Are you ready boys? Do you have the perpetual wholesome goodness and pure Christian faith required to be a Boy Scout of America? You may not be old enough to understand, but our military is on the outs and premature military training is exactly what our country needs to secure freedom in a world filled with terrorists and litterers!
Do you like Mormons? Well, 1/3 of the BSA are Mormon. It’s a requirement for Mormon boys. Yes, they may be terrifying and comparable to Scientologists, but they are goddamn powerful. Plus they claim to have a book made of solid gold!
Do you love leaf identification, widdling and singing songs that weren’t even enjoyed when they were written in the 1920′s? If you’ve been nodding, then I think the Boy Scouts are the right choice for you!
When I was first offered a job with the BSA I ran this advertisement through my head, picturing the man with the sword from the US Marine commercials carving a toy car from a block of wood. His shoulder riddled with goofy patches embroidered with the faces of powerful animals and a tube of acne cream sticking out of his pocket. This is the face of the Boy Scouts, as most of us liberal twenty-somethings understand it. It’s an outdated, Christian, youth military cult. That, not to further alienate itself, publicly claims to dislike Muslims, Jews, Gays and probably the French.
The above cons dammed up my brain seconds after I was asked to become a Boy Scout. Twenty-three years old and they finally wanted me. They wanted me to be a director of a program. They wanted me, the liberal-hippie-organic-peace-mongering child, to direct the firearm program for the Boy Scouts of Vermont. That’s right! Guns! Oh, if only they had known I would later write the first paragraphs of this essay. They wanted me though, and so I was given a card, a small arsenal of weapons and the trust to thoroughly educate the young spongy minds of Vermont.
Now, the reader should understand that I am and was at the time absolutely qualified to do the job. This essay is not going to lead to some anecdote about conning your way into a job you aren’t qualified for. I’m not writing this from prison searching for a redeeming way to explain how I shot a kid. The Boy Scouts of America have never had a firearm accident and I, thus far, have contributed to that. I mock not my post, but more the organisation I’m posted within.
And so, I was given a stage and an hour a day with each child to mold them as I deemed fit. And oh, the thoughts I had when I first began. The programming I would reverse in the already indoctrinated minds of the little scouts. They would listen to me too, because I had the guns, and boys love guns.
I suffered through a week long training camp. I took all that bothered me about the BSA and bundled my thoughts together, knowing I would turn the children’s minds upside down. I pulled out my metaphorical bitch slap and powdered it up. It only took me one day to realise boy scouts aren’t the problem with The Boy Scouts. Those of us who run the BSA are the problem.
The Boy Scouts of America suffer from the same bureaucratic disease that so many large semi-political organisations suffer from. The power-hungry executives and administrators see to their desires, letting the doctrine and purpose of the organisation fall by the way side.
My Scout students never once spoke about keeping homosexuals out of their unit. Most had never heard of sexual preference. Nor did they attempt to address it as being prevalent to being a Boy Scout. Discussion of different religions didn’t really strike a chord with them either. None seemed to really care about religious preference as long as someone was “a nice person”. Most followed their scouting oath to be a kind, helpful, positive member in their community.
In the past few years some cities have shut down their Boy Scout programs in protest of its political agenda. The Green Mountain council of Vermont is the first council to allow openly homosexual employees and volunteers. There is much to argue about when it comes to the BSA’s administrative views, but it’s important to remember that while its leaders might hate the French, the Boy Scouts of America don’t.
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