[peter-fogg]

What's that? The BSA is acting in a decidedly unfriendly way? No!

I say this as an Eagle Scout, and someone who had a great time as a Boy Scout from around age ten to eighteen. The Scouts are a great organization on a local level, where there's little bureaucracy, and most decisions are made by or with the boys. You gain a good sense of responsibility when you're the one in charge of overseeing all the camping gear for your trip, or planning an outing over a weekend. There's also a lot to be said for the personal growth that comes from starting as a ten-year-old, learning from the older boys, and then realizing at age eighteen that you're one of those older boys who is looked up to by the young ones.

However, the BSA at a national level is a pretty awful organization. They routinely discriminate against atheists and homosexuals. I'm an atheist myself, as were many in my troop. Again, at the local level this was fine -- nobody cares, provided the other members of the troop are sensible people (which, in my case, they were). But at the national level, any atheist is treated as a Godless Communist.

The same goes for gay boys and leaders. The BSA takes the delightfully antiquated stance of equating homosexuality with pedophilia, with no shortage of moral indignation at the idea that people could feel affection for those of the same gender. Until they do a bit of soul-searching and come into the 21st century, I'll have nothing to do with the national level of the BSA.

[jlgreco]

> The Scouts are a great organization on a local level

At the local level it is hit or miss. You end up with people who don't care if you are gay or an atheist, or it becomes a problem. Because the national organization is bigoted, people who experience discrimination at the local level are left with no recourse. I cannot advocate for "local BSA" because I know nothing of the particular troop somebody will interact with, but I do know that "national BSA" are scumbags. The best I could possibly do is tell people that a particular troop was decent.

(My troop was filled with bigoted shitheads. I got a "get eagle scout or we cut you off and kick you out at 18" ultimatum, and got eagle scout a few months before I turned 18. I did manage to never have the award ceremony though, that was my little personal victory.)

[BHSPitMonkey]

> My troop was filled with bigoted shitheads. I got a "get eagle scout or we cut you off and kick you out at 18" ultimatum, and got eagle scout a few months before I turned 18.

You age out at 18, and become ineligible to rank up on your birthday. That has nothing to do with your troop... Even if they wanted to make an exception for you, they couldn't. It's the same rule for everyone.

[jlgreco]

You have misunderstood, the ultimatum was from my parents. The troop was bigoted because the troop leaders openly hated atheists and gay people.

I wanted nothing to do with them but was emotionally/financially blackmailed into completing the program. In retrospect I had more capacity for independence than I gave myself credit for at the time, but it was a shitty thing for my parents to do (we have since come to terms about this though).

[nightpool]

Might want to clarify that in your post, I came to the same conclusion :)

[brianmwaters_hn]

> The Scouts are a great organization on a local level... > However, the BSA at a national level is a pretty awful organization.

Thank you for pointing this out. I've been trying to explain this to people for years. When I was a kid in the Scouts, we lost a grant for a brand new gear trailer (that we badly needed) because of the bigoted stance that National had just taken on homosexuality. As a troop, we tried to explain this dichotomy to our would-be funders, and even went so far as to openly refuse to enforce National's policy. We lost our trailer anyway, and National continues to reduce the credibility and relevance of the BSA in the eyes of less conservative Americans to this day. And it's a damn shame, because it's really a great organization.

[s-phi-nl]

They recently changed their membership standards to not discriminate against homosexuals. http://www.scouting.org/sitecore/content/MembershipStandards...

[tadfisher]

Homosexual scouts. Homosexual and bisexual adults are still banned from the organization.

[endianswap]

That only applies to the members (the kids), and not to the scout leaders.

[enraged_camel]

>>> The Scouts are a great organization on a local level... > However, the BSA at a national level is a pretty awful organization.

Note that the BSA is not unique in this regard.

At the local level, people genuinely care about the sense of community enabled by the organization.

Whereas at the national level, the only thing people care about is politics. And politics attracts all kinds of assholes.

[jlgreco]

It is not run the mill asshole politics, it is rather extreme bigotry. For a long period of time they maintained that gay people could not be troop leaders because gay people were likely child molesters. If I understand correctly, they actually still believe this.

[homosaur]

Yes, BSA believes this while ignoring things like this: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/ex-cop-s...

This was in my hometown.

This fat fucking sack of subhuman dogshit was also a resource officer at the school and the interim chief of police. When he was the resource officer at my high school, everyone called him "Baby Huey."

The reference, for those that aren't over the age of 60 in the US: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkkTbOs6pmA