{"id":1724,"date":"2015-04-10T18:53:53","date_gmt":"2015-04-11T00:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=1724"},"modified":"2015-04-11T12:12:18","modified_gmt":"2015-04-11T18:12:18","slug":"a-boy-scout-schism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html","title":{"rendered":"A Boy Scout Schism?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The latest news on Boy Scouts and gays seems to have caused barely a ripple, as last week, as the Washington Post, and other news outlets, reported last Friday<\/a> that the Greater New York Council has hired\u00a0Pascal Tessier, an 18 year old Eagle Scout who is openly \u2014 and activist-ly \u2014 gay as a summer camp counselor. \u00a0What\u2019s more, this wasn\u2019t an \u201caccidental\u201d hire by virtue of him having his application reviewed and accepted under the same terms as any other applicant, with no knowledge of his history of protesting the now-lifted ban on gay youth. \u00a0According to the Post,<\/span><\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Boy Scouts\u2019 Greater New York Councils announced another pivotal moment: It hired Tessier as a summer camp leader \u2014 in direct defiance of the national organization\u2019s rules.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is it possible that the \u201cannouncement\u201d was not intended as such, that the hiring was meant to fall into a \u201cdon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d approach, but became public due to some inquiry by a reporter, but that\u2019s not the impression that the article communicates. \u00a0From all appearances, this was clearly meant to push the national organization to relent on the ban against gay adult leaders and employees. \u00a0According to the New York Times<\/a>, the local council is being a bit disingenuous, in saying, \u201cgosh, we passed his name onto the national organization and they didn\u2019t say no . . . \u201d<\/p>\n

The Times further reports<\/p>\n

His lawyer,\u00a0David Boies<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 one of the lawyers who challenged\u00a0Proposition 8<\/a>, the 2008 initiative in California that banned\u00a0same-sex marriage<\/a>\u00a0and was later overturned in the courts \u2014 said that the challenge was meant to be nonconfrontational but that a change in the policy was inevitable. \u201cWhat I hope is they will see this as an opportunity to get themselves out of a place where they don\u2019t want to be,\u201d he said of national scouting leaders. \u201cAn institution like the Boy Scouts doesn\u2019t want to be the last bastion of discrimination nationally.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what next?<\/p>\n

Boy Scouts is an organization that has done a lot of good for a lot of boys. \u00a0I believe in their mission, of providing a framework for boys to become responsible adults, learning about the outdoors and service to others along the way.<\/p>\n

At the same time, our troop is declining in numbers, and the organization as a whole is facing the same problems. \u00a0Where a generation or two ago, every boy joined scouts, it\u2019s much less prevalent, as boys are more interested in sports, including time-intensive travel teams, and less interested in the outdoors \u2014 and, of course, Boy Scouts are now viewed as a somewhat nerdy uncool endeavor.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not able to readily lay my hands on the decline over time \u2014 I\u2019ll update with this later \u2014 so as to easily counter the claim that\u2019s been offered that Boy Scouts are losing members due to this very controversy, with parents objecting to their discrimination against gays, so that if only they opened up their membership, members, volunteers, and donors would come flocking back.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not that simple. \u00a0Several years ago, the Scouts opened up access to its so-called \u201cperversion files.\u201d \u00a0Parents worry. \u00a0Yes, the Boy Scouts has a policy of \u201ctwo-deep leadership,\u201d that no leader is ever allowed to be alone with a boy. \u00a0But \u2014 is this foolproof? \u00a0It\u2019s foolish to think so; if a leader wants to take advantage of a boy (of if a young adult is enamored with an older teen), in a situation with multiple adults and the busy-ness of a weekend outing or a summer camp, I imagine the other leaders will not necessarily be able to keep close track of what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

And the Girl Scouts? \u00a0Yes, they\u2019ve been open to lesbians without it ever being an issue \u2014 except that the conventional wisdom is that all manner of things parents would be shocked by indeed happen at Girl Scout camp. \u00a0Whether this is just a running joke, or is there truth to the matter, I don\u2019t want to speculate. \u00a0And, of course, conservative Christian parents have withdrawn from Girl Scouts for this, among other, reasons \u2014 and Boy Scouts is far more outing-focused than Girl Scouts.<\/p>\n

Is it really appropriate to push the issue, and to push parents away who may, in principle, agree with ideals of non-discrimination, but, when it comes to their sons, don\u2019t want to take any chances, not to mention church sponsoring organizations, some of whom have already moved to more explicitly faith-based groups such as \u201cTrail Life<\/a>\u201c?<\/p>\n

This boy declares his love for Scouts \u2014 but to push for inclusion risks doing great damage to the institution. \u00a0He is, however, though an adult, still quite young, too young, perhaps, to reflect on the risks and consequences of his actions. \u00a0It\u2019s all the other adults \u2014 the council leadership \u2014 who are pushing the issue, and risking bringing about a schism of sorts, and who, many of them, may not even be particularly dedicated to Scouts, so much as having landed in their roles due to general non-profit work, and see this as an opportunity to further their greater cause of LGBT non-discrimination.<\/p>\n

Is it really worth it? \u00a0If the Boy Scouts is effectively dismantled due to gay-rights activism, there will not be a more noble equality-loving youth organization rising up to take its place. \u00a0There simply won\u2019t be any winners in this battle.<\/p>\n

(Clarification: \u00a0I am really not intending to say that gay leaders are a real threat to boys, or would set a bad example in some way. \u00a0I don\u2019t buy into fears that they would hit on the boys or that multiple gay leaders would join up and, say, make out with each other at the campfire. \u00a0My concern is far more the pragmatic one that fighting this battle, will have the effect, however unintended, of causing lasting division among Boy Scout families and sponsoring organizations.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest news on Boy Scouts and gays seems to have caused barely a ripple, as last week, as the Washington Post, and other news outlets, reported last Friday that the Greater New York Council has hired\u00a0Pascal Tessier, an 18 year old Eagle Scout who is openly \u2014 and activist-ly \u2014 gay as a summer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Boy Scout Schism?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The latest news on Boy Scouts and gays seems to have caused barely a ripple, as last week, as the Washington Post, and other news outlets, reported last\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Boy Scout Schism?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The latest news on Boy Scouts and gays seems to have caused barely a ripple, as last week, as the Washington Post, and other news outlets, reported last\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-11T00:53:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-11T18:12:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html\",\"name\":\"A Boy Scout Schism?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-11T00:53:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-04-11T18:12:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"The latest news on Boy Scouts and gays seems to have caused barely a ripple, as last week, as the Washington Post, and other news outlets, reported last\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Boy Scout Schism?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jane the Actuary\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Boy Scout Schism?","description":"The latest news on Boy Scouts and gays seems to have caused barely a ripple, as last week, as the Washington Post, and other news outlets, reported last","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Boy Scout Schism?","og_description":"The latest news on Boy Scouts and gays seems to have caused barely a ripple, as last week, as the Washington Post, and other news outlets, reported last","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html","og_site_name":"Jane the Actuary","article_published_time":"2015-04-11T00:53:53+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-04-11T18:12:18+00:00","author":"Jane the Actuary","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jane the Actuary","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html","name":"A Boy Scout Schism?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-04-11T00:53:53+00:00","dateModified":"2015-04-11T18:12:18+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a"},"description":"The latest news on Boy Scouts and gays seems to have caused barely a ripple, as last week, as the Washington Post, and other news outlets, reported last","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/04\/a-boy-scout-schism.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Boy Scout Schism?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/","name":"Jane the Actuary","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a","name":"Jane the Actuary","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jane the Actuary"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}