I wonder how many decent LDS folks (and they are many) look at this and wonder about the leadership of the church?
Anecdotally: Zero.
Edit: I usually find this site’s comments section does a pretty good job of getting the pulse of LDS members. The most upvoted comment?
Lots of phrases like the “leftist appeasement” of the Boy Scouts and stuff like that.
I have a deep respect for the compassion and good heartedness I have seen in my LDS friends & colleagues over the years. I dont believe or at least I dont want to believe, they would be cool with open bigotry & sexism like this.
edit: saw your follow up.
Depressing. But I still have some hope.
This has been coming for a while. The BSA’s change in policy regarding homosexuals was the crossing of the Rubicon for most of the Mormons I know. They don’t see it as bigotry, but that’s exactly what it is. Allowing homosexuals is completely incompatible with being “morally straight” in their view, as homosexuals are deviants and sinners of the worst kind.
I still find it odd that Mormonism exists.
It’s actually a pretty large Church, but yeah when the Boy Scouts are not conservative enough for a Church, because they try to include all children…
Well, then, all the Scouts need are 425,500 girls to sign up (if my math is right) and they won’t be missing any dues at all. Possibly some Mormon kids might join troops run by their secular neighbors, if they actually liked the scouting experience.
I have Mormons as several neighbors, and they are nice people. I don’t doubt the leadership has it’s own stronger agenda, but Mormons, like most people, do live in the real world.
They could drop the “B” and just call it Scouts of America.
So will BSA also try to sell cookies now? I bet the Girl Scout organization is unhappy with this move.
It’s sad but I think this will eventually (~10 years or so) force the national Girl Scouts to merge with the Boy Scouts (now BSA).
The Girl Scouts seem to be at a disadvantage w/re to outdoor activities, for whatever reasons: maybe all the tents and campfires and trailers and trucks and outdoor camping are still more the domain of the dads than the moms. Despite the political problems with the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts seem to be suffering from deeper systemic identity problems, as well as the decline of cookie selling from something the girls do themselves to an Amway-like model trapping the parents.
Do they fill different niches or do they cover the same thing just with more gender slant? The only difference I know of is the Pinewood Derby is only for Cub Scouts and that was very fun (except for the kids that had their parents make their cars like cheaters).
Like Endigm said the boys seem to camp more. We have a specialized Girl Scout Troop here that is into horses. It’s actually pretty neat – they learn how to groom, care for, and ride horses. The Troop is built around that and they make appearances with the horses in parades, etc.
What, you don’t think girls can sell popcorn effectively?
As an Eagle Scout, I am glad that the scouts have decided to move in a much more progressive direction. Ditching the Mormon church was likely pretty costly, but it was one of the driving forces in keeping the BSA away from one of the largest pools of membership, suburban millenial and gen-x parents.
I think that allowing girls to join is great, and while I think it will be difficult to integrate a lot of the systems into a non gender segregated environment, it will ultimately allow the organization to survive our cultural shift leftward (socially at least).
When I was a scout we had a female troop leader, and for some of our more high level excursions (whitewater rafting, backpacking) we would partner with Venture groups (the previously co-ed arm of scouting) and they would use the same scout camp that we did, the Venture groups just went on a different week.
I don’t want to knock the Girl Scouts or anything, but I know that the experiences I had as a Boy Scout made my life better in a significant way. Hiked the Rockies, worked on community service, and made life-long friends at summer camp every year. It also sparked my interest in biology, that I have made a career out of (I have every nature based merit badge).
I am glad that the organization is finally making moves that don’t make me ashamed to be associated with them.
The SA? yikes.
Or SoA, not to be confused with the Sons of Anarchy!
I was in Boy Scouts for like 4 years and we never had the option to go camping even once.
I was in the British Scout for a short while, but than they set up a Boy Scout ‘group’ or whatever start up in the nearby Base Support Battalion Headquarters (it was a US Army Base that serviced the much larger NATO base, and also, to a much lesser extend, the nearby Airforce base in Germany), and my parents had me join them. Which sucked because the British Scouts had just started going out camping when I left and joined as a ‘Wolf Scout’ or whatever, and wouldn’t get to see a camping trip for a couple of years.
I learned how to make a Square knot but it wasn’t for me. Too rigid and no camping.
I later found out that camping sucks. Why would I do that to myself? Give me a bed.
admittedly 40 years ago now, but we did a lot of camping and climbing and all sorts of outdoor stuff in my Scout troop.