"Former eagle scout Clint Lawton stopped pursuing a business major when he learned that Brigham Young University offered a new major: Scouting. 'I thought, "Oh, you can get paid to do Boy Scouts?"'posted by ericb at 2:22 PM on July 9, 2007
Gay-rights groups don’t share his enthusiasm. They say the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which runs the university, is already the moving force behind the Boy Scouts of America’s policy not to permit 'avowed homosexuals.' Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and a former Utah Boy Scout, says the new major was more evidence of the church’s 'insidious' efforts to take over the Boy Scouts.
The Boy Scouts are the official boys’ youth group of the LDS, and more than one in nine Scouts are Mormons. Critics say the church exerts disproportionate influence through membership on the national advisory council and vigorous fund-raising. (In New York, LDS leaders recently launched a fund-raising campaign with pamphlets carrying an endorsement from the church’s current prophet.) Boy Scout spokesman Greg Shields says that while Mormons are an important part of Scouting, 'we’ve worked very hard at becoming a diverse organization.' Nevertheless, the no-gay policy is a major factor in declining Scout enlistments. In Philadelphia, the nation’s third largest council is about to be evicted from its city-owned headquarters over its discrimination policy.
Scouting major Lawton is nonplused. He says that while he believes 'someone can be gay and it’s totally cool, it’s against what Scouting believes.' And now he’s after his biggest merit badge yet—a Scouting degree."
The World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) describes Scouting as "...a voluntary nonpolitical educational movement for young people open to all without distinction of origin, race or creed, in accordance with the purpose, principles and method conceived by the Founder..."[34] It is the goal of Scouting "to contribute to the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potentials as individuals, as responsible citizens and as members of their local, national and international communities."[34]Of course, the model provided by scout groups has been borrowed by dozens, maybe hundreds, of other groups who used similar structures and trappings to advance social goals for young people. Campfire , 4H, and others have cast themselves in the scouting mold, too. But it seems that these programs, at least those of which I know something, historically centered around the ideal of good citizenship in a pluralistic society. The reason the Christian programs interest me is that while they are modeled on scouting, they reject pluralism, which was one of the hallmarks of scouting programs since their origin.
In 1900 he lent his name the Baden-Powell League of Health and Manliness. In 1901 more 'B-P' organisations existed; The B-P Boys of Greenock, the B-P Brigade and the B-P Anti-Cigarette League. In 1903 he became Honorary Colonel of the Southport Cadets. Of interest to the beginnings of the Scout Movement is the fact that in May 1903 he accepted an invitation to become a Vice-President of the Boys Brigade, after he had chaired the annual demonstration at the Albert Hall. B-P was invited to review the Boys Brigade a year later at Glasgow and at Liverpool and was impressed with the numbers in the Boys Brigade (then 54,000) but felt that with a more varied programme within 20 years the number could be ten fold.These amazingly successful early forays into a scouting movement cannot have escaped Seton's attention. Baden-Powell may have been a lightning rod, presenting the right formula at the right time to focus energy in the direction of structured character-building recreational programs for youth, but without him it is hard to imagine a scouting movement at all.
4. A Scout is a friend to all, and a brother to every other scout, no matter to what social class the other belongs. Thus if a scout meets another scout, even though a stranger to him, he must speak to him, and help him in any way that he can...A scout accepts the other man as he finds him, and makes the best of him.Girl Scouting, which began formally in the US in 1912 when Juliette Gordon Low brought her friend Baden-Powell's ideas home, also emphasized citizenship and participation over isolation.
"Kim", the boy scout, was called by the Indians, "Little friend of all the world", and that is the name that every scout should earn for himself.
Juliette brought girls of all backgrounds into the out-of-doors, giving them the opportunity to develop self-reliance and resourcefulness. She encouraged girls to prepare not only for traditional homemaking, but also for possible future roles as professional women—in the arts, sciences and business—and for active citizenship outside the home. Girl Scouting welcomed disabled girls at a time when they were excluded from many other activities.Though it can't be overlooked that early scouting suffered from racial intolerance (troops in both boy and girl scouting in the US were segregated until the 50s), it is still arguably one of the more progressive movements in Western history.
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My unscientific survey seems to indicate that there are more Christian youth groups for girls than there are for boys. That could be an interesting sidelight on the ongoing controversy over Boy Scouts and religion - Boy Scouts require boys to claim a religious affiliation, and have rejected self-described athiests as both leaders and members, whereas Girl Scouts (a completely separate entity) allow a liberal interpretation of 'god' and have no religious stipulations on membership. The Girl Scout organization has grown increasingly progressive over the last forty years, and perhaps that is part of what has sent Christian families in search of a more narrowly defined youth group experience.
posted by Miko at 11:36 AM on July 9, 2007