Comments on: Boy Scouts: You’ve Been Cast Out

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:05:27 +0000

Boys have fundraisers and riase their own money. Do you even know what you are speaking of.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:01:47 +0000

Did you never read the Scout oath in all this time volunteering?
I, promise to do my best
To do my duty to GOD and my country
To help other people
And to obey the Law of the Pack.

Seems there was something about God in there.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:56:40 +0000

My son is a cub scout. We were helping with the parking for an event at the fairgrounds–cost $2/car to park. The scouts got to keep $0.10 per car. One driver said he wouldn’t support the scouts because they don’t allow gay men to volunteer. I let him through and paid for the parking out of my own pocket.

I support our local pack and den (volunteer time + financial support) because what we are doing at a local level works. We have atheist parents in our pack, and some of them are leaders (great leaders!). Our charter org is OK with it and so are we. We haven’t gone as far as some packs have [see Cub Scout Pack 88, Rhode Island, who wrote a letter to national].

I do not, however, support Friends of Scouting, because our family doesn’t agree with what is going on with scouting at the national level and a good deal of FoS funds goes up the chain. If the idea is to make better citizens, why would you NOT want everyone to be eligible?

So, yes. Some of us involved in scouting think the national council is wrong.

By: Frank Rapp, Scoutmaster

Frank Rapp, Scoutmaster — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:38:31 +0000

Honestly, Neil, are you surprised? The national office will uphold the decisions of the local council every time. They always have and always will. Just so you’re not surprised again. Mr. Dunning, come on, do you actually think scouts are raking in federal money? If so, why are so many councils laying off personnel to the point of almost closing? Do you think that the Boy Scouts are the only Constitutionally Chartered Organization that is “enjoying the freedoms reserved for private institutions”? Do you really want to take the freedom of an organization that has been instrumental in keeping at bay or eliminating those that want to squash freedom even when it was unpopular to do so? Yes, they were backing the soldiers of Vietnam, while the free thinking generation was calling them “Baby Killers”. You all are bashing your biggest supporters of the freedoms you enjoy. You might think this is hypocritical, but wouldn’t it be more hypocritical to dismiss values and beliefs that you have personally held close for so long, because the vocal minority wants them to? The last time I checked we are a country where the majority rules. If that ever changes, be prepared to loose all of your freedoms not just your website. When we say “Duty to My Country”, we are not picking and choosing which freedoms are right and wrong. We teach the youth to respect individual freedoms, so why do you want to infringe upon theirs? So what if every four years the country says “Thank you for your countless hours of service to our community and our country” by letting them rent a portion of a military base that is not costing the American tax payer any more money than it did the day before.
To the Eagle Scouts that received their Eagle Rank with out accepting the Scout Oath and Law and lied about it, you have tarnished and devalued what so many before you have worked so hard to achieve. You should never consider yourself or tell anyone you are an Eagle Scout. You should not put it on an application or resume, so you can get that little bit of an edge over your peers. You are no different than the kid that joins the Army to get the discounts and military rates, but runs from battle to leave his comrades in arms to fight for him.
The funny thing is, almost everyone in this discussion is or has been a scout. Which means everyone has had an opportunity to become a better person, to make decisions for themselves and to determine right from wrong. Whether we agree or not is irrelevant.

By the way, why do kids that are not in scouts think that scouting is gay, when we appear to be the only organization that does not allow gay membership? I wish the homosexual community start a campaign to educate them. I know if I was so against an organization I wouldn’t want people associating it with me.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:48:48 +0000

I was a Girl Scout leader for a few years, and my training was very explicit that GSA doesn’t exclude anyone over religion or sexual orientation. They kind of made a big deal about it, which I thought was pretty cool.

By: Coaltrain

Coaltrain — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:21:42 +0000

Simply put, we don’t as far as I know, we raise are OWN money.

By: Donna Gore

Donna Gore — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:08:28 +0000

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. It’s fine if they want to discriminate/restrict membership, as long as they do NOT accept taxpayer dollars. If they take federal monies – which come from ALL TAXPAYERS – and then use those resources to discriminate against some of those very same taxpayers…….that is WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. They need to STOP using the taxpayers money !!!!

By: Coaltrain

Coaltrain — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:00:24 +0000

What you people are doing here is no better than what you claim the BSA is doing. You openly bash religon, and an organisation that is not given money by the US Government and supports it self in order to teach boys to become capable men.

By: Carlos Rodriguez

Carlos Rodriguez — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:42:30 +0000

To be an Scout you have to believe in God, period. This is not a Boy Scouts of America invent or rule: it was set was the founder of Scouting by himself: Baden-Powell.

By: baron_army

baron_army — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:51:21 +0000

For the surplus question:

You’ll have to ask on a local level because that’s where most of it goes. I believe you could ask through a FOIL request if they were to refuse.

Of particular interest would be summer camps because most of the donations go there AND most summer camps are the profit engines for the local councils. A lot of the bunks campers sleep on are/were provided by the government — as are many of the tents. I’ve personally ridden in military surplus vehical which, if purchased directly, would have cost around $10,000 each. The money is there — if you look.

If one is so inclined, they could examine the amount of government surplus food the councils receive (for free) to help run their camps which, by extension, help make the camps profitable. Often those profits offset losses elsewhere in the council program BUT sometimes they don’t and the council makes money for the year. To maintain their non-profit status, they spend the money on things like real estate or facilities management/maintenance (build a new nature lodge or buy a tract of land for “conservation”).

If the monetary value of the food was to be tallied, I would not be surprised if it was in the millions — each year — for the entire BSA. However, that would depend upon someone taking the time to calculate how much the food would be worth if they purchased it from a company like SYSCO.

I would also like to add that, at the end of the year, the unused portion of gov’t surplus food that is not used is supposed to be destroyed. Most camps send it home with their staff or stash it away for the next year or winter camping.