Koenig: A Scout Scorned
By Aaron Koenig , Guest Columnist
Published on Friday, July 20, 2012
As a former Eagle Scout, I was shocked to learn of the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to uphold discriminatory membership standards that exclude LGBTQ youth and volunteers from the organization. I protest the unwillingness of the National Executive Board to make the deliberation of its review committee public, which has only promoted inaction on this issue and discredited scouts everywhere.
Scouting in my local troop has had an indelible influence on my life, and I am grateful to the adult leaders who mentored me, taught me and dedicated their time and effort to assist in opening doors to the outdoors, to community service, to their work places and to fun. Scouting introduced me to other people my age and kept some of us together for over 10 years.
Scouting can be a wonderful influence on the lives of young people. It encourages children to be active in their communities, to find role models and to become connected with nature. The organization is composed of over 2.7 million youth members, each of whom is in the process of maturing into a man. To ostracize any one of them (which the organization has done directly in the past) on the basis of his developing sexual identity, or to passively highlight his “deviation” from the norm of behavior in scouting is unconscionable. The BSA should look to its (independently operated) counterpart, Girl Scouts of America, to learn what it means to be tolerant of differences while advocating for and empowering its members.
Instead, the BSA continues to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia among its adult volunteers, whether the BSA will admit to it or not. This is an unworthy slight,and discourages parents who are active as scout leaders from valuing their child’s chosen identity in the private “introductions and discussions” the BSA suggests that parents have with their children about sexuality. Moreover, the organization has well established existing safeguards to protect its scouts, such as two-deep adult leadership and extensive youth protection training.
The BSA believes that it is speaking for a majority of parents and volunteers in its decision. This may be true, but the BSA has not made its process open to input, instead falling back on cryptic and discouraging statements like “the introduction of a resolution is procedural and handled with respect but does not indicate the organization is ‘reviewing a policy’ or signal a change in direction.”
The 10th point of the Scout Law states that scouts are brave, and yet its national leadership is not. Those individuals hide behind the 2000 Boy Scouts of America vs. Dale court decision that allows the BSA, as a private organization, to set its own membership policies for the protection of its “expressive message.” According to the Supreme Court, I have been affiliated with an organization for most of my life that has anti-LGBTQ advocacy as a primary reason for its existence. Lord Baden Powell, founder of the scout movement, would be surprised.
My troop was privileged to have its meeting place in a local elementary school. I participated in the Eagle Project of a scout who organized a birdhouse-building project for students. If homophobia continues to define national BSA policy, however, valuable partnerships between public schools and local scouting will be put into jeopardy. The New York City public school system barred its doors to scout troops in the wake of BSA v. Dale, and more bans will surely be implemented this year. It would make me angry to see my own troop become a pariah and lose some of the respect that the Boy Scouts have traditionally been accorded as a result of the closed-door decisions of a small committee.
I feel that I can no longer publicly associate myself with the BSA. When — and I believe the change to be inevitable — the BSA amends its membership policy, I will be its foremost advocate. Eagle Scouts are told regularly that the responsibilities of the rank do not end with adulthood, and I do not intend to absolve myself of my duty. For my love of scouting, and per my duty as a lifelong scout, I intend to protest the policies of the national organization until they change. I encourage other people whose lives have been touched by scouting to do the same.
Well then, you must have been even more shocked…or “shocked-plus” when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the much maligned first amendment 12 years ago in the case that allowed a private organization (The Boy Scouts) to continue to be a non sexually oriented club, without a coterie of people parading their sexuality around and finding all sizes of boys to be very attractive to them, like Jerry Sandusky was attracted to “young boys and girls.” Lord Baden Powell would be surprised to see that the group he founded as a haven for boys had turned into a boy sexual, hunting and fishing ground for people who are overtly sexual and want to use the Scouts to promote their sexuality and to use the Scouts for their sexual “needs.” I’m disgusted with the columnist. Go start your own organization for homosexual hikers. Why don’t you go down the road and protest Smith College being an all women’s College?
By Alphonse on Jul 20 | 9:47 am
Aaron, Thank you for writing this and making this news known to the Dartmouth community. Growing up, the Boy Scouts were an incredibly significant part of my life. I devoted countless weekends, thousands of hours each year and often parts of my summer to the great work the organization does to provide a space for boys to develop their interests, learn leadership skills, and teach important values like honesty, bravery, and reverence. Notwithstanding the incredibly cowardly way the BSA carried out this decision (the 11-person panel operated in secrecy for 2 years and the names of the members are confidential), the decision to exclude LGBT boys and volunteer leaders is appalling and has far-reaching implications for LGBT youth. Fueled by bigotry, ingrained prejudice, and a fundamental lack of information about LGBT people, the BSA’s policy is not just them asserting their rights as a private organization – they are contributing to the already (and historically) hostile environment LGBT youth face. As an Eagle Scout, it is sad to see the BSA be on the wrong side of history with this decision. Thanks for drawing attention to this.
By ‘13 on Jul 20 | 9:53 am
“it is sad to see the BSA be on the wrong side of history with this decision” The decision for the Boy Scouts to continue to hold the same values is not new, not a change, it is the same. If LGBT boys need an organization that does what the Boy Scouts do, only gay, no one is stopping them from founding the Gay Scouts of America…since when does imposing your values of sex on private organization infringe on any right…to the contrary you want to force yourself on the Boy Scouts…that’s called sexual harassment. “wrong side of history” is a left-wing talking point that assumes that private rights are an anachronism and liberty is therefore dead. Sorry fellas, but your thinking is on the wrong side of history.
By ’ Kim on Jul 20 | 1:05 pm
@Alphonse and ‘KIm
The amount of stupidity in your comments is astounding.
No one is talking about turning the boy scouts into anything sexual. No one is even talking about whether the BSA has a right to ban gays. It is about whether it is right to discriminate against a group of people simply by virtue of the fact that they are attracted to people of the same sex. This columnist and intelligent people in general argue that it is not.
Oh and next time, why don’t you grow a pair instead of cowardly posting your moronic comments anonymously.
By Brian Giunta on Jul 20 | 4:44 pm
I am also an Eagle Scout who finds this decision sickening. Like Koenig, I have had a lot of edifying, beautiful and powerful experiences that I group under the heading Boy Scouts which I could and would not ever give back. My own Scout troop, of which I was Senior Patrol Leader for over a year, was remarkably open-minded and loving, but this I realize was a function of context. My troop was chartered to an elementary school in Austin TX, one of the most progressive and liberal cities in America. The community standards through which we interpreted the Scout Law and Oath were radically different from those of other Troops, most of which are chartered to Christian Churches. So long as the major constituency of the BSA is Christian, and the Mormon church requires all of its youth members to be Boy Scouts, no external pressure is ever going to have much of an effect. Or so I conjecture. I have been browsing the debate on Eagle’s Nest, an Eagle-Scout-Only forum hosted by linked in, and most of the debate over the issue of homosexual membership follows in the grandiose argumentative veins of biblical inspiration: gay members present threats to society, the integrity of Boy Scouts as an organization etc. Because of my experience, for years I never had a clue that the BSA excluded anyone, or ever did (some believe that the Bloods and Crips formed in reaction to the Boy Scouts' earlier exclusion of black members). The more I reflect, the more I realize how ashamed I ought to be. When my little brother was brutally teased by an entire troop of Mormon Boy Scouts in a bathhouse at the Scout camp where I worked, I presume they were exceptions. On that camp staff were several people I seriously thought were gay, but presumed stupidly that they weren’t “out” for reasons related to their home. If anything, Boy Scouts should have been the place to fear open expression of their sexuality the most, instead of the place where they could expect to be categorically exorcised upon any expression whatever. I am deeply conflicted and do not know where to go from here.
By AP15 on Jul 20 | 5:25 pm
correction to above post “ If anything, Boy Scouts should have been the place to fear open expression of their sexuality the most” change “most” to “least”
By AP15 on Jul 23 | 9:59 pm