I grew up with all boys, and most of them were Boy Scouts. I thought that was cool until a few tears ago, when the Boy Scouts were effectively taken over by the Mormon Church. Since then, the Boy Scouts have taken on policies that are discriminatory in nature, such as not allowing gays or aetheists to be scouts or scout leaders. That doesn't sound to me like doing a good turn daily. Oh, but they are a private organization, you say. They can do what they want. NO TRUE!!
They ARE a private organization, but they use government money and buildings. They receive special dispensation from the government because the Boy Scouts are considered a "patriotic organization". That means that they rent government buildings and facilities for $1. The Boy Scout Jamboree held at Fort AP Hill costs the Boy Scouts $1 and the American tax payers $5,000,000 every 4 years. Regular meetings are held in schools or other public buildings for free or for no more than $1 a year. So, American taxpayers are paying for a discriminatory organization to use their facilities. Boy Scouts are also one of the only organizations that are allowed to recruit students without a parent present. As Americans, we need to demand that this group ends its discriminatory practices or gets out of our schools and public buildings. We also need to demand that they not speak to our sons without our permission.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
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Taken over by the Mormons? I don't think so. A lot of involvment yes but the Babtists in the area would dispute teh contention strongsly.
The head of the Boy Schout is a Mormon and over 50% of the enrolled Boy Scouts state that their religion is Mormon or LDS. It actually HAS been taken over. I don't make these claims lightly. I'm not saying that other religions aren't represented or involved, but the majority of the leaders and scouts are Mormons.
I remember reading about gay scout leader scandals a few years back. I thought the solution would be something like we have in schools, just an awareness that there may be predatory teachers (gay or not), and that gays should not be "proselytizing" (nor should straights for that matter).
Being taken over by homophobic religious organizations wasn't the solution I had in mind. I'm sure they would like to take over the schools as well, to get more government money.
As I understand it they like to get teachers who will take the vow of poverty, so all income can be diverted directly to the church, which itself is tax exempt.
I am reasonably religious, but I don't agree with this kind of theocracy stuff.
I recall reading about one of the "atheist" organizations, and their position was not so much anti-religion, but simply that the overall tax exempt status of churches is wrong, because in many ways they operate as businesses. For charity work certainly that should be tax exempt, but building more and more houses for God, which God's stand-in can live in and enjoy, is not charity.
I have my opinions on both the LDS and the Boy Scouts but I was never aware that the LDS had gained control of the Boy Scouts. Can you share some details on the connection?
If this is the case, it must really frost a lot of the local councils and the community sponsors. Our parish sponsors a Troop and I suspect they would not be happy with the LDS controlling matters
oops...just read your response to exmi... over 50%? WOW
Ditto to Mallory. I'm floored! But in the case of the Boy Scouts, if they stop taking gov't money than they can do as they please. However, if they're helping themselves to public funds, they'd better conform to public rules and regs. Personally, I don't think their "discrimination" is all bad. I believe in shielding our kids from a lot of things until they're old enough to make their own decisions. But, I don't like knowing that we're funding them when we already have so much pork barrel spending.
LDS is a big, scary organization with a friendly face. Two areas they are pervasive in are geneology and scouting. The International Geneological Index, maintained by LDS, has more than 250 million names. The second-largest geneology website, FamilySearch.Org, is run by LDS. The largest, Ancestry.com, shows no Mormon Affiliation, but its offices are in Provo, Utah, and it uses the IGI.
This means that every single gramma who buys a computer to help build a family tree will no doubt be giving personal family history to the LDS.
More than two hundred and fifty million names. Dating back to the 1800's, and in some cases, as far back as the 1500's. They can find out more about your family than you can. We're complaining about the phone database the NSA has on us. The mormons make our countries spies look like pikers.
And according to a May 1st, 2000 story in Time Magazine: "The Latter-day Saints constitute less than 2% of the U.S. population but 21% of the boys in the core Boy Scouts program, more than any other group."
Furthermore, 10% of the Boy Scout council live in Salt Lake City.
source: http://lds-mormon.com/mormon_boyscouts_gays.shtml
The LDS is a racist, sexist organization (LDS believes in not only a Heavenly Father, but a Heavenly Mother. However, Mormons can be excommunicated for even talking about the Holy Mother). Are these really the people we want teaching our boys, and tracking our families?
Mormons make Scientologists look like Quakers.
Yeharr
Saur,
I agree. I fthey stop taking government money and holding meetings in schools, I don't care what they do. My objection is that schools endorse them and that millions of dollars in taxpayer money are spent to house and feed the Boy Scouts. Did you kneo tha AP Hill takes care of all of the food, clean up, etc, and the Boy Scouts only pay $1. That's reprehensible. I do think their discrimination is bad. The sexual orientation of a scout meember or leader is his or her own business, and if they keep it to themselves, who is anyone to say that they cant do their job well or be a good scout? The same goes for atheists. If they're not preaching to the kids, there's no reason why they can't be Scouts or leaders.
BP,
Thanks for adding the information!
UWL:
What if the organization doesn't want it? They have a traditional code of morals that excludes our more "enlightened" morality, which patterns the views of a cross-section of Americans. So, as long as the populace finds homosexuality a breach in morals, and they pay taxes to support the schools that house scouting activities, let them continue.
I don't mind offending the "Lavender Mafia."
And, you were so glad that I don't come to your blogsite anymore. Hello!
They don't get to discriminate and use overnment buildings. There is no discussion on that. They don't pay taxes because they are considered a non-profit organinzation, so again, they should not be able to use those buildings. If the organization pays taxes and meets on private property, they can do whatever they want. I honestly don't care. But if they are in my child's school trying to recruit him to join their organization, they use the school building and don't pay for the use, and they use government buildings and don't pay for that, I object, no matter what organization they are. I don't think the gril scouts should be allowed to do it either, and they are in NO WAY affiliated with the boy scouts or the Mormon church. The bootom line is this, organizations that use government buildings DO NOT get to discriminate an the basis of race, religion, or sexual organization.
Sorry, that should be orientation.
Wow, Mormon conspiracies..... Are the Knights Templar, The Concil on Foreign Relations, and the Gnomes of Zurich involved in this too?
Seriously, yes, lots of LDS folks are involved in Boy Scouts (and geneology) That doesn't mean the CHURCH has taken over the system. As ofr Scouts in teh schools, around here pretty much all of the scout troops are based out of various churches. (All that I know of anyway)
"The sexual orientation of a scout meember or leader is his or her own business, and if they keep it to themselves, who is anyone to say that they cant do their job well or be a good scout?" I agree here. but of course if they were "keeping it to themselves" then no one would know to get upset aobut the issue.
I personally don't care who or what a person gets sexually turned on by. But I can see why many parents might not like the idea of a man who is sexually turned on by men alone out in the woods with thier boys in much the same way they wouldn't be excited about a man who is sexually turned on by women being alone in the woods with their daughters.
Exmi,
I didn't once mention a conspiracy. I said the Mormons have an overwhelming majority of people in leadership positions in the boy scouts, which is disturbing to me because it is quickly becoming a religious organization that has a presence in our schools. I don't want ANYONE speaking to my son without my permission, especially an organization tha admits to discrimination against homosexuals and atheist. My son will be raised as an atheist.
I also don't mind if the scout troops STAY in the churches. I don't want them in schools or government buildings because that means my taxes are paying for an organization that is religious in nature and discriminates against people, namely my son.
The leaders do keep it to themselves as far as the souts were concerned. The law suits were over leaders being forced to resign because the participated on their own time, and did not bring any schouts with them, in protests or gay pride parades, or were memebrs of pro-gay rights organizations. In other words, they were ousted for something they did that had nothing to do with the scouts. They were not wearing scout uniforms and did not mention their scout affiliation at the time of the protest or parade. Again, I have no problem with the scouts ousting them if they are a private organization, but they are not. They use schools and governmnet buildings, and there are government programs to allow poor children to pay dues.
"My son will be raised as an atheist."
There are different things all called atheism. There's the people (many are religious) who want churches to be taxed like businesses (and exempt where they do legitimate charity work). Then there are people who believe "there is no god". Sometimes agnostics "we don't know if there is a god" are lumped in here. The last kind is people who simply are not religious, and not concerned with how the world came to be. If pressed, they are most like agnostic "don't know, don't really care where it came from".
I would like to suggest, respectfully, that you do find a way to provide some religious experience to your son. When looking at the issue of cult recruitment in high schools and colleges, the least susceptible are those who have a strong religious upbringing. The most susceptible are those with no religious experience.
I am very thankful to have been raised in a family that attended church fairly regularly and I was exposed to the experience. We would come home and often discuss religious matters over Sunday dinner, and my parents were very open minded in their faith and often disagreed with their church. There's the catch. We were not living under a reign of fear where we are excommunicated for not following all dogma. We were encouraged to think for ourselves and not allow other people to interpret our bible for us.
In grade school, age 8 or 9, a friend invited me to a bible class in some neighbour on the next street's basement. It wasn't bad, but I had no interest. Soon I am getting mail from them asking if I forgot to attend, or why I missed the last class. Mom said, you don't have to do what they say. You don't have to go if you don't want to. Since I was already getting the "belonging" feeling from the church I attended, these people couldn't manipulate me.
In the first weeks of high school, there were posters and such to attend the "burger bash" in someone's back yard. Mom said sounds like fun (had to tell her I'd be late that afternoon). I went, had the burgers, but then they wanted us to watch a movie about the "campus life" organization. I stayed hoping we would do something fun eventually, but they just wanted signups to come to some sort of meetings. Again, it was like "I already go to church and that's boring enough, why do I need to be involved with these people?". I don't think they are actually a cult, but they use similar techniques, probably less forcefully than the bad ones.
They used some of the usual cult tactics, fill you with food, then love bombing, then hinting that you're life is unfulfilled, don't you want to belong etc.
The big one, of course is kind of unstated, but for boys, you sure get the feeling some of the cuter girls would take an interest in you, if only you joined up. But again, my own church upbringing saved the day. I knew the girls in my church didn't think better of me because I went there, so I didn't fall for that from these people either.
So I suppose the main thing is for your son to have lots of defences against these mind fuck people. A love (not fear) based religious upbringing can be one way to do this (or it could be far worse, so buyer beware).
Just a thought...
Bud,
My son will be taught morals, but not religion. He will be taught philosophy, but not religion. He will be taught about the religions of the world when he is old enough to undertsand that they are based on stories, not fact. He will be taught to respect that people do not believe as we do, and to respect their beliefs even if he doesn't agree with them. I plan on taking him to a service of each religion and sects of various religions so that he can learn that people all believe basically the same thing, it's just the stories that change. If freinds invite him to religious events, I'll be attending as well, unless he goes with a friend whose parents know, understand, and respect our beliefs. If I feel it's too weird or that they're trying to covert my son, we'll be going home. I've never been uncomfortable around Jews, Bhuddists, Hindus, Sikhs, and Ekankarists, rarely around Muslims, Catholics, and Protestants, but almost ALWAYS around Christians.
Also, if my son decides to practice a religion, I will allow it, with supervision, of course, though I can't say I will agree with it. At 13, it's his choice, not mine. I don't believe in god and neither does my husband. We believe that Jesus, Mohammed, Santa, and the Easter Bunny are all on the same intellectual level. They're just stories.
Still, we believe that there is philosophical merit in the study of religion, and in some of the traditions. We also believe in the merit of spending time with people who are religious, meaning we don't plan on surrounding him with only atheists. We will discuss religion. He will have a strong moral upbringing. I agree that those without a belief system are more likely to search for religion, but he will have a belief system, it just won't revolve around god. In the event of our death, though, his guardian will be someone who shares our beliefs, which leaves out a lot of family members.
What nonsense. When I was working professionally with the Boy Scouts (Many years ago I was a water-front-director) in a Mormon community, the local scout professional bragged constantly about his success in making Mormon Scouts uncomfortable. Around here (Georgia) the Mormons are only a sliver. (Of course there are more in Utah and California. Balloon Pirate is full of blither, but at least some of his statistics are accurate. Come on Polanco, you are better than that.
Three score,
Sorry, but that was many years ago. Things have changed. Though the Mormon population varies fron state to state (we don't have enough mormons in PA to make up 50%), the people in charge of the Boy Scouts, and those making Boy Scout policy ARE Mormans and ARE changing the rules according to their religion. Again, I wouldn't see that as a problem if the Boy Scouts weren't using millions of dollars in government money a year, weren't holding their meetings in PUBLIC schools, and weren't able to recruit in my child's school without my presence.
I hate to put it this way (as a Mormon myself)but the Mormons have a failing record on the control issue for the last half century. Much to the confusion and frustration of some Utah Mormons, if you analyze Utah politics, the Mormons don't even control Utah. Why would they go after the Boy Scouts? Mormon Boy Scouts don't meet in schools and on public property, they meet in church facilities. Mormon Boy Scouts don't even have to deal with the "don't ask don't tell issue. Their local leaders are chosen through Ecclesiatical processes. It just don't make no sense at all. As for the Mormon spy network in geneology- - Huh????
(Polanco, I realize that wasn't your issue)
Three score,
Look it up. The contorl the Boy Schouts financially and "morally". Why are you a mormon - not looking for an argument, just wondering what would make someone choose that religion.
Looked it up. Aint so. I'm a Mormon because it is the best thing for me and my family. I've seen it proved a hundred times. (One of my family doesn't agree, and that's all right too. I don't insist that all my family and friends agree with me.)
It is not through ignorance. I have proved I can think (four degrees and a lifetime of college teaching and research in a variety of fields) I read the book.
A very good friend of mine works as a district coordinator for the Boy Scouts in a certain unnamed city and state. I have big qualms with supporting them, too, and even had a moral dilemma the first time he held a carwash--do I give them money? support the discrimination? On the other hand, they have a pretty widely understood "Don't ask, don't tell policy." His troop is all about diversity and acceptance, so I have no problem supporting him.
Three socre,
I am willing to admit that statistic change depending on where you're gettin them, so please tell me where you looked it up so that I can read it. I didn't mean to imply that you are nto intelligent because you're a mormon. In fact, some of the most intelligent people I know are mormons. Some of the worst liars I know are mormons, too. As with everything, it takes all kinds. I'm curious as to why you believe this is the best thing for your family. What beliefs specifically? What lead you to these beliefs? In effect, how and why did you choose the Mormon church? If you're uncomfortable discussing this with me, I understand. I'm just wondering.
Jessica,
I've had a lot of students who were Boy Scouts and have asked me to contribute to various fund raisers. Since I teach high school, they are sometimes insulted when I tell them no. Girls Couts are, too. Thoguh the Girl Scouts aren't affiliated with the Boy Scouts, they still incorporate a lot of relgion in their meetings, and meet at public schools and recruit without parents present, soemthing I REALLY disagree with. I tell all of my students at the beginning of the year tha it's wonderful that they participate in EC activites and that I'd love to support them, but as a teacher I have a lot of students and if I supported one of them, I'd have to support them all, and I just don't have that kind of money.
As for kids in my neighborhood, I support the local public school fund raisers, karate classes, sports teams, etc..., but when a church group, Boy Scout, or Girl Scout comes to my door, I respectfully decline. If an adult neighbor is the one to solicit, I explain that I don't support an religious institutions, but if their kid starts playing baseball next year, I would happily contribute to new uniforms. Sometimes people ask questions, sometimes they don't. Either way, I get out of supporting something I really don't believe in.
bfvBud,
My husband read your post about having a religious background and agreed that we need to raise our son with strong moral and ethical beliefs. He notes that for a sense of belionging, we will be getting him involved in karate and various other activites that are not religious in nature, and that he, too, is concerned about the mind fuck people. Neither of us fell victim to it, and both of us were raised Catholic but stopped going to church around 6th grade. We will definitely have to come up with a subsitute, especially one that provides a sense of community. Thanks for the imput. It gave us a lot to think about.
I haven't ignored your invitation (or challenge, or whatever) but I have had my time tied up by family matters, a funeral, etc. I will cite my sources, explain my own motives etc., though everyone will have passed this thread long ago by the time I do. I do have a quick comment. I have just been out in Utah, and found a substantial negative opinion of the Boy Scouts out there, for diametrically opposite reasons. The primary objections seem to be 1. The incredible ineptitude of the professional scout offices that mess up records, double bill costs, and things like that.
2. The degree to which the Boy Scouts seem to be secularizing the program, and eliminating many of the things for which people in that area have supported Scouting. "We could do better, for a lower cost, and with much less hassle, if we just set up our own program (See Baptist Church Young Ambassadors, for example)
I found it interesting and a little surprising.
I hope they are secularizing the program. I'm not against having religious yout programs, but I am against them being sponsored by schools. I am hoping that their link to education may have been wha made them decide to begin the switch.
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