Bob Lonsberry

Bob Lonsberry

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LONSBERRY: A Boy Scouts For Girls?

 It's about damn time.

 Today, the Boy Scouts of America did what I suggested it do 20 years ago.

 Today, the Boy Scouts of America opened Scouting -- real Scouting -- to girls. It is not another effort to blur out gender, it's not another equivocation in the face of progressive totalitarianism, it's not the latest politically correct attack on traditional values -- it is just plain common sense.

 Beginning in a little over a year, the Boy Scouts will establish an identical program of Scouting for girls. Not Venture, not Explorer, not anything like that. But plain-old, basic Scouting, with every rank and every merit badge and every requirement. Not mixed in with the boys, but in separate troops, teaching girls the same good citizenship, leadership and self-reliance that have strengthened American men and society since the Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910.

 As my older daughters were growing up, I mourned the fact nothing like Boy Scouts existed for them. They each were Girl Scouts, for a time, but Girl Scouts is nothing like Boy Scouts, and ended up being neither beneficial for our daughters or reflective of our values.

 As my son progressed through Boy Scouts, as I got to follow along on his camping trips and rank advancement, I was so grateful for the things he was learning. I saw how they made him a better person. But I keenly regretted the fact that my daughters could not learn the same lessons the same way.

 I am not a woman's libber. I am not a progressive. I'm not looking to change the world. But my faith and the Declaration of Independence teach me that character and ability know no gender, and are available to all. I considered then -- and still largely consider now -- that Boy Scouts is a great program for personal growth, that the quest to "do my duty to God and my country" is both noble and ennobling.

 And I wanted that for my daughters.

 I wrote and spoke about it at the time.

 But back then the Boy Scouts of America would have none of it. And they lost at least two great Eagle Scouts from my family.

 In recent years, the Boy Scouts have sailed stormy seas. After near two decades of resisting progressive harassment and vilification, the national organization began selling its birthright. It was beaten into submission by political correctness, and caved in to the demands of homosexual and transgender activists.

 That hit membership like kneeling hit the NFL. My own church -- the largest Boy Scout chartering organization in the country -- has begun to disengage from the Boy Scouts of America. Other large chartering organizations -- namely Roman Catholics and United Methodists -- have also expressed some concern.

 I suspect that has hurt membership and cash flow, and maybe that has driven them to try to take market share away from the Girl Scouts.

 But my mother taught me not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I don't care what has brought this about, I just know that it's the right thing, and I know it can do young women -- and our society -- a great deal of good.

 I hope it is embraced. I hope it takes off. I hope parents and girls will give this new paradigm a chance, and look it over with an open mind. I hope that America can see that Scouting can build its daughters the same way it has built its sons.

 And I hope that my youngest daughter can be one of the first female Eagle Scouts.


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