LONSBERRY: The Boyish Scouts of America

On my honor, I will do my best.

To do my duty to political correctness and my country.

Until patriotism is officially declared to be racist.

That’s the new oath of the Boy Scouts of America. It obviously deletes any reference to “morally straight.” 

After 107 years, the Boy Scouts have become confused about what’s a boy and what’s a girl. 

In recognizing gender confusion, it has exhibited purpose confusion. 

And maybe it’s time to find the door. Maybe it’s time for what had been the nation’s most prominent values-based organization to go the way of the Grange and the Grand Army of the Republic.

Because if you don’t stand for anything, you don’t accomplish anything. And the Boy Scouts of America is beginning to look like one more bloated big-money non-profit kneeling at the progressive altar. 

The Boy Scouts announced yesterday that it will begin accepting transgender Scouts. Or, more precisely, it is abandoning genetic and anatomical gender in favor of expressed gender. Your DNA can say one thing, and your genitalia can say the same thing, but if you say something different, the BSA is going to along with you.

Which is pretty messed up.

One more example of the up-is-down and down-is-up deception of the progressive cult.

It also highlights a hypocrisy of the Boy Scouts practice.

For all its history, the BSA has barred girls from its Cubs Scouts and Boy Scouts programs. I’ve never agreed with that. The character-building and values-reinforcing practices of the (old style) Boy Scouts of America would be just as beneficial to a young lady as they can be to a young man. I repeatedly wished that my daughters could join the Boy Scouts, as their older brother had done, and was fairly confident they would become Eagle Scouts just as he had, if they were admitted.

The Explore and Venture programs, which accept girls, are fine, but they are not the Boy Scouts. They do not feature its leadership, values and skills development – the things that the Boy Scouts of America does best.

And the Girls Scouts isn’t the same thing. I’ve had children in both, and after the use of the words “troop” and “scouts,” they have precious little in common. It’s like the Supreme Court said, separate is not equal.

But, back to the hypocrisy.

After 107 years of denying girls membership in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, the BSA will now allow girls to join – if they say they are boys.

They will be anatomically girls. They will genetically girls. But everybody is going to pretend that they are boys.

Which either makes perfect sense to you, or seems like the stupidest thing on earth.

I’m in the latter category.

And I’m amazed the BSA has let it come to this. In effort to mollify one part of society, it is going to absolutely alienate another part.

When a wiser solution seems so simple.

Just let anybody join. 

Instead of creating cultural and religious stress within the overwhelmingly church-based scouting program, and instead of discriminating against one large class of girls while accommodating another miniscule class of girls, why don’t you just let anybody join?

Is it because you believe girls will distract boys from their Scouting duties?

That doesn’t seem to be an insurmountable obstacle in seventh-grade math class.

Is it because you think boys and girls will sneak off together and have sex?

Church retreats and co-ed summer camps seem to show that that can be avoided with proper supervision.

So what is the problem?

Is it the fear that girls can’t stand up to the rigors of Boy Scout hikes and high adventures? Is it some archaic fixation on gender-based segregation? Is it because you don’t want to change the name?

If you believe the organization can do children good – and it certainly has shown that ability over more than a century – then why not it let it do that good for all children. Instead of risking traditional support for the organization by a politically correct announcement benefiting just one or two children, why not benefit those girls as well as millions of other girls by simply opening membership to them?

It would serve and please everybody. It would be about expanding and enhancing your service, not just jumping at the whip of the latest progressive fad. 

And it wouldn’t matter whether little Betty thinks she’s a Billy or not, she would be welcome. And just as a Scout is a Scout regardless of religion or race, so too would a Scout be a Scout regardless of gender.

If Scouting can be open to girls who think they are boys, why can’t it be open to girls who think they are girls?

And why isn’t the Boy Scouts of America smart enough to figure that out?


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