Yup, I suspect some will.
I suspect also some Scouting Troops will leave the Boy Scouts and form their own organization. Many religious groups sponsor scout troops. The Mormons for one.
I wonder how much parent participation they will get for camping trips and summer camps. It will work if they get parents involved.
Since the Girl Scouts de-emphasized outdoorsy activities a few years ago, there’s a significant segment of young girls who’d really enjoy doing that stuff that’s being underserved here.
Also, as grudging acceptance that gender norms have changed somewhat over the last 100 years, I’m in favor.
The Mormons are already splitting off from Boy Scouts, and starting to build a parallel scouting organization. This may have something to do with these decisions…if the church that has basically kept scouting going for the last 3 decades is pulling away, they’re going to need to find alternative sources of scouts.
I know around here when you see in the paper (well used to anyway) some kid get his Eagle Scout Award it is most the time from a Mormon sponsored troop.
I don’t doubt that some parents specifically want their girls to go to the more godly and conservative Boy Scouts, but I’d bet there are a good number that just want their girls to actually do outdoor camping type stuff. My daughter was in Girl Scouts, and as much as I love the social stances that organization has taken and how much they emphasize girl empowerment, they really do spend a lot of time hawking cookies. My son was in Cub Scouts at around the same time, and while there were bake sales and stuff to support his den’s activities, the Girl Scouts were nuts about it.
Edit: You don’t have to participate in the sales, but man, you get the side-eyed hard if you don’t.
Girl Scouting has, to some degree anyway, gone downhill. I’m sympathetic to their cultural goals, but you also have to have a strong, well-run organization and the evidence is that the Girl Scouts is pretty much not that.
I remembered this article in the Daily Beast from a few years ago, and tracked it down.
Ok, so while I predicted that people would lose their shit over this, I admit that the girl scouts were not who I expected to lose said shit.
So what will they call the new group? The Birl Scouts? I like the Goy Scouts. It just fits.
They’re cutting into their market, of course they’re going to flip out.
Or, you know, just not worry about gender branding at all?
Interesting, didn’t know that the Girl Scouts were moving away from outdoor activities due to financial difficulties.
It was a joke, son. Goy? Goyim? See?
Odd situation. I always thought the girl scout where more techy.
Not unless we get a random tweet about it. Honestly they probably don’t give a shit unless they hear it on Fox, from a talk show, or from Trump.
But the uproar once that happens, yep.
Why do Qt3ers associate the Boy Scouts with Trump? The scouts I know all make fun of him and think he’s an idiot. And looking over the scout laws…Not a lot there in common with Trump.
Trump gave a pretty horrific speech during the Scout Jamboree this year, and the Scout leadership did nothing to stop it… made it into a crazy hitler youth rally.
But I would agree, that Trump stands for nothing the scouts stand for.
I don’t. I didn’t infer that anyone here did, to be honest. That being said, a ton of the troops here (in Southern US) are tied to churches as part of their troop location and guidance. Many kicked troops out recently when the BSA announced acceptance of gay members, as well as later on the acceptance of trans members.
So although the BSA values are changing and it seems to be striving to be a non-partisan organization, a LOT of the support and guidance for individual troops has and does lean right on the political spectrum.
Trump supporters though? I’m not sure I would go that far, certainly not for the majority.
You’re not going so far as to say that some right-leaning BSA leaders might support an elected President? How does a President get elected without support?
Thanks to both of you for the info. I wasn’t referring to @Skipper specifically. I have seen in this thread and others where the scouts were referred to as “Trump youth” and I always thought that was inaccurate, although hearing about the speech the casual connection now makes more sense.
There’s also an association in those terms too that is more disturbing, which ties to Hitler. And that part seems to me to go too far. I’d save that for after the scouts have proven to have invaded Poland, added antisemitism to their laws, and engaged in genocide.
Getting on topic, if they want to change the organization to Youth Scouts or just Scouts and admit girls, that sounds fine to me. There is already a coed scouting group called Venturing for ages. There would need to be some updates to the camping habitation rules, I’d expect. But in spirit I like the change.
Not the whole organization, no. Individuals, sure.
Yak, as mentioned I’m not even sure I would count Trump supporters as the majority of the BSA at this point. Certainly not with their recent changes in direction.