Yet one more reason I am glad I left the Scouts

I have not talked about it here yet, but I was going to do so eventually.

Once upon a time I was very active in Scouting.  I was a Cub Scout, but dad had been a Den Leader and Scoutmaster.  As I was "shopping" for a troop to join once I had left Cub Scouts I could not shake the feeling that what I was doing was wrong.  Wrong is the right word.

The Boy Scouts of America are, by their own design, a very Christian organization and one that mandates belief. As a Cub I didn't care, but as I got older the hypocrisy was too much.

Not theirs.  Mine.

The Scouts never lied to me. They never misrepresented themselves.  I did. I could not in good conscious be part of an organization that valued truth and honesty if everything I thought they were doing was a sham and everything I said was a lie.

It was hard, but as time went on I came to realize I did the right thing.  The lesson I learned here was that every battle on religion was one I had to win.  Sometimes it was better if I walked away.

Well the Scouts went on too, but they are still have issues of their own to deal with.

http://www.glaad.org/blog/boy-scouts-america-board-member-resigns-support-gay-ohio-mom
http://www.change.org/petitions/boy-scouts-of-america-reinstate-cub-scout-leader-who-was-removed-for-being-gay
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/05/01/after-boy-scouts-remove-lesbian-den-mother-a-board-member-resigns/

An Ohio mother and Den Mother of Tiger Scouts (really young kids) was forced to resign because she was a lesbian.

Now it seems that the hypocrisy is theirs.

They can't claim to be an organization designed to help boys and young men and yet tell certain members of the population that they are not good enough.

To the Boy Scouts of America, look. You can do what you want, you have that legal right. I am not going to tell you you HAVE to do otherwise.  I am saying your SHOULD do otherwise because you are setting an example to the Scouts of today. That example is that some people are not good enough, some people don't matter as much, and some people deserve what they get.  Is that really what you want them to learn?

To Jennifer Tyrrell I say, Don't worry, they don't like Atheists either.