|
|
|
|
It's late night here in Toronto; I'm over-tired and know I'll not sleep well tonight; therefore, I'm jumping about in fits and starts from one news site to another that I follow with some regularity, not expecting to find much as I'd done this whole exercise twice today since before sunrise.
Then I stumbled upon this rather mundane sounding slug about the Boy Scouts, and asked myself "Should I or not?"; I decided that I should only to be pleasantly surprised by the authors words. I'm hoping that you will too.
Op-ed: I Was A Gay Boy Scout
The key point missing from the national discussion on gays in the Boy Scouts of America distilled right down to it's most basic; something which has been all to often overlooked by everyone a party to the present and ongoing conversation.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
 |
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13750
|
|
|
I never wanted to be a scout. I thought I was being a boy. I know I have been a man. I understand the author's words, but they sound, to me, like an impassioned plea for the inclusion of a kid that is somehow different into an organisation of boys. It's a little as if he's a Weimaraner and is asking the Great Dane Breeder's Club to allow him to be a Great Dane.
Dogs are dogs. He's big and grey, they're bigger and come in fawn, brindle, blue and harlequin. He's a dog. So are Great Danes. That is what they each are, dogs. No-one questions that.
The point is not that 'Gay boys should be allowed to be Boy Scouts'. The point is that all boys should be allowed to be Boy Scouts. And they should be allowed to be because they are boys. And I include F2M trans boys in that list. Boys are boys, and, if they want, should be able to join, and to join without discrimination for or against them.
And that means all boys: black, white, yellow, various shades of pink, those with red, blond, brown or black hair, those with a belief in a deity and those without. The sole determining factor, since this is an organisation for boys, is that they are, or perceive themselves to be, male.
I think his article misses that. I think he wants inclusivity, not equality. I do not want to be included, accepted, tolerated, deferred to, discriminated for. I want equality without any thought that it should not be so.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kitzyma
|
 |
Likes it here |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 215
|
|
|
As I understand it, gay scouts and leaders are not only allowed but there was actually a campaign to ensure that gay people know they are welcome.
I agree that the only determining factor of joining Boy Scouts of America should be being a boy. However, in the UK that's not relevant nowadays. Here, The Boy Scout Association was renamed as The Scout Association in 1967, and since 2007 all Scout Groups in Britain must accept girls as well as boys.
I think that there is even a proposal to change the Scout oath to allow atheists to join without mention of a God. So it seems the only determining factor in the UK will be age.
As for scouting in different countries... At least Boy Scouts of America just bans gay people. The chief scout in Uganda proposed a law to have the death penalty for having gay sex, life in prison for just kissing, and 3 years in prison for not informing on people who commit gay acts.
[Updated on: Thu, 28 February 2013 09:25] |
|
|
|
|
Goto Forum:
|
] 
A Place of Safety
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
