response 100 of 174:

Nov 13 21:05 UTC 2000

OK; so you are only suggesting that they lose their tax-exempt status.  I may
disagree, but I can't argue against it.  (And I'm not sure that I disagree. :)

response 102 of 174:

Nov 14 00:48 UTC 2000

Last I heard, yes, they would, Mary.  No reason to bar them.

response 104 of 174:

Nov 14 05:06 UTC 2000

Escalation and retaliation appear to have failed for thousands of years
in the middle east and elsewhere.  Is there reason to think that
escalation will cause the BSA to change their position here?  Might they
become further entrenched in the position they are now defending?  

Is there another method that can be pursued to help the BSA agree with
us, or at least better have more understanding for our point of view? 

response 106 of 174:

Nov 14 05:30 UTC 2000

You are not going to convince the BSA to change its view on what is 
moral or not.  US society as a whole may have been forced in some 
instances to legally tolerate what many people believe is immoral.
But that doesn't mean that individuals or groups must abandon beliefs 
in morality just because certain practices are legal.  In certain areas 
operation of adult bookstores or theatres is legal.  That doesn't mean 
that operators of such establishments are and must be accepted by the 
BSA as suitable role models for its leadership.

response 108 of 174:

Nov 14 07:04 UTC 2000

There are other programs similar to Boy Scouts. Outward Bound, for
example. I doubt they discriminate. I can't think of the others for
younger boys right now, but aren't Girl Guides, and Campfire Girls
alternatives to Girl Scouts? Some other boy's program will just get
a boost from those parents that resent the Boy Scout policy.

response 110 of 174:

Nov 14 13:23 UTC 2000

Re: #103 Exactly what Marcus said in #107.  They BSA have a right, as a
private club, to discriminate but not to expect support with public funds. 
If the schools want to allow private clubs to use their facilities then
they should allow any group to do so without discrimination.  If they
allow Catholic groups to meet then they should also allow wicca groups to
meet. 

What the schools should not do is to make a decision that BSA are more
worthy of perks than the KKK.  Enough of this shunning and pretty soon
parents will get the feeling that maybe this is not the kind of
organization they want their kids involved with and from there BSA would
be a dying institution.  Or at least an institution looking for some
policy changes. 

response 112 of 174:

Nov 14 15:15 UTC 2000

That's not quite true. Magen David Adom has formal observer status, as it
has had for the past fifty years. However, its refusal to display one of
the official emblems of the Red Cross has prevented its admission as a full
member. The "red cross" itself is not a religious symbol, but in fact
is simply a color-reversed Swiss Flag. Nonetheless, many nations view it as
a religious symbol, and the "red crescent" was made available as an
alternative. A third option would need to be approved in a vote of the
192 member countries.

response 114 of 174:

Nov 14 18:24 UTC 2000

Of course - discrimination is rampant and very difficult to overturn. 
The US has made some progress in this - black people can vote and meet
little overt racism - but dig a little deeper, and there is still lots
of more insidious if less overt discrimination. Homosexuals have only
just started to exercise their rights to civil liberties and freedom
from subtle if not overt discrimination. One can see the barrier to
progress in albaugh's rant. 

response 116 of 174:

Nov 14 19:39 UTC 2000

Would the gay parents of a boy scout be welcome on a 
camping sleep-out as one of the parent chaperones?

If your son was one of the boys going on that camp out
would you be more concerned that one of the adults was
homosexual or a priest?

response 118 of 174:

Nov 14 21:27 UTC 2000

Mary, adults are allowed to sleep in the tent only of their own child.  So
a gay parent on a campout would not be in any other kid's tent.  Not a
problem.

And, in Ann Arbor, at least, "the schools" do not support Boy Scouts.  The
PTOs are the chartered organizations that support the Scouts.  It is up to
them, not to the Superintendent or Board of Education, to decide which
organizations they will, and will not support.

response 120 of 174:

Nov 15 00:07 UTC 2000

When I was in an Ann Arbor elementary school (admittedly a while ago), I 
don't remember ever getting any BSA membership material, either from the 
schools, or from others.  I don't think I had any friends that were boy 
scouts.

response 122 of 174:

Nov 15 05:45 UTC 2000

When I was in school, which was not too long ago, the PTO was generally
presented as the forum for parents to go to discuss and influence local school
policies.  Claiming that something is sponsored by the PTO, rather than the
school, and should thus not be subject to any of the anti-discrimination
restrictions put on school sponsored activities, seems to me to be a very hard
sell.

Societal opinions on morality can and do change.  People do reexamine their
beliefs, and do sometimes decide that they were wrong, especially when society
around them is also changing and doing so is a matter of going with the flow.
As such, I think albaugh's statement in #106 that "you aren't going to get
the BSA to change its view on what is moral or not," as well as his statements
in #113 that society will not discriminate against the Boy Scounts, are at
best short sighted.  It may not happen right away, but if societal attitudes
continue to move in the direction they're moving in now, and the Boy Scounts
don't budge, I think the Boy Scouts will go the way of the all white country
club, perhaps still in existence, but not acceptable in mainstream society.

There was a time when it was considered immoral to allow black people and
white people to associate with eachother.  It took much longer to knock down
the legal barriers set up to prevent that association in schools than it did
in other parts of society, suggesting that people were especially scared of
having black and white kids interacting with eachother.  I'm certainly not
going to argue that there is true racial equality in the US today, or that
there are no longer parents who send their kids to all white schools due to
racism.  However, 50 years ago such segregation was legally mandated in many
parts of the US, and people continued to fight for that segregation long after
it was outlawed by the Supreme Court in 1954.  Yet today, if anybody were to
protest the hiring of a black teacher for their kids, or to object to a black
parent leading an after school activity, on the basis of race, most people
in the US would be outraged.  I seriously doubt we would be having an argument
here over whether an organization that didn't allow black leaders should get
United Way funding, because we would all agree that it shouldn't.

response 124 of 174:

Nov 15 07:09 UTC 2000

I'm perfectly willing to believe that the Cub Scout pack is sponsored by the
PTO, not the school.  What you're having a harder time convincing me of is
that the PTO is not sponsored by the school.