The
regional
chapter of the
Boy Scouts of America has 54,000 members.
Tim
Jeal's book is called The Boy-Man: The Life of Lord Baden-Powell.
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In 1990, biographer Tim Jeal speculated that Lord Baden-Powell,
the British military officer who founded the Scouting movement,
was a repressed homosexual.
If true, the news would underscore the perverse contradictions
of today's Boy Scouts of America, a 5-million-member organization
that is both genuinely character-building and cynically
hidebound.
You will find no criticism here of the rank-and-file Boy
Scout program. The Scout culture of cooperation, self-reliance
and love of nature is admirable.
But as with many large organizations, the leadership in
the upper ranks of Scouting is antediluvian when it comes
to matters of sexual preference and belief in God. It's
this rigidity that led to a recent court challenge in Portland.
Although the Scouts won that skirmish, they are certain
to lose the larger battle.
Discomfort over homosexuality has long been an issue for
the Boy Scouts, whose leadership says it will drum out of
the organization any members who are avowedly gay. This
long-standing policy was challenged last month in New Jersey,
where the state Supreme Court ruled that the Scouts' ban
on gays was illegal. The ruling has no authority outside
that state.
Scout leadership also requires that its members swear reverence
to God. This litmus test survived a challenge here in Oregon
last week, when Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Joseph
Ceniceros ruled that the Scouts could continue to solicit
boys during the day in Portland classrooms. Nancy Powell,
the plaintiff in the suit, is an atheist whose son Remington
was recruited by the Scouts at his elementary school. Powell
argued that public premises are no place for an organization
that requires its members to recognize a duty to God.
Ceniceros rejected her argument. But he did express concern
that the Boy Scouts "deny membership to boys and scoutmasters
who do not acknowledge the existence of God."
Scout leadership says any shift of its attitudes toward
gays and God would rot the very foundation of the 90-year-old
organization.
It's a silly claim. For proof, look to the Girl Scouts.
A few years back, the Girl Scouts of the USA added language
to its bylaws, stating that, as it related to lesbians,
"The Girl Scout organization does not discriminate." When
asked whether the Girl Scouts would deny membership to a
troop leader or scout who came out of the closet, Sandy
Miracle-Jones, assistant executive director of the Columbia
River Council of Girl Scouts, said, "No."
Similarly, six years ago, the national organization added
an asterisk to the Girl Scout promise, which now reads,
"On my honor, I will try: To serve God* and my country,
to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout
Law." The asterisk is explained below the promise: "Individuals
may substitute a word that more appropriately reflects their
spiritual beliefs."
When asked how the Boy Scouts would feel about making a
similar accommodation, 32-year veteran Larry Otto, the scout
executive who runs the Cascade Pacific Council of the Boy
Scouts, said, "No way. We are not going to support an asterisk."
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Willamette Week | originally
published September 8,
1999 |
