“On My Honor - - “

I made it to Second Class. I liked being in the Scouts and especially the Jamboree in 1953 at the Irvine Ranch in California. Then I got interested in blowing up stuff and being a tough guy. These are not values normally associated with being a boy scout. So I dropped out and never looked back. There have been incidents over the years since the beginning of Scouting that indicated a definite anti-gay (lumping GLBTQ into “gay” for the moment) bias. That bias has become more and more public as the acceptance of gays has grown, and as the legal protection for gays has finally begun to accumulate.
The quote below is directly from the BSA website and no matter how hard I try, I cannot find anything here that justifies an anti-gay stance:

“Being morally straight means to live your life with honesty, to be clean in your speech and actions, and to be a person of strong character.” (1)

Therefore I conclude that the official policy of the people that run the BSA is Homophobic for personal reasons. Good enough for me to give my Second Class patch and card back if I could find them. And since I am at the very least an agnostic if not an outright atheist, I wouldn’t be allowed in anyway.

There are other problems with Scouting and their own code. One of them has to do with obeying the laws of the land. The quote below (my italics and bold) is from their website:

“By being a good family member and a good citizen, by working for your country's good and obeying its laws, you do your duty to your country.” (1)

The laws of this country in both State and Federal statute protect the rights of all. Gays included. By discriminating against anyone, BSA and boy scouts individually clearly break the code. They hide behind the “private organization” shield to keep their discrimination alive. Personally I think it’s time for the BSA to read their own pledge and try to follow it. And as an aside, Google Boy Scout Leaders, select images and look at the percentage of fat bastards. Healthy huh? Try this revised pledge:

On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to my God (and no one else’s), my country and to obey the Scout Law (even if it conflicts with Federal or State law);
To help other people at all times (except people from the GLBTQ community);
To keep myself physically strong (but fat is OK), mentally awake and morally straight (whatever that means).

Image ;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF_2PxtIsYOX0U791GQX8RiYPb_-QCHU3ROHOctAdOBPzoqNHY6-3WCD1QlzIEbUNgkmvkyK76k5FIh_5u8EVgcSHeq5EmfhixTw5slaT-DoMnCLJHlKsBQJmOQQ9QiQzkBf50uqFxAmqR/s1600/Flag+salute+171712.jpg

1. http://usscouts.org/advance/boyscout/bsoathlaw.asp