Boy Scouting? Boo Hiss!

I guess I was very naive when I was a girl scout. Even when I was a girl scout leader. I just didn't get the messages. Ones like nobody gay was welcome. Of course, back then it was "Dyke" but I still never heard the word, much less the exclusion or its so-called justification. Were we that different from Boy Scouts? I just saw moms and daughters, never thinking some might be excluded by anything other than lack of interest in joining, or lack of interesting things to do. Race? Religion? So far as I knew, since they never entered into the equation for me,  I can't tell you if the girl scouts had those policies back then, or even now. I hope not. They were boring, but idealistic, so that was the standard I set for  myself as a result. (Yes, the boring part too. All those icky girly role aspirations.)

The boy scouts caught my attention, and not in a good way, when they tried to exclude gay scouts and leaders. First, who knows if they're gay when they join cub scouts? More to the point, who cares? And by the time one goes through the whole system and becomes a scout leader, why should sexual orientation be an issue? It's not like gay equates with pedophile. Priest, maybe. Coach, maybe. Next door neighbor, maybe. Pedophiles are out there, after all, but sexual orientation does not a predator make.

So the organization of boy scouts lost my respect. And silly me, I thought that was the end of it.

But then, Trump. I just heard a few things in the news which decreased my respect for the boy scouts even more, after thinking it wasn't possible. Trump spoke to them. He was never himself a scout, but hey, any president should have the right to address them and inspire them by setting a good example, right?

Good example? Are we talking the same President? First, he puts down our previous president, Obama for any of you with short term memory issues, and gets the crowd to go along with him. That alone violates so many points of the boy scout oath that I don't know where to begin, but let's end with "brave", because the courage to challenge the president's spew appeared sorely lacking. I get it in the kids, somewhat, but the leaders?

Then, Trump, being Trump, insists that the loyalty part of the oath be directed, not at their fellow scouts, not to whichever God they have been raised to worship, not even to their country, but to him. Trump. Again, so wrong on so many levels. Sadly, again cheered not just by the boys but their leaders as well.

In my apparently ongoing naivety, I assumed that once the scout troops got home and out of the spotlight, their leaders would have a good discussion with their troop members on what scouting was really supposed to be about, as opposed to the verbal vomit spewing from Trump's mouth. But when I heard that the leaders were cheering Trump on, I lost all hope.

Hey, didn't Der Fuehrer start with the young boys as well?