BSA's proposed gay policy change

Exactly right spiff, and I made this same point about 5 pages ago.

SpiffCoug wrote:

this has gotten off track again, thanks to one cornhole. so let me attempt to bring it full circle.



I don't want my young son being taught and influenced by a male leader who is kissing or holding hands with other men. I don't care if he claims to be heterosexual. That's not someone I want my young son with.

And to be honest, putting young males in a position where their leaders could be attracted them isn't fair to the gay leader. We don't put young men with the young women's leaders. In most cases it won't be a problem. But for some it might be, so we just avoid the entire situation and possibility.

+1.

BroncoBot wrote:
Exactly right spiff, and I made this same point about 5 pages ago.

+1. Avoiding compromising situations, avoiding potentially disastrous situations. It's funny, in the corporate world, "Risk Management" is huge.



Essentially, the key to Risk Management is: "If it is predictable, it is preventable." So, if this is true for corporate America, why is it not true for the Boy Scouts of America?



Is it possible that political correctness "trumps" accepted Risk Management practices? Yes.

SpiffCoug wrote:
And to be honest, putting young males in a position where their leaders could be attracted them isn't fair to the gay leader. We don't put young men with the young women's leaders. In most cases it won't be a problem. But for some it might be, so we just avoid the entire situation and possibility.

I agree with you Spiff, and that's how we run things in the Church. However, in my new calling (Second Counselor in the Young Men and Varsity Coach), I was asked to take a bunch of BSA training and learned some things about how Scouting is/can be run outside the LDS Church.



In Varsity and Venture Scouts, the groups are designed to be co-ed (and I commented to my wife that all the pictures-it was illustrated, not photographed-were of remarkably attractive youth and leaders). They take great pains to reinforce "two deep" leadership and the prohibition on leaders fraternizing with the scouts. They also pointed out that in the ideal design, many leaders were recently members of the Team/Crew. Lots of potential for problems.



So Scouting in the purest BSA sense is different from how we run things in the Church. Although we do have monthly Mutual activities with the YW, and all the leaders are involved, so there's that.

CougarClaw wrote:

I guess I imagined that the Duty to God award would grow into the DTG Scouting Organization.

When the BSA had their day at the Supreme Court and before the verdict was announced (you'll remember it was in BSA's favor) my Dad mentioned something interesting. He said that because there was no way the church would support BSA with gay leaders, that they needed an alternative youth program.



DTG was that program.



He noticed specific steps the church was taking at the time to build up the program as a BSA replacement. Things have clearly changed since then so who knows what they'll do.

I was YM pres when that went down and was told that DTG was the replacement for Boy Scouts if and when it went down the slippery slide. And I do see the church pulling it if next year they change the policy. Back in 93 or so the church was ready to pull the plug on all three universities when a bill was introduced in Congress that would have forced all private and public universities to teach homosexuality as an alternate lifestyle. If they would close BYU, I have to imagine they would say goodbye to the BSA.



As for the BSA letting the charters decide for themselves is rediculous. The charters cannot handle the lawsuites and would be forced to cave or into insolvency so the gay agenda would get their way by picking them all off one at a time.