Given that troops are generally chartered by churches I don’t see anything wrong with a requirement of a belief of a higher power as defined by the individual scout.
Is that true nationally in the U.S. that troops are chartered by churches? It wasn’t when I was a Girl Scout many moons ago in NJ, and it definitely isn’t the case in Canada now.
During our son’s scouting years, his pack/troop met in various schools and churches (and homes) but was not “chartered” by them. They moved from church to church (various denominations) based on the availability/size of facilities as the troop grew. They would have met anywhere if the price were right. There was no formal affiliation with any of the facilities they used.
Girl Scouts is not a chartering organization. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are VERY different.
And yes it is true that Boy Scouts troops are chartered by churches and I believe the largest group is actually the Mormon Church.
Here a chart of chartering organizations for the Boy Scouts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartered_organizations_of_the_Boy_Scouts_of_America
@ChoatieMom not all troops are chartered by churches but most are. See the wiki link I posted above. Your troop had to be chartered by some organization or it would not have been a recognized troop.
@3scoutsmom: I agree. Our son’s troop was not chartered by a church; I was just giving an example. From our troop’s website:
People are always perplexed by the concept of a non-sectarian religious organization, which is what BSA is. As noted above, it doesn’t matter what religion you espouse (and it doesn’t even have to be an organized religion at all). The requirement is that you express “reverence” and “duty to God” in some form, even if it’s very formless. I can understand that plenty of people don’t like this, but it’s not the same kind of discrimination as racial or sexual orientation discrimination was.
As for why so many BSA units are sponsored by churches: some years ago, there was a lot of controversy about public entities (like elementary schools) sponsoring BSA units because of its membership restrictions. So BSA decided to withdraw from that kind of sponsorship, and to have only private entities chartering units. That includes a lot of churches, but it’s not only churches.
We were another family that stayed in Scouting even though we didn’t agree with all of the restrictions, and we were really happy when they finally changed the rules with respect to gay youth and then gay leaders. I doubt if that would ever have happened if everybody who disagreed had left–the change ultimately came from within.
Neither of us come from scouting families–although H might have been a cub scout briefly–so the gay rights issue alone was enough for us to dismiss the possibility for our S. The fact that the central organization, which allows every religious group to prepare its own curriculum for the Religion in Life (IIRC) badge decided to reject the Unitarian Universalist curriculum based on its support of gay rights was enough to show me that they were not, in fact, open to all beliefs.
I have no problem with the BSA being a specifically religious organization as long as they are treated as such by public schools and other taxpayer-funded entities. In other words, they should pay to use the facilities if other outside groups do, their materials should not be distributed by the school, nor should the school newsletter promote them. I would expect these same standards to be applied to requests by my church’s youth group.
I know one UU family who were very torn by this, especially since they had a gay family member who was actually a UU minister. I believe that they participated in something called “Scouting for All.” Our minister at the time, who was gay, worked with their son on the badge and presented it to him in church one Sunday. Ironically.
In my area they generally were not/are not, while troops met in churches and schools and the like, they weren’t sponsored by those entities, they simply were given space to meet (usually for free), I don’t recall schools in my area or churches being the chartering organization.
“The requirement is that you express “reverence” and “duty to God” in some form, even if it’s very formless. I can understand that plenty of people don’t like this, but it’s not the same kind of discrimination as racial or sexual orientation discrimination was.”
It is a form of discrimination, it de facto is saying that a kid who is an atheist, or who may believe in some sort of cosmic force non theistic, is not fit to be a scout. It is another mirror of the issue with gays, the issue with gay scouts and leaders came out of the idea that they were not fit to be scouts, not because they weren’t good people, but that one version of God decided they weren’t,here we are saying that someone can’t be of good enough character if they don’t believe in some concept of God others approve of. . The fact that it is formless makes it hypocritical, because if the idea that belief in God, duty to God or whatnot is what makes someone moral or of good character, how the heck can some formless belief do that? Not to mention the obvious, that how many kids said yeah, yeah, and were atheists or whatnot, which means they were encouraging kids to lie about themselves, not a great moral lesson IMO.
The BSA could have done what was done in England, they basically have different pledges the kids have to make, and a BSA troup sponsored by a church could include the religious belief item, but BSA requires this whether the troup is sponsored by a secular group or a church one. Given what the BSA has been for many years, I would bet most church sponsored ones spend very little time if any on religion, given that what it does is decidedly secular in nature, forcing that belief thing makes no sense.
It might be a regional thing but around here Boy Scout troops have historically been chartered by churches. Our schools charge far too much for either Boy Scouts of Girl Scouts to meet there!
American Heritage Girls and Trails Guides have picked up the members that are unhappy with recent changes.
Yep, that’s a good way to keep the atheists out.
The YMCA that my kids attended didn’t seem to care about the god part of things, or we wouldn’t have been happy about them attending that either.
Everyone seems to feel it’s important to choose a religious “team” to be on and then prove it’s the strongest/best/ biggest/ most enlightened team in the world, come heck or high water. The atheists I guess are there to sit in the stands and cheer on the healthy competition.
But let’s get back to the good news of not excluding children who are gay or transgendered. At least we’ve gotten that far.
My dh’s religion is evolution. I don’t know exactly how he put it right in his head, but he became an Eagle Scout. It was always a bit of a disappointment to him that I didn’t encourage my kids to join - but the truth is none of their friends were in scouting.
In any event, I’m very glad that this has happened and kudos to those within the Scouts who worked for the change.
As I said before, what’s perplexing to people is the nonsectarian religious requirement of BSA. Nobody would be complaining if the Junior Knights of Columbus (if there is such a thing) or the Luther League imposed a religious test for membership. Everybody understands that those are private religious organizations. In a sense, BSA is subject to more criticism because its standards are quite a bit broader.
There are, of course, many BSA units that wouldn’t change much at all if the religious test were eliminated, and maybe it will be, eventually. But there’s nothing unfair about it, really.
@hunt:
It is unfair if you look at what the BSA does, one of the posters went on that religious belief was at the core of what BSA does, but is it really? It sounds to me like very little of what BSA does has anything to do with religion and all that is doing is filtering out people for something very few in BSA even care about. When a secular group professes some sort of religious committment and that is actually carried out in some way (for example, if a group actually has prayer as part of their functions, if they routinely get involved in religious focused events), then I could see it, but the point of a test of any kind is seeing if someone fits into the group…and how given the very secular nature of BSA and what it does, an atheist or a non theistic believer doesn’t fit boggles the mind, there is a huge disconnect there (even worse, professing to some vague notion of a deity is even worse)…it is filtering people out who otherwise should be perfectly fine to be in the BSA, and that is unfair discrimination (and no one, given the secular nature of what the BSA does, has ever been able to show me how an atheist kid or whatnot couldn’t be a good scout; the fact that atheists and the like have lied in not small numbers and risen to Eagle Scout disproves that idead). it is like in the workplace discriminating against someone who is 5’ tall for a desk job where their height has no meaning to the job (the latter of course is likely illegal, whereas the BSA being a private group can get away with such a test). Not to mention, of course, what good is a rule that requires self reporting, where any number of kids likely lie to gain admittance? Reminds me of an old comedy skit, where a guy is talking to a Catholic priest and getting advice and then says “Father, I am not a Catholic” and the priest replies “Don’t worry, I suspect a lot of the members of my flock aren’t either”.
That rule sounds to me like something the leadership clings to without seeing how outdated it is. It reminds me of a hobby group I am part of the world of, where an organization in the group has twice yearly shows where vendors and dealers sell or show what they have. Up until this year it was open only to members of the group, they have decided to open up parts of the show to the general public, and you would think the sky was falling, like many such groups it is dominated by people who are older, and they want this their own little slice of heaven…meanwhile, people are worried about broadening the base,about it dying out as a hobby as the old or older farts (like me) pass into history, and they can’t see that that exclusivity is only keeping away from keeping it vital.
Our schools have made it clear that they will not permit BSA to meet until they let atheists in. They do not allow any group that excludes on the basis of religious belief.
My H and I have been involved with scouting for over 20 years. Now, we run a Venturing crew. We initially took over a moribund crew a number of years ago when one of our sons had a philosophical disagreement with his so called troop leader and was, in the words of Felix Unger, asked to remove himself from the premises. That son made Eagle through our crew and scouting has really positively impacted his whole life. Our crew is co-ed and we have at least two openly gay scouts, one of whom has aged into leader status.
Way back when the Dale decision came down, we had many friends who left scouting. We loved it for the positive influence it had on our oldest, Aspie-lite son and didn’t want to leave. We signed letters and petitions over the years regarding gay scouts and leaders and turned a blind eye as leaders to same sex families. At this point, we are very happy that we are still involved.
As I speak, a young man we met through scouting is sitting on my couch, using H’s computer to write a resume and the entire group is going out to dinner for the 22nd birthday of a young man who was one of my Tiger cubs and is still a close friend with my sons. Many of my sons’ friends are kids they originally met through scouting. A great many of them are Eagle scouts. All of them are kind, open, generous young men and women.
I applaud the BSA for taking this action, particularly in the present political climate. I encourage anyone who has a young child who identifies as male to look into the scouting program and to become involved as an adult. I have met so many wonderful people through this program.
Oh, and my son who made Eagle, did it without earning any religious emblems. His Eagle project was done to benefit the church where we meet because he was grateful to it for sponsoring the crew. He self-identifies as a non-practicing Jew but is probably closer to atheist than anything else. Maybe it’s because we are in the NYC area but overt religion has never been a part of my scouting experience. We meet at a church but have members who are Jewish, Catholic, protestant, Hindu and Buddhist. The only religious thing we do is serve breakfast to our sponsoring church on Scout Sabbath and none of the kids actually attend the service.
This is certainly doable, but it creates supervision challenges. What if a teen girl decides to go into a boy’s tent in the middle of the night? What if a girl goes for a walk alone in the woods and a boy assaults her?
In Europe they have co-ed scout troops and in the US they have co-ed venture troops both with rules about sharing sleeping space and showers based on sex.
@techiemom How does one in good faith take the Scout Oath if one does not believe in God?
How does one in good faith join an organzation that explicitly states that you can’t become a scout without belief in God?
From what I understand the official scout position is:
“All that is required is the acknowledgment of belief in God as stated in the Declaration of Religious Principle and the Scout Oath, and the ability to be reverent as stated in the Scout Law” .