Gay parents like Dallas’ Jon Langbert aren’t the only ones banned from serving in leadership roles in the Cub Scouts. “Fake Christians” are barred too. This means you, Mormons.
Jeremy and Jodi Stokes were removed as Cub Scout leaders of their Raleigh-area pack, organized by a Presbyterian, when they were exposed — as members of LDS!
The Stokeses enrolled their sons as Scouts at Christ Covenant Church, a Presbyterian congregation about 10 miles from Charlotte, then expressed interest in volunteering as leaders. Church officials were initially thrilled earlier this month, the Stokeses said, until they saw on the couple’s application forms that they belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After two Scout meetings, the Stokeses were told their sons, 6 and 8 years old, could remain in their packs, but the parents couldn’t serve as leaders. “I can’t believe they had the audacity to say, ‘You can’t be leaders but we want your boys,'” Jodi Stokes said. “Are you kidding me? Do you really think I’d let my boys go there now?” [Ed: That’s what we say about your church!]
[…] Members of the Salt Lake City-based LDS church strongly identify as Christians, believing that salvation is possible because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But significant theological differences separate Mormons from most Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches. The LDS church treats as holy scripture writings, like the Book of Mormon, which aren’t recognized by other churches, but which it believes were divinely revealed to Joseph Smith in the 1820s. Mormons also disavow belief in the core Christian doctrine of the Trinity — that the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one — instead believing the three to be individuals united in a single purpose.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
That’s me laughing not at the parents of these boys (because it really is heartbreaking to see somebody’s religious beliefs keep them out of an organization for kids), but me laughing at the treatment of members of the Mormon Church, which has had no problem furthering the discrimination against gays, but now sees its own parishioners on the wrong side of the fence.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
What was it LDS says about strong families … that they need a mommy and a daddy? Well strong Cub Scout parents need to believe in the real Jesus and not that Joseph Smith bloke.
LDS will tell you it has no problem with gay people joining the church, so long as they don’t “express their homosexuality.” And now members of LDS found another group that’s willing to treat them the same: The Cub Scouts have no problem with you enrolling your kids, so long as you don’t express your fake Christian beliefs.
And now we can all have some mutual understanding for Mr. Langbert, who knows all too well what it’s like to be asked to leave an exclusive club, and who spoke to HLN yesterday.
GaryG
I hate to beat the proverbial dead horse, but once again, if religion were removed (or totally eradicated) so much discrimination and hate could be avoided.
jon
It’s sad to see gays or LDS-ers kicked out….Scouting is supposed to be about growth into manhood. EVERYONE’S growth. PLAY NICE OLD PPL. *I’m a 20year old gay eagle scout
TommyOC
This is an irony that won’t last long.
The whole issue will disappear once BSA National joins the case. Expect this church to stop sponsoring a Pack/Troop once the hammer falls.
Why?
For those of you not in the know, most of BSA’s executive leadership are members of the Mormon Church. BSA has been their official youth club-thing since the 80’s and their membership is what keeps BSA afloat in a time when non-Mormon enrollment has plummeted. Most of this anti-gay doctrine was formed by executives they installed.
Mark
@GaryG:
Not really. People will hate each other for any reason. Religion is just one excuse. Cuba is officially an atheist state but it historically oppressed gays.
Dave
What TommyOC said. The Mormons pretty much own the Boy Scouts at the national level.
scott ny'er
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RG6_hOYY5dU/RnhU9ISLmrI/AAAAAAAAAJs/xFg0wbpGhqM/s400/simpsons_nelson_haha2.jpg
scott ny'er
^^^^^^i tried to get the picture of “ha ha” to post. But alas it did not.
Even if this is temporary it’s still, Ha Ha!!
Daez
Why in the living hell would any self-respecting gay male want to be a part of the BSA? If my son wanted to be in the BSA, I’d slap him upside the head and tell him to stop being a bigot.
Cam
This is a fake story, every single time that the LDS church starts getting attacked for their bigotry they come out with these fake claims that they are the victims of discrimination.
B
No. 3 · TommyOC wrote, “This is an irony that won’t last long. The whole issue will disappear once BSA National joins the case. Expect this church to stop sponsoring a Pack/Troop once the hammer falls.”
… don’t be so sure. The governance structure is rather complicated with a subdivision called a “local council” in between the BSA and the kiddies (actually there are additional levels as well). Each local council is an autonomous entity, usually a not-for-profit corporation. So, no matter what some people want at the national level, their ability to get it may be hampered by the organization’s bureaucracy.
According to the original article http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/7254607.html that QUEERTY linked to, local groups can set additional requirements:
—-
Regardless of doctrinal questions, Christ Covenant’s Cub Scout program is within its rights to deny the Stokeses leadership positions, according to Mark Turner, executive director of the Mecklenburg County Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which also includes the Cub Scouts.
As an example, he offers a unit operated by a home-school association.
“That unit will only serve youth that are home-schooled. Period,” he said. “If you’re in the unit for three or four years and your family sends you back to school, you’re out of the troop. That’s their niche.”
…
As long as groups that charter Scout units follow the guidelines set by the national organization, they can set their own additional policies, he said.
TommyOC
@B: “The governance structure is rather complicated with a subdivision called a “local council””
I have intimate knowledge of Scouting’s mid-level management, having been involved with the organization as a boy and my early adulthood.
“Each local council is an autonomous entity, usually a not-for-profit corporation.”
No the whole picture, as local councils are nothing but franchisees of the BSA brand, to draw a more accurate description…
“So, no matter what some people want at the national level, their ability to get it may be hampered by the organization’s bureaucracy.”
Not true at all. I agree that a local council can set additional rules, they cannot create any that contradict national policy. This is an inarguable point and one I’ve witnessed first hand.
While you may be accurate in saying that a typical issue gets caught in the wheels of bureaucracy, this is not a typical issue. This invovles The Mormons – the people who essentially own the org – and teh gays. Resolution will be swift.
TommyOC
@B: “The governance structure is rather complicated with a subdivision called a “local council””
I have intimate knowledge of Scouting’s mid-level management, having been involved with the organization as a boy and my early adulthood.
“Each local council is an autonomous entity, usually a not-for-profit corporation.”
No the whole picture, as local councils are nothing but franchisees of the BSA brand, to draw a more accurate description…
“So, no matter what some people want at the national level, their ability to get it may be hampered by the organization’s bureaucracy.”
Not true at all. I agree that a local council can set additional rules, they cannot create any that contradict national policy. This is an inarguable point and one I’ve witnessed first hand.
While you may be accurate in saying that a typical issue gets caught in the wheels of bureaucracy, this is not a typical issue. This involves The Mormons – the people who essentially own the org – and teh gays. Resolution will be swift.
Rainfish
What goes around, comes around.
Read the essay at the link below about the lamentable “Hitler Youth” direction the Boy/Cub Scouts of America has been heading now for the last couple of decades since Pseudo-Christian/Mormon cultists Fascists have gained a strangle-hold over the organization:
http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com/
[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_jCT9n9hItmA/TLxKWvFsDfI/AAAAAAAAAdk/Ja8xMl4IThM/s1600/The-new-face-of-the-BSA-CSA.jpg[/img]
Robert V
This is especially sweet considering that the Mormon Church is the #1 force preventing the change of the BSA’s regressive policy towards gays.
Stefan
@Mark:
Well of course hate would still exist, but it likely would be less intensified and it would be more easy to make peace. You can’t argue logic with religious idiots.
HATES THE LDS
Sadly, TommyOC is completely right. Its only a matter of time before the homeschoolers are upstaged by the LDS.
May the entire LDS organization burn in hell!
hf2hvit
You reap what you sow.
Queer Supremacist
@Rainfish: Your Hitler youth picture gave me a great idea about how to deal with the Mormon Cult.
B
Re Nos 11 and 12 (which are duplicates) from TommyOC.
First the claim, “I have intimate knowledge of Scouting’s mid-level management, having been involved with the organization as a boy and my early adulthood.”
This is a standard logical fallacy – using a claim of authority to paper over the obvious weaknesses.
Second, Tommy replies to the statement “Each local council is an autonomous entity, usually a not-for-profit corporation.” by saying “No the whole picture, as local councils are nothing but franchisees of the BSA brand, to draw a more accurate description…”
Really? Then explain http://usscouts.org/aboutbsa/bsaorg.asp which states quite clearly, “The National Council does not attempt to administer directly the more than 150,000 registered Boy Scout units (troops, packs, venturing crews, etc.). To achieve this, each year, the National Council issues a charter to an autonomous organization called a local council. The United States and its territories is divided into local councils. Local councils are usually not-for-profit private corporations registered within the State in which they are headquartered.”
Sounds like the experts on this disagree with Tommy!
Then he replies to my comment, “So, no matter what some people want at the national level, their ability to get it may be hampered by the organization’s bureaucracy.” by saying, “Not true at all. I agree that a local council can set additional rules, they cannot create any that contradict national policy. This is an inarguable point and one I’ve witnessed first hand.”
Obviously Tommy doesn’t understand how things work in the real world. The “local councils”, usually not-for-profit corporations, got a BSA charter (given each year) by agreeing to follow specific policies set at the national level. If the BSA decides to change the rules arbitrarily, that becomes a case of “bait and switch”.
Furthermore, the national council (according the web site I quoted above) consists of the following:
* All members of its Executive Board
* Members of the Regional Executive Committee
* Local Council Representatives (president and council commissioner plus an additional member for every 5,000 youth members)
* Members at large elected by the National Council for 1 year terms
* Honorary (non-voting) members as elected by the National Council for 1 year terms.
A capricious and arbitrary change to the rules would be resisted by the local-council representatives, whose organizations would by and large object to being pushed around – that’s how all organizations react – and the people in those positions typically know the rules and how to take advantage of them. I might add that those are not things one generally becomes familiar with as a boy or young adult (which is when TommyOC claims his association with the BSA was).
Steve
I don’t see any issue in this, at all.
BSA has long had a policy that the chartering organization selects the adult leaders for the unit, and that the CO may impose requirements of its own upon that selection in addition to any requirements imposed by BSA. Many churches require that the scoutmaster of the church-sponsored troop must be a member of their own church.
There is nothing wrong about that — the churches each see their BSA troop as part of their youth ministry, and want the minister in charge of that ministry to be one of their own.
In almost all cases, youth who are not of the same church are welcome to join the troop, and parents of those youth are welcome to participate, as parents, no matter their religious affiliation. Note that participating as a parent, and being registered in an adult-leader position, are two different things.
Many church-sponsored troops relax their church-affiliation requirement somewhat when the adult in question is from a similar church — Methodist troops sometimes have Presbyterians or Baptists as assistant scoutmasters, for example. But, again, that is up to the church.
damon459
Who cares? I have better things to do the give a crap about the Boy Scouts and the LDS church I’d like to see both of them shut down.
Cassandra
“if religion were removed (or totally eradicated) so much discrimination and hate could be avoided”
Yeah, the Berlin Wall – it was just for decoration.
Eradicating religion would be discrimination and hate.
AL
@GaryG:
Right! Tell that to Soviet atheists who criminalized homosexuality and threw millions of dissidents into Gulags.
Attention all of you who thumbed up his comment:
Are you stupid or just incredibly ignorant? Last time commies tried to eradicate religion, we all know what happened. Stalin and Mao murdered millions in the name of liberation from religion. Do you want to repeat the same mistake? You know it might happen if you fail to learn history. Go get a history book and think twice before you approve of such comment.
Religion is not a source of bigotry, people are. After reading Bible, one person might derive hate and prejudice, while another person might see love and forgiveness.
The level of ignorance I witness among the members of gay community is staggering. Sad.
oldgayvermonter
Sorry folks, TommyOC is far more right than wrong. The BSA is very much a top-down organization. As a 20+ year scout leader many of us have fought against various policies that were imposed on us over the years. This is way before there was a “gay issue” being discussed. There were edicts banning women from being Scoutmasters, dumbing down of requirements such that a scout could become an Eagle without camping, and on and on. Since publications and training materials were from national we eventually lost those battles (I think the CT granny was eventually allowed to lead her troop though). The District Execs that inhabit the “local” councils are sent from and trained by the national BSA. The BSA is all about numbers – execs who grow a district/council get promoted, those who don’t are gone. The national is very much controlled by LDS and Catholic forces, so you know the anti-gay policies are not changing. Local troops may have gays in leadership positions, but if word gets upstairs they are banned. I personally know gay Eagle scouts who are very afraid they will lose the rank if they are discovered. Eagle status opens doors to scholarships and other perks – it is much more than just another badge.
All this saddens me greatly since the scout program, in theory, is a great training vehicle promoting leadership, organizational skills, adventure, outdoor skills, and good citizenship. When things go wrong it is almost always related to f*^ked up adults and the national overpaid “professionals” (and religious wing-nuts).
Sean
@Oldgayvermonter – how can you feel comfortable in a leadership role in an organization that officially bans you? Why not dedicate you time to a worthy youth-service organization instead, perhaps one that helps LGBT youth? In my opinion, your actions are collaberationist. And please don’t give me the old song and dance about the upright goals of the Scouts. Bigotry thrives on passers like you…
oldgayvermonter
@Sean: I am hardly a “collaberationist” at all. For a local leader it is all about the quality of the experience for a relatively small group of boys. In that context it IS valuable to have voices who will speak against the national leadership when these issues come up – and that isn’t often at the troop level. There is value to “being there” when issues of bias come up. For example, when one little redneck thought it would be ok to play a rousing game called “smear the queer” I was able to stop the game using the scout chain of command (senior patrol leader to patrol leader to the offending boy) and create a teachable moment about how this “game” would affect any boys who were gay or questioning or just different. No harangue on my part, but message sent, and I could tell from the reaction of the boy leaders that the message was received. While I support grander gestures by the likes of getEqual, more minds will be changed in the long term by changing one mind here and another there on the local front. Many local scout leaders have little use for national and council professionals and there endless self-promoting and fundraising.
oldgayvermonter
@Sean: I am hardly a “collaberationist” at all. For a local leader it is all about the quality of the experience for a relatively small group of boys. In that context it IS valuable to have voices who will speak against the national leadership when these issues come up – and that isn’t often at the troop level. There is value to “being there” when issues of bias come up. For example, when one little redneck thought it would be ok to play a rousing game called “smear the queer” I was able to stop the game using the scout chain of command (senior patrol leader to patrol leader to the offending boy) and create a teachable moment about how this “game” would affect any boys who were gay or questioning or just different. No harangue on my part, but message sent, and I could tell from the reaction of the boy leaders that the message was received. While I support grander gestures by the likes of getEqual, more minds will be changed in the long term by changing one mind here and another there on the local front. Many local scout leaders have little use for national and council professionals and their endless self-promoting and fundraising.
B
No. 24 · oldgayvermonter wrote, “Sorry folks, TommyOC is far more right than wrong. The BSA is very much a top-down organization. As a 20+ year scout leader many of us have fought against various policies that were imposed on us over the years. This is way before there was a “gay issue” being discussed.”
The difference is that the local councils (if not yours, then most of them) probably liked the policies you opposed. At the level of an individual scout leader, it would seem to be a top-down organization. The local councils, however, have representatives at the national level with voting rights. If a cabal of Mormons in the executive committee tried to impose something that blatantly gave Mormons special rights, the local councils could stop it – there representatives at the national level should be able to overturn the policy. Also, as autonomous organizations – individual corporations – local councils have rights that you as an individual scout leader reporting to them do not have.
Also, if it’s very easy for someone in your local council to reply to a request he doesn’t like by saying, “it’s national policy,” even if the local council has some discretion. That’s a standard organizational ploy – it usually cuts off the argument.
Finally, if the national organization required the group in question to allow Mormons in a leadership position, how do you do that without also preventing a Mormon group in Utah from requiring that only Mormons be in a leadership position? If you create an explicit “Mormons have special rights” rule, there would be a revolt from all the non-Mormons, not to mention all the negative PR the BSA would get.
oldgayvermonter
Sorry for the double posting – I was trying to correct a spelling error. BTW I am no longer an active scout leader – nothing to do with being gay, just a disagreement with the management philosophy of the local troop committee. If they did know I was gay they would probably refuse to register me as a leader though. If I had a boy in the troop I don’t know how that would go.
Jack
HAHAHAHAHA! Vengeance! Me, being a native Utah citizen is really happy to see Mormon’s getting a taste of their own hate filled medicine.
B
Re No 23 “Are you stupid or just incredibly ignorant? Last time commies tried to eradicate religion, we all know what happened. Stalin and Mao murdered millions in the name of liberation from religion. Do you want to repeat the same mistake? You know it might happen if you fail to learn history. Go get a history book and think twice before you approve of such comment. ”
It’s always fun to see someone who does not know much about the subject tell people to “learn history”. Stalin in fact had over 100,000 killed over religion (not millions). The rest were killed for non-religious reasons. He wanted religion to go, but let it come back during World War II (having someone say “God is on our side” helps rally the troops, I guess). You can read an overview at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Religion .
Cassandra
B
While Al’s characterization that Stalin acted solely out of bias against religion was a misrepresentation – it is true that Stalin, Mao and other leaders of the 20th century, in their efforts to create atheist societies, also produced some of the worst oppression of the century.
The point being that atheism is not the answer, it does not produce a better, more just, or more liberated society. It contains no message that encourages liberate or respect or human rights or civility.
Neither is religion the problem. Religions have been used to excuse horrific wrongs, but unlike atheism, religions generally teach values like equality, respect for others, liberation, and an intrinsic value in human life.
The problem is that some people desire to oppress people, to have power over others, to inflict pain and suffering – and such people use anything available to them to candy-coat their brutality.
B
No. 32 · Cassandra wrote, “B While Al’s characterization that Stalin acted solely out of bias against religion was a misrepresentation – it is true that Stalin, Mao and other leaders of the 20th century, in their efforts to create atheist societies, also produced some of the worst oppression of the century.”
Stalin (and Mao) were repressive for one primary reason – to remove anything (whether an institution or individual) that might act as a political opponent in some sense. Neither was repressive merely to create atheist societies. If that were the case, Stalin would not have let the church come back during World War II when he could exploit religious fervor directed against the Germans.
What it boils down to in a few words is that Stalin didn’t want people taking orders from a priest when they should be taking orders from Stalin himself – the priests were not Stalin’s representatives, carefully doing just what Stalin wanted.
kayla
@Stefan: No it wouldn’t, have you ever heard of the French Revolution, Mad Max and all his friends were non-believers and yet they indulged in a blood orgy, you almost can’t believe. Human beings are naturally hateful creatures and will find one reason or another to engage in everyday bigotry or outrageous violent behavior. It’s in the genes!!