Rather than vote on lifting its ban on gay members, a conclave Boy Scout directors meeting in Texas Wednesday opted to put off making a decision on the controversial policy until May.
The Boy Scouts official exclusion of openly gay members was put into the spotlight last year after Ryan Andresen of Moraga publicized that the leadership of his scout troop denied him an Eagle Scout badge because he’s gay.
Here’s the announcement from the Boy Scouts:
“For 103 years, the Boy Scouts of America has been a part of the fabric of this nation, providing its youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. In the past two weeks, Scouting has received an outpouring of feedback from the American public. It reinforces how deeply people care about Scouting and how passionate they are about the organization.
After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy.
To that end, the National Executive Board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards. The approximately 1,400 voting members of the National Council will take action on the resolution at the National Annual Meeting in May 2013.”
Parents should not regard a ban on gay scout leaders as fail-safe. There are stories every week about adults who abused minors under their supervision, in schools, churches, and everywhere else. Those sick adults find ways to get near the children they target. Children need to know how to speak up, because the slightest resistance early on causes a predator to move on to an easier target. Just as roads next to sheer cliffs can turn out to be safer than roads with solid guard rails, removing the ban on gay scout leaders could improve child safety. Or it could destroy the organization. It's hard to predict. If a gay scout can win the support of his fellow scouts and tolerate the inevitable verbal abuse from the immature, that's worth a merit badge of its own in my book.
The BSA denied me solely because I am gay, and for anyone to say otherwise would not just be a lie, but is very harmful (Not that it should matter anyways if a boy believes in God to be in the BSA). I am so tired of all the lies about me. If you want to get away making up something about me, please make sure I at least don't have the right to comment. -Ryan Andresen
Personally, I think the scouts should be able to discriminate against you or me on whatever basis they choose, but it would be better if they were honest about whether you were excluded due to gayness or (alleged) godlessness.
Why? Scouting rules don't allow for either. Frankly, the Scouts would have been smarter not to provide any explanation and simply say, "He didn't meet our membership requirements."
FINALLY someone in government sees the light! California would strip the tax-exempt status from youth organizations like the Boy Scouts if they have policies that bar gay people from participating, under a bill introduced at the Capitol Tuesday. Support SB323, by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens (Los Angeles County) Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Boy-Scouts-could-lose-tax-break-for-gay-ban-4292197.php#ixzz2M97YpMCH
http://m.dallasvoice.com/exclusive-boy-scouts-surveys-members-gay-ban-10141621.html?mobile-redirector-transfer=true
"Finally someone in government sees the light". So the Boy Scouts are part of the government now?
Our system grants tax exempt status on a wide variety of private organizations, and this status does not discriminate by 'flavor'. Just because some people would argue that a certain organization should lose status because of a certain set of membership standards they like, others would find different organizations with different criteria...etc, etc. Where would it stop? In my mind the tax exempt status criteria either has to be very broad as it is now (even if that means that some people detest what some of these organizations stand for), or elimnated completely (proabably more what ChrisN would like). Once we start picking winners and losers the entire thing breaks down.
The reason why income tax doesn't matter much is that most organizations to make profit. If revenues=expenses, then incomes taxes = zero. A rational system would make all organizations fully taxable on income, deny tax deduction to individuals for fee-for-service transactions (write check; get sermon), but allow the deduction for gifts to fund other non-profit charitable activities disconnected from services enjoyed by donor (but if and only if the recipient org provides financial transparency). The same rules should apply to churches, BSA, Tea Party and ACTUP! I could be persuaded that we should get rid of the charitable deduction, but this would be pretty disruptive. I would only do it in connection with revenue-neutral comprehensive tax reform.