, the move south took it further right than any time in the past. This I think was the beginning of the Anti-era: Anti-atheist (bordering on Anti-Christian) and Anti-gay neither of which existed as PUBLISHED OFFICIAL POLICY before.
Coincidentally, at the same time an increase in the practice of “metrics” to judge performance of the core employees (from local council support staff to regional to national staff) -aka Professional Scouters- moved a long-time practice of the numbers game into more of THE Numbers Game.
The worst part of the BSA’s recent decision is that the committee that made this recent decision to uphold the 1991 (IMO) mistake was a secret group, whose members were not identified in any way, even to the point of a general % of what religious affiliation if any, or geographic location or gender.
No, Geoff- this was not a Brave or Trustworthy act on the part of the National Org, and so much more the pity.
Vic (Eagle Scout class of 1970)
ps- My best and favorite Scoutmaster from my youth was a Gay Atheist, and other than helping to instill an enjoyment for Broadway Showtunes, I don’t think there was any lasting damage having Mr B as a mentor.
Thanks Vic — I think Eagle Scouts (and other Scouts) of all ages are pretty disappointed to see the same bad decision for the same bad reasons all over again. Someone forwarded me this letter from an Eagle Scout who returned his award in protest:
http://networkedblogs.com/A4fBq
It’s well-thought and well-written, and doesn’t pull any punches in pointing out the real cause behind the policy: fear that the LDS church will withdraw its support and its membership.
We can all stand up for what’s right when it’s easy; Scouting was supposed to teach us to do it when it’s hard, too. One more sad day in over 20 years of sad days for the BSA.
I’ve lately found it interesting (and slightly inexplicable) that Girl Scouts USA is far more open and welcoming (officially) to LGBT than Boy Scouts. Having a son has made me more interested in the BSA since I think it could be valuable experience for him…if they’d just get rid of that nonsense policy.
Anyway, thanks for the explanation. Maybe by the time the munchkin is old enough for them, Boy Scouts will have found a collective backbone.
I think one of the hardest parts of this for a lot of us is that the Boy Scouts did give us all incredibly valuable and meaningful experiences. I want to recommend it highly for your son and for everyone else’s son too. Despite the ass-backwardness at the professional level, Scouts and Scouters on the local level work like crazy to teach both useful skills and fundamental values, and they usually succeed.
A lot of who I am comes from my years in Scouting and my experiences up at Ma-Ka-Ja-Wan summer camp especially. But it is hard to reconcile those lessons with the institutional fear of Mormon displeasure.
I suppose you could always sign him up for GSA. They’re pretty flexible on the subject.
I was a Girl Scout long before I joined Venture Crew and started working at Ma-Ka-Ja-Wan. In most ways, I much prefer the way BSA runs (earning your advancements instead of aging through them, the existence of and emphasis on the OA, the much higher and more standard emphasis on camping and the outdoors)… but their policies on homosexuality are not one of them. As a child, I remember having neighbors whom we could count on for every door-to-door fundraiser except for Boy Scout popcorn, which they had boycotted as their own private way of protesting the no-gays policy. It makes a lot more sense to me now than it did then. I agree with you that it’s a hard line to walk. BSA teaches us so many good values… but also some not-so-good ones.
I agree — what we ideally want to see is the Boy Scout activity program with the Girl Scout membership policies. Or we could just get really radical and have one Scouting program for everyone…
You mean like every almost every country in the world except us and Saudi Arabia? (Discounting those without scouting programs, obviously.)
I remember my troop (and our rival troop) came close to being dissolved after the Supreme Court decision since our sponsoring institutions were Reform Synagogues, who have performed same-sex ceremonies for years. Only after some negotiations citing the relatively-liberal Golden Arrow District in Houston did we continue.
Great article. It makes me wonder if I should stop noting my Eagle rank on my resume, return my award or what.
I don’t think I ever listed my Eagle on a resume. Including for summer camp, now that I think about it, since I didn’t have Eagle my first year and never needed to formally re-apply in the years after that.
Then again, I never get jobs when I submit a resume. So maybe I oughta start.
I have a lot of Boy Scout friends who were sucked into the gay hate. I truly don’t understand. What are these people so scared of? I want to be able to see into the mind of people who are anti-gay, but then again, I never want to feel that hatred. I am not a hateful person. I feel like that might tear me apart… Anywhos. I loved seeing an Eagle Scout’s look on this particular subject. Thanks for giving us some insight into the way your mind works!
Congrats on being freshly pressed. If it weren’t for the kitties, I wouldn’t have been able to read your other awesome insights
)
With four sons, all of whom became Eagle Scouts, and a daughter who rose to a comparable level in the Girl Scouts, I am greatly disappointed by the backwardness and bigotry of the Boy Scout leadership. They do not damage the immense pride I have for the accomplishments of my children, but they damage the image of their own organization. If the leaders of the Boy Scouts are ignorant bigots, then are the member Boy Scouts bigots? Certainly, they are not, but I do not wish my children to be cast in that shadow.
Great write-up sir.
Re: people turning in their medals – http://eaglebadges.tumblr.com/ and http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/a-new-twist-on-scouts-honor-standing-up-for-gay-affiliates/260398/
Oh, thank you for the links — I’d seen a number of the letters returning the Eagle Scout award online, but not the tumblr collecting them. It’s heartening to see at least some of them openly calling the National Council out on kowtowing to the Mormon church rather than acting from principle (even a bad principle). The Atlantic misses that nuance, I notice, but…eh. The Atlantic.