Answering Bob Barr

‘The Leader’, our council newsletter, featured an excerpt of a piece by former Congressman Bob Barr wishing the BSA a happy 94th birthday. In this piece Congressman Barr asked several questions that deserve an answer.

Congressman Barr spoke of the larger culture wars that are ravaging Western civilization and asked why people were criticizing the Boy Scouts of America. The answer is simple enough; we are being criticized because we are allowing a narrow interpretation of our Scout and Law to go unchallenged from within our membership. (By the way, Bob, Western Civilization, for all its advantages, needs regular ravaging. Without this ‘ravaging’ African Americans would still be second class citizens, women wouldn’t have the vote, there would be no organized labor, no child labor laws; all things that were decried as an attack on civilization at the time.)1

The heart and genius of our movement is decentralization, as best expressed by our founder:

Fortunately, in our Movement, by decentralization and giving a free hand to the local authorities, we avoid much of the red tape which has been the cause of irritation and complaint in so many other organizations.

Lord Baden Powell Aids to Scoutmastership

Unfortunately the Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America has improperly usurped the role of local volunteers and decided to define and enforce a narrow moral ideology and demand that we all comply. They have persisted against reason, protest and petition from individual volunteers, Scouting units, chartered organization representatives and Councils. They have squelched every attempt to intelligently discuss and debate our future and spent untold resources defending a narrow ideology that will marginalize us into nonexistence.

The B.S.A. has chosen to focus discrimination on narrow facets of individual moral character by refusing to register youth or adults who express a homosexual orientation, or atheism. Applicants are asked to agree to obey the Scout Oath and Law, an internal and individual process that cannot be judged solely by external evidence. Very few of our present members would stand up to scrutiny if the B.S.A. enforced adherence to similarly narrow interpretations of the Scout Oath and Law in other respects.

Discrimination is contrary to my personal understanding of the Scout Oath and Law. What specific qualities do gay or atheist people lack that prevent them from serving their community through Scouting? We have denied our Scouts and ourselves the talents, energy and support of many good people.

Perhaps the most dangerous result of this decision is the potentially disastrous effect it will have on the youth we desire to serve. The American Psychiatric Association offers the following observations to educators: the experience of gay, lesbian, and bisexual teenagers is often one of isolation, fear of stigmatization, and lack of peer or familial support. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth have few opportunities for observing positive modeling by adults due to the general cultural bias that makes gay, lesbian, and bisexual people largely invisible. It is this isolation and lack of support that accounts in part for the higher rates of emotional distress, suicide attempts, and risky sexual behavior and substance use that gay, lesbian, and bisexual students report compared to heterosexual students. Because of their legitimate fear of being harassed or hurt, gay, lesbian, or bisexual youth are less likely to ask for help. Thus, it is important that their environments be as open and accepting as possible, so these young people will feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and concerns. "

We should always strive to be better than we are. We should accept anyone willing to serve under the Scout Oath and Law interpreted, as it must always be, in their own heart and mind. The potential of the Scout Oath and Law surpasses the present state of affairs. The great gift of Scouting to the world is the tolerance, forbearance and leadership it fosters in the youth it serves. We can disagree; we can pursue different faiths, different ideologies, and different lifestyles and still work together. The things we have in common are far, far more important than the few things that separate us. Shouldnt Scouting be an experience that teaches our sons the values of cooperation, tolerance and brotherhood instead of exclusion, small-mindedness and fear?

Congressman Barr asks which of the words in the Scout Oath Scoutings critics disdain. What he fails too understand is that our critics do not disdain the oath and law, they disdain the hypocrisy of an organization that will not live up to the promise of its own ideals