This is a little ridiculous, in my opinion. It's like telling someone they can believe whatever religion they want, as long as they don't practice it. It's still bigotry.

Anywho, I wanted to provide a different picture of the BSA. Yes, the HQ folks are nutters and bigots and whatnot. That's pretty obvious, and I don't agree with any of it. However, I am still an Eagle Scout, and proud of my service as a Boy Scout, and I firmly believe that many, if not most, of the local Boy Scout Troops in the USA are organizations dedicated to helping others and including others. My brother, who is gay, is an Eagle Scout. I know of Scout Troops across the nation, in Vermont and Minnesota and Colorado and Florida that have gay Scouts, Leaders, and parents and openly accept them in defiance of the bigwigs. The BSA is not as monolithic as it is portrayed in the media, and there are definitely voices within the organization that are working against it's current stances towards homosexuality.

Penn and Teller states the Boy Scouts are solely controlled by a religous organization. Any truth to that?

I have been wanting to post in this thread for a day or two now, but cell service is spotty when transporting to one of our hospitals, and I've been pretty tied up with patients through the night.

I too am an Eagle Scout, and I enjoyed my time in, and it introduced me to many such things which I do today. It was in fact the First Aid merit badge that really got me interested in medicine, and the First Aid Meets (think a bunch of boy scouts competing to give the best medical care) that honed my sense of being the best at it. I did five years in the navy as a Hospital Corpsman. I've taught medicine to Afghans. I'm a volunteer locally with one of the rural EMS systems. I am likely still on the books down south as one of the first aid instructors for the BSA.

I don't agree with bigotry in any organization. However, I also don't see why the Boy Scouts should be seen as the bogeyman to be hated and feared. Change will come, slowly, but it will come. Ignoring all the good to focus on the bad is just as bad as ignoring all the bad to focus on the good. Are there issues? Yes. Are they changing to more fully line up with their own values? I personally think so. But change is never sudden, even if we would desire it to be.

I do not. Monkwren summed it up quite well with his response. I have wrenched myself free of being one of the proud and chosen few. I have little interest in re-entering it, though I do take an active role in continuing to learn about various religions. I honestly appreciate what I believe was a well-meaning outreach from one of the faithful. Still. Been there. Done that. Got the many t-shirts.

And with my knowledge of neurology, ecology, and genetics, and simply cannot convince myself to believe that humanity of all the species was designed to have a single mode of sexuality. Especially considering that one of our closest relative species is bonobos.

BONOBOS.

Yeah, the old Boy Scouts establishment got pushed out during the eighties. I was a scout when it happened, so I can attest for what happened at least in my locale. It's not like all of the Boy Scouts are Mormon (far from it, they still accept most anyone), but the 'secret' board that makes all of the decisions is definitely linked with the LDS.

I'd like to add that a lot of local Troops (and even state Councils) are not very happy about that, especially given the recent stances of the BSA. I'm pretty sure the Green Council (Vermont) overlooked my thinly-veiled atheism at my Eagle Scout interview, and that was only a year or two after the BSA forcibly removed an atheist troop leader.

Really? Good on them. I actually had to quit Eagle Scouts because of my agnosticism. Left me with a low opinion of the BSA for a long time, until I did some research and realized what had been going on behind the scenes.

Yeah, I wasn't sure I was gonna make it either, but apparently I talked around the issue well enough that they let me through.

The problem is not taht we don't think teh BSA will change, it's that they are changing- towards greated bigotry and now protecting child molesters.

I just don't see that in the regions and levels I've been involved in.