BSA persecution continues... now by Philadelphia...

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

BSA persecution continues... now by Philadelphia...

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report the world will do it's darndest to crush it!

lundbaek · Profuse Pontificator

Can this be considered persecution, even if done by an Latter Day Saint?

www.newswithviews.com/Duke/selwyn50.htm "Romney opposed the Boy Scouts policy prohibiting homosexuals from serving as scoutmasters and prevented the organization from participating publicly in the 2002 olympics."

I have a perhaps more impressive source, David Bresnahan, an LDS investigative reporter, but I cannot paste to this forum.

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

Yep.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Sheesh lundbaek... rolleyes

So, what makes a reporter more credible if he is LDS than a politician that is LDS?

It is real easy to write a fringe article with slanted accusations that give no source to back it... and it is even more common for "investigative" reporters to say things that are full of half-truth taken far out of context and outright false statements. But, they get protected from having to answer for it because of "their journalistic integrity" and all that junk. Shoot, Dan Rather is still griping because he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar of tabloid journalism...

From http://www.evangelicalsformitt.org/massresistance/therealtruth.pdf

THE BOY SCOUTS
The Governor has long been a strong supporter of the Boy Scouts, even sitting on its national board of directors. He has never taken any action to limit their activities. Any statement to the contrary is false. Particularly hurtful has been MassResistances claim that Governor Romney prevented the Boy Scouts from serving in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics because of their stand on homosexual scoutmasters. Leading conservative attorney Jay Sekulow has thoroughly and completely debunked this claim:
Brian Camenkers [of MassResistance] claimthat Romney Barred Boy Scouts from public participation in the 2002 Olympics is entirely false. There are several articles that directly contradict Camenkers conclusion. NewsMax.com, Camenkers source, did not even claim that Romney made the decision to bar the Scouts. In fact, Romney, at least at that time, sat on the Boy Scouts executive board. The Boy Scouts said that the NewsMax article was false. Even NewsMax admitted that the Olympic Committee said that there was an age restriction of 18 years old and up to be a volunteer. There are also inconsistencies in the two NewsMax articles, only one of which is cited by Camenker.Since no major media source ran anything about this story, and the local media directly contradicted it, it appears that Camenkers claim is false.

http://www.evangelicalsformitt.org/front_page/jay_sekulow_responds_to_boy_sc.php

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

For clarification, my "Yep" was specifically commenting on persecution coming from someone who is LDS not any specific case being discussed. Sorry for the confusion.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

I didn't think much of Romney on the debate last night.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

I'm sorry to hear the challenges the Boy Scouts are facing. I think most people don't even get what the program's about, and a huge chunk of LDS members are full of apathy or loathing about the program... it's an easy program to disregard with the Duty to God program out there, and helicopter parents enrolling their baby Einsteins in every extracurricular activity under the sun... It's so easy to use those two excuses to diss the scouts, and chock it up to some kind of archaic tradition... that no longer really matters.

Often such attitudes turn into self-fulfilling prophecies of the worst sort... cuz it's all based upon what you put into it... and if you start with a crappy attitude... Crap in... Crap out... oh look it's all crappy!

--Ray

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

AMEN, RAY! AMEN!

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Raise your hands in the air! Can I hear a Hallelujah?!

--Ray

PollyAnna · Senior Bucketkeeper

ouch.... maybe next time...

Hoss Cartwright · Senior Member

rayb wrote:

I'm sorry to hear the challenges the Boy Scouts are facing. I think most people don't even get what the program's about, and a huge chunk of LDS members are full of apathy or loathing about the program... it's an easy program to disregard with the Duty to God program out there....

It's truly frustrating when the Deacon's quorum president and/or counselors have this attitude. We have an issue with this right now, because we can't really do an adequate version of the "patrol method" because one of our counselors never comes to anything "scouting-related" (which is almost everything).

His parents have some kind of scouting chip on their shoulder, which they will not explain or help us work around in any way.

Previously, our scoutmaster (and Deacon's quorum advisor) got around this by appointing other boys as patrol leaders and moving the anti-scouting counselors into other positions. But our bishopric counselor put the kibosh on that after that scoutmaster left. Basically this is the edict we are left with (which is NOT in the CHI): The deacon's quorum president shall be the Senior patrol leader; the quorum shall be split into two patrols, and the patrol leaders shall be the deacon's quorum counselors.

We do better than most, but we don't have patrols in reality. The SPL ends up doing all the "leading," and gets really frustrated, and just won't do any more leading about 3/4 of the way through most camps. You can't blame him; he's only 13, and that is a lot of responsibility.

/rant

Hoss Cartwright · Senior Member

Oh, and so far as the OP is concerned:

I don't necessarily consider it persecution. I would like it if the Boyscouts could continue with the lower rent. But cities have rules, and the people have determined that organizations can only qualify for lower rents if they adhere to the anti-discrimination policy. The citizens of that city have determined that homosexuals are a protected class for purposes of the "nearly-free-rent" policy.

That's just the way it is. I don't think they made the policy to single out the boy scouts.

The scouting organization has made its decision regarding homosexual's participating, and now it has to live with the decisions that others have made regarding cheap rents.

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

I wonder if they were a muslim based youth club if they would have had this sort of thing happen to them. In all fairness the scouts have been a target of the secular progressives for some time.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Good point there, Jason. It is politically correct to make a target of that which is not politically correct.

It is too bad that the BSA didn't have the foresight to see the difficulties they could and are encountering now by not owning free and clear all the various buildings, facilities, and campgrounds that local councils operate out of... in some respects, it sometimes feels like a lot of local councils sold their birthright to charitable groups whose agendas change with the blowing of the political and social winds.

Of course, I guess some could acuse the BSA of doing the same thing by listening to such large monetary supporting chartering organizations like the LDS Church and The United Methodist Church that if they don't stick to their guns about morals, the chartering organization will pull out altogether.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Actually, Jase, Hamas is one such organization. It runs a lot of youth groups, which is ironic, considering it's other affiliations... :)

Maybe they should have meritbadges like Suicide bombing, ied building, infidel headchopping, and woman beating.

--Ray

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

So why do some folks think that Scouts and the Duty to God Program can't coexist? The requirements practically overlap...

--Ray

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Probably because they don't understand them, or they are biased to one or the other.

I admit, I am biased towards Scouting, but that is simply because I have more track record with it than the new improved DTG for this generation. We've only had one young man actually complete the DTG in our ward, and not that many more in our Stake. More emphasis is being placed on it from the Stake now, so we will probably have a number in our ward who get it.

One of the things that irks me is how so many promote both by saying things like "the requirements practically overlap." Which, in essence means that the adults are telling the young men that if they cut corners on the requirements on one, they not only get awarded one thing, but pass of requirements for the other. I don't see why there needs to be a seperate award for doing essentially the same thing. Help an elderly person with their yardwork for the summer? Great! Apply it to either Scout service hours or DTG, but not both for the same action.

But that is just one of my personal peeves for people (and it isn't just the YM) to get multiple awards for the same accomplishment. The idealist in me thinks that each award or recognition someone receives should really be related to mutually exclusive things. My brother, also a Scoutmaster, doesn't see it that way though...

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Are you biased or do you just understand the topic better than most people?

--Ray

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Yes.

PollyAnna · Senior Bucketkeeper

me too!

Just call me: the "Momma of many a scouter..."