Re: MOTHER DESPERATE FOR SUGGESTIONS!! HELP!!

In article <slrnfi7pjg.9lq.Rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, user says...

On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:14:11 +0100, Sarah Vaughan <nannyogg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
user wrote:

Probably the most succinct position statement you'll find about the
official policy is the BSA board statement from June 12, 1991, found here:

http://usscouts.org/aboutbsa/rpa1991.asp

The statement:

"While not intending to define what constitutes belief in God, the Boy
Scouts of America is proud to reaffirm the Scout Oath and its declaration of
duty to God."

is probably the clearest one you'll find that they intend the
requirements to include personal belief.

If that's as clear as it gets, I can definitely live with that. ;-) I
don't see anything in there about making individual belief a requirement
for membership. Of course, clearly some troops have interpreted it that
way, given the boys who've been kicked out for their atheism, and that
concerns me. (I wouldn't actually stop my son from joining just on
those grounds, though - I'm betting there are a lot of other troops
letting atheists stay and not kicking up a fuss about it, who aren't
hitting the headlines. I wouldn't stop my son from joining an
organisation he'd enjoy just on the basis that they *might* make his
life difficult or let him down further along the line.)


Actually, the potential for problems down the line is one of the
things that was making me a little wishy-washy over the whole affair.
There are clear benefits to scouts, for a lot of people. One of the
things I was trying to decide was whether I would just invoke the
"Mother Earth covers the requirement" fall-back, have a few good
years in the program, and then potentially have an indiscreet comment
get DS kicked out after making a large emotional investment in it.
Eventually I decided that I wasn't going to just throw aside my
personal principals for a program that, in the end, was just not all
that important to us.

Oh good grief.

We don't have the experience that this is an environment such that ears are
pealed for any little slip revealing atheism.

You make it sound like it's revealing a past membership in the Communist party
in the '50s or something - a deep dark secret that would make everyone gasp.

Look, I'm with you on holding to your principles as you see them. Of course
you've also let on that this wasn't a really keen interest anyway. (If it were,
you might get a taste of the kinds of decisions gay people wanting careers in
the military make.)

This stuff simply doesn't come up. The clauses you point to, once you look
further, refer to a Scout's ability to define whay *he* means by God, and are
backed by a rather broad acceptance of even non-theistic established religions.

So make the decision you did - fine. No one is against it. But I can't agree
with your conjectures of what would happen if you or your boy had 'an indiscreet
comment'. You didn't join, so you don't know how the program works or how
things are.

Banty

.