A Scout is…

It’s been a very long time since I’ve gotten the jitters upon receiving an unexpected email that didn’t involve Nigerian princes or horny women. That changed this afternoon when I checked my Inbox via my phone and found a message from the Boy Scouts of America. It wasn’t asking for money or suggesting I watch Are You Tougher Than A Boy Scout? on the National Geographic Channel, Mondays at 8:00/7:00 Central. (Sadly, it coincides with our own Boy Scout troop meetings, so I haven’t seen it yet.)

The email requested that I take a survey because “The Boy Scouts of America is in the process of a careful and deliberate review of our membership policy, as it relates to national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation.”

I cannot tell you how awesome I think this is. I’m immensely proud of being an Eagle Scout and an Assistant Scoutmaster. (I don’t care how many people have said I’m the worst Eagle Scout ever after seeing me crash and burn on Beauty and the Geek, I’m still proud of it.) One thing I haven’t liked about the Scouting program is their anti-gay policy. I know a lot of other people who agree with me, some to a much greater extent: they’ve mailed their Eagle Award certificates back to the National Office. I’m not willing to protest to that extent because that would feel like I was giving up on the program entirely. I don’t like that one policy, but being involved in Scouting has done me a lot of good over my lifetime and I want as many kids as possible to share in those experiences, sexual preference be damned. Needless to say, I was excited to get that email and opened up the survey immediately.

I used my phone to take the survey and tapping little buttons to indicate answers that scaled between “Strongly Approve” and “Strongly Oppose” wasn’t a big deal. When I got to the page that required short answers, I had to use the keyboard on the screen of the phone, the answer space was wider than the screen and I had to scroll back and forth… it was a nuisance, which is why I didn’t try to write a blog entry immediately after I finished.

Going through the list of questions, almost all of my choices were “strongly,” but whether it was approval or opposition depended on the wording. For example, if a Scout fulfilled all the requirements to earn his Eagle award and then admitted that he was gay during his Eagle Board of Review, I strongly opposed them rejecting his application. If a den in Cub Scouts unanimously wanted a women to be their den mother and she was a lesbian, I strongly approved their accepting her into the position.

It included other questions that addressed some people’s concerns, but demonstrated some major paranoia about homosexuality. There’s a concept called “two-deep leadership” in Scouting where two adult leaders need to be present and within eyesight when interacting with the kids. It seems excessive at times, but it’s done to prevent child abuse and molestation within a troop: if one adult does something inappropriate, the other can see it happen and report it. If a group is going camping with two-deep leadership in action, why should it matter if one of the adults is gay? It boggles my mind to think how many intelligent people out there equate homosexuality with pedophilia, but… yeah. (I know that “intelligent” isn’t one of the points of the Scout Law, but people should get the benefit of the doubt.)

When it came to the short answer sections, it said to be very specific, so I used the backspace key liberally because I wanted to make sure everything was typed properly. (Having big fingertips leads to using it more often as well.) I like to think that people will take your opinion more seriously if you have good spelling and grammar, but either way, I just think it looks better. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll try to sum up what I wrote in there or at least as much of it as I can remember:

I don’t like the discrimination policy because I know how much good the organization has done for me. It’s helped me grow as a leader and a person. Scouting should focus on helping kids, not excluding them. Preventing certain people from participating in Scouting is telling the youth and adults that gay people are second-class citizens who don’t deserve the same opportunities that they get.

Something like that, anyway. As a side note, I don’t expect anyone to go back through previous blog entries, but I get a little uncomfortable repeating words when they sit near each other on a page, let alone repeat “people” in the same sentence unless it’s being done for emphasis. In the case above, I blame my phone. Trying to move the cursor around to delete portions of a previous sentence is too much of a pain when I have big fingers, so I was as specific as I could be without scrolling back too much.

Then I clicked the final button, submitted my survey and it automatically sent me to a page advertising Are You Tougher Than A Boy Scout? (Your answer may vary depending on if you’re watching those Scouts or comparing yourself to me vomiting on the hillside.)

As a final note, one of the last questions was if no change is made to their anti-gay policy, would that change my membership status? Would I still be a Boy Scout, would I be on the fence or would I drop out? The truth is that I’ll still be a Boy Scout. I think it’s great that they’re actively seeking opinions from the members and I hope other people’s values reflect my own. I hope they appreciate that regardless of someone’s sexuality, they deserve the same opportunities we’ve all experienced through Scouting. If the policy doesn’t change, I’ll be disappointed, but I won’t quit. If they make another reality TV show, though, that might put me up on the fence.