Unite or Divide

When the BSA was challenged to expand its universality, to open the tent wider and give more people the benefits of membership we refused. We saw it as a diminution of our standards to say that they could be interpreted locally and ceded the local control of our movement to a central entity that decides what is moral for the rest of us. We traded the opportunity for our membership to learn reverence for diversity for claustrophobic exclusivity. We do not serve our youth well by promulgating fear and disdain for others who do not think as they do. We would serve them better by demonstrating how we can find common ground with those whom we disagree. The Scout Oath and Law are a declaration of rights as well as ideals for conduct, an expansive set of principals. They are drawn not to exclude but to include, not to punish but inspire, not to divide but to join together. In a nation that is in a deep cycle of divisiveness Scouting could exert a powerful influence for unity.