I think the Boy Scouts need bodies because of all the years being anti LBGTQ and sticking with the believing in God stuff. This decision largely due to trying to survive in a changing world - one in which they’ve been behind the eight ball.
@emilybee The only reason the Boy Scouts did not include girls earlier was because of the Girl Scouts. It is largely the Mormon faction that slowed the LBGTQ. And certainly there is no need to be disrespectful to people who are religious with the “God stuff.” Wanting tolerance but not being tolerant?
@emilybee I think you’ve got that backwards, the Boy Scouts need bodies because all the LDS and Catholic troops are pulling out because of the change in policies.
Doesn’t matter who it was that resisted the changes - the effect was that it turned off millions of other families from allowing their kids to be scouts.
Yes, now those families are turning to The American Heritage Girls and Trail Life…
But there are many, many, many more millions of families who won’t particpate in either BSA or the two others.
If BSA did away with their discriminating practices years ago - the largest generation of kids would have been allowed to join. I, along with others had to pull my kid out when he was in first grade when they refused to change their stance on allowing gays to join. Those kids are now having kids but scouting was not in their “DNA” so they aren’t choosing it as an activity for their kids either.
Our school would not allow the Boy Scouts to have meetings first because they excluded gay youth and then when that changed because they still refused to allow atheists to join. The churches that had Boy Scout troops disbanded after the Boy Scouts allowed gay youth to join. They really are hurting for members here.
My district also kicked them out at the same time I pulled S out. (iirc, 2000/2001)
I was a GS leader for awhile and had a son in BS. My daughter got bored with GS in 4th grade and quit. She was always saying she wished she could be a boy scout because they did more things she was interested in (very outdoorsy girl). I think each has advantages for different children. I’m glad girls have another option! I honestly think this might have changed my daughter and kept her on a more positive path!
I am afraid this will be the decline of girl scouts, which my girls enjoyed. I understand the decision, but am very sorry to hear it. I’m not sure my girls would have joined yet another youth organization dominated by boys.
Personally, I think they need to merge the two gender-specific scouts together and form one “Scouts” program. No reason why girls can’t learn to make soap box cars, bird houses, whittle wooden spears, and go on camping trips. And if parents insisted that their girls be raised doing “girl” things, they could easily designate optional gender specific tracks for those cases.
Well they are two distinct organizations, each with its own management, history, and goals.
@fractalmstr That is what they are doing. They are becoming like the world scouts. Like troops in the UK and elsewhere. They didn’t do it earlier because the girl scouts were not happy. Clearly the Boy Scouts have made a business decision to go that way (like coed world scouts) when they lifted the ban on gay scouts. That likely alienated 20% of the scouting community which is LDS.
Now that they are coed, maybe we should discuss coed bathrooms. 
These days, most boys and men would probably not be physically able to do that, nor would they want to, either.
Our district had an unofficial don’t enforce policy with gay scouts (which was against the National official). No one was removed. When a scout working as summer camp councilor came out very publicly as gay, they did ask him to leave. The entire camp staff said they would quit if they fired him and the matter was dropped.
When they were changing the policies, Charter Representatives (people who represent the troop sponsor) had to be interviewed. I am one of those. I said a scouts’s sex life is not part of the scouting mission so it isn’t relevant to membership. They said that was district’s opinion also. National made a calculation by polling charter organization and decided to sacrifice the 20% resistance to make the change but this progress (evolution towards world scouts) also comes at a cost to girl scouts.
They wouidn’t be physically able too.?!?
My son went to sleepaway camp (all boys - girls were on the other side of the lake) but both had the same activities! All went hiking (in the Adirondacks so not nice little easy hills to climb,) days long canoe trips, same type ropes courses, etc.
The kids came back year after year so they obviously wanted to do these things or they would have gone to a different kind of camp.
Of course there are girls who are “physically” able to do it. Would there be as many physically able girls as boys? Maybe not, but the option should still be open to girls who want to do it.
On a somewhat related note… for the first time in history, a female passed the Marine Corps infantry officer course.
So yes, girls are capable.
“No reason why girls can’t learn to make soap box cars, bird houses, whittle wooden spears, and go on camping trips. And if parents insisted that their girls be raised doing “girl” things, they could easily designate optional gender specific tracks for those cases.”
Whoa! Nelly! Why is the assumption that if the two merged the “BOY” things would take precedent? How about if boys learn to cook, learn about personal hygiene, babysit at the community center? And who says making soap box cars and camping are "boy things’?
^My boys cook. They have plenty of role models for that. Grandfather, uncles who did/do the cooking for the family as the main cook. My oldest also took babysitting classes and danced for ten years. He’s also an Eagle Scout and brown belt for martial arts.
We have boys who can’t do the hard core hiking. Depends on the child.
One last thing about the LBGTQ issue. You cannot legislate kindness. So areas who were never discriminatory reaming the same but places which stronger resisted, while National policy allows inclusion, they can’t force inclusion with kindness. And meanness can be subtle.
My son is an Eagle Scout, and we’ve discussed this a lot. He has mixed feelings–he went to a World Jamboree, and observed firsthand that most Scouting worldwide is co-ed, and works just fine. On the other hand, he did value some of the male bonding experience–and in particular bonding with positive male role models. I haven’t talked with him since this news came out, but I think he’ll be fine with it. We were all in favor of the policy change on gay youth and leaders, which I don’t think would have happened without a lot of pressure from within the organization.
The current predicament of the Girl Scouts reminds me a bit of historically black fraternities and sororities–what do you do when the organization that excluded you wants to change its rules and accept you? As others have suggested, I don’t think Girl Scouting has a clear identity–is it about “girly” indoor stuff, or about outdoorsy stuff? It appears that it depends on the unit. That’s also true for Boy Scouts, but probably less so. Of course, everybody knows about the cookies–they are certainly better than Boy Scout popcorn. Can Girl Scouting create enough of a separate identity that it can survive after BSA becomes co-ed? (Note: whatever the differences are between Eagle Rank and the Gold Award, I think it’s clear that Eagle has better PR.)
So BSA has changed its policies on two of the three Gs–Gays and Girls. The last one is God. This one is a bit harder to explain. BSA requires members to have some kind of religion–it doesn’t matter which one, or how organized it is. The Scout simply has to be able to show “duty to God” and “reverence” in some way. In essence, BSA is a completely non-sectarian religious organization. I’m not sure if there are other examples of such a thing. It’s the non-sectarian nature of this that actually creates the criticism–nobody would criticize the Luther League (if that still exists) for requiring its members to be Lutherans. It’s the fact that BSA admits almost everybody–essentially excluding only atheists–that is the problem. This may change, too–honestly, I thought it would change before they’d let girls in.