The Boy Scout way and its national leader are now in conflict, said Alabama Baptist pastor A.J. Smith, immediate past president of the Association of Baptists for Scouting (ABS).
“The Scout handbook says, ‘The mission of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Scout Law,’” said Smith, pastor of Bay Springs Baptist Church, Shelby.
“But if you look at (BSA President Robert) Gates’ speech and look at how he got to where he got, it has to do with what he thinks is … socially acceptable,” Smith said of the May 21 announcement by Gates that BSA should end its ban on gay adult leaders.
“He is kicking the can down the road so someone else has to deal with it, but everything about this undermines the Scout law and practice in my opinion,” Smith said.
Gates, a former CIA director and U.S. secretary of defense, told those attending the May 21 session of the BSA annual meeting in Atlanta he is not asking the national board to change the leadership policy immediately. But he said the Scouts must voluntarily accept gay leaders before a court forces them to do so.
Smith said Gates’ move was triggered by the April decision of the Greater New York Councils to hire the first openly gay Eagle Scout to work as a camp leader this summer.
According to a copy of Gates’ prepared remarks, he said, “Between internal challenges and potential legal conflicts, the BSA finds itself in an unsustainable position — a position that makes us vulnerable to the possibility the courts simply will order us at some point to change our membership policy. We must all understand that this probably will happen sooner rather than later.”
In 2013, BSA voted to approve new membership guidelines stating, “No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.” Previously a Boy Scouts policy stated, “Boy Scouts of America believes that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with obligations in the Scout Oath and Scout Law to be morally straight and clean in thought, word and deed.”
Initially BSA executive leadership planned to change Scout policies to allow avowed homosexuals to become members and hold leadership positions. But following an outcry from Scouts, their families, sponsoring organizations and the American public, the BSA board took additional time to review the policy and recommended changing only the membership standards.
Burning bridges
Even with the “compromised” membership change in 2013, BSA leadership burned a lot of bridges and trust, Smith said, noting a group of ABS members had spent two hours the night before Gates’ remarks discussing how to rebuild those bridges. “We had no idea [Gates’ announcement] was coming.”
And while Gates confirmed the ban on gay adult leaders remained as of his May 21 announcement, he also was clear that the ban will no longer be enforced.
However, he did add that individual councils and districts could choose to enforce the ban if they chose to do so. He also said any new leadership policy put in place should “allow all churches, which sponsor some 70 percent of our Scout units, to establish leadership standards consistent with their faith. We must, at all costs, preserve the religious freedom of our church partners to do this.”
But Smith said allowing churches the freedom to choose isn’t enough to keep the foundational tenets of BSA.
“BSA has beefed up the duty to God requirements in every aspect of the scouting program,” he said. “There is a big push for the duty to God, but my question is, ‘How can you keep duty to God front and center — like Robert Gates made a point of in his speech — while opening the door to immorality?’ The two don’t go together.”
Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the scouting movement in the early 1900s, said in his book “Rovering to Success,” “Scouting is nothing less than applied Christianity.”
Smith said, “When maintaining the program becomes more important than the values the program is supposed to instill, that is a problem.”
Today the foundational values of the program are not what matters, he said, noting BSA is losing support in every faith-based group except the Latter-day Saints.
Baptists in Alabama ranked fifth nationally in 2012 in number of chartered groups; as of early 2015, Alabama has dropped to eighth, according to Smith.
“We (members of ABS) are all in a state of shock and disappointment,” he said. “We are trying to figure out where we go from here.” (BP contributed)
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