L.A. Wants To Remove Boy Scouts From Running Their Police Department's Explorer Program

My hubby and I talked about adoption

and, of the many discussions we had about discipline, family policy on such fraught topics as hair length for boys, age for makeup, age for dating, clothing and schooling, the most angry, and the one we never resolved, was Scouting.

I said hell no, no child of mine will ever belong to the Boy Scouts. There are alternatives, and how could he even think that was appropriate?

My husband the Eagle Scout said he'd enjoyed his time as a Scout and he would want that for our son (assuming a boy).

Fortunately, we opted not to adopt, so this is an academic discussion. I still have no idea how he can mentally justify being willing to send a child of ours to an organization that would teach him his own family is sub-standard.

Cause any fool knows, a dog needs a home; a shelter from pigs on the wing

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by: QueerInSoCal @ Fri Oct 30, 2009 at 11:06:28 AM CDT

A catch 22

I'm gay and was in explorers.  I loved it.  It showed me the "other side" of public safety.  Explorers is run/owned by the scouts.  Its a group they setup for high school student/early college to join.  The current BSA policy bothers me, but I'd hate to see people miss the opportunity to do something like explorers.  I don't know of any other organization that is doing it.

If there is a non-scout run option available, put it in place.  If this kills the explorer program in the department, I'd hate to see it go.

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by: goaliemn @ Fri Oct 30, 2009 at 11:33:10 AM CDT

Yeah!

Institutionalized homophobia is on it's way out.

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by: pantherq @ Fri Oct 30, 2009 at 11:38:43 AM CDT

I was a queer Boy Scout

I was in an Explorer post based out of NASA in high school. It was awesome - I loved the program, the volunteer leaders and the other Explorers. I do agree that the Boy Scouts should get no public funding for their programs until their anti-discrimination policies are at least adequate, I am also sad that young people like me are going to miss out on the Explorers as a result. However, that is entirely under the Boy Scouts control.  

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by: opalescent @ Fri Oct 30, 2009 at 15:28:38 PM CDT

Let's not forget

The Mormon-owned BSA also had its sights set on excising the Unitarians from the BSA, removing their religion's badge, and almost got up to the point of revoking the charters of Unitarian-run Scouting groups.

Thankfully, only the BSA has such bigotry -- AFAIK, World Scouting is fully inclusive of TLBGs and non-theists in their ranks and leadership.

Once again the US proves culturally, it's a backwards country while the rest of the world leaves us behind!

Listen to "TransTalk" every Monday from 4-5pm ET on http://www.falconradio.org beginning January 11th!

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by: Marlene @ Fri Oct 30, 2009 at 17:46:06 PM CDT

Opinion from a Gay Eagle Boy Scout

I loved being a boy scout and reached the top as Eagle.

During all my years in the organization, I never once heard the word gay until the 1980s when the Mormans infiltrated this once good organization and brought it to the homohating oranization that it is today.

Hell, I don't even give to the United Way anymore after the local UW refused to stop giving to the homobigots.

LA should cut ties with this organization and I am rather shocked that they didn't do so about 15 years ago when these anti gay policies of the BSA were made VERY public. Having said that, better late than never.

Good for LA.

vanhattan

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by: vanhattan @ Fri Oct 30, 2009 at 22:10:02 PM CDT