THE BOYSCOUT CONTROVERSY

—by Dan Beshers

There have been two recent bones of contention involving the Boy Scouts of America. The first was an inability to agree on the rules for a Merit Badge in Religion for UUs. The second involves sexual orientation and a recent BSA resolution that requires adherence to heterosexual orientation to qualify for leadership positions.

The merit badge matter was handled by UUA headquarters in Boston and indeed, John Buehrens as President took a personal hand in the negotiations. The current leadership of the BSA has refused to approve a Merit Badge in Religion for UUs essentially because they do not approve of the "faith" content of the UUA proposal. The BSA position on this is a little strange: they are trying to tell us that we must believe something that they can understand in terms of faith. A statement was made at the recent General Assembly that the new leadership would approach the matter again in a different way; it seems that other denominations use a go-between of some kind instead of negotiating directly with the BSA.

The Merit Badge issue may become moot because of the sexual orientation issue: the number of UU churches with Boy Scout troops, never large, has dropped by over half in the last year or so. All Souls has become one of the congregations dropping out as a result of action by the Board of Trustees at its May meeting.

This action followed a long chain of recommendations and study. The last step was the naming of a workgroup in March with instructions to meet three times in April and report back to the Board by the May meeting. The workgroup's membership comprised James Backmon, Bill Bechman, Steve Bell, Christina Bellamy, Daniel Beshers, Robin Bossert, John Bowman, George Dorsey, Dan Newcomb, Frank Patton, Penny Pleasance, Kari Reynolds, Karl Valentine, Richard Weiss and Lisa Yeh, with David Robb as facilitator. Galen Guengerich attended the first meeting. There was little discussion of the orientation issue as such. The only question was what to do about it, and even there, the focus was more on the method and rate of withdrawal, as it was generally agreed that withdrawal was necessary unless the BSA changed its policy.

The troop sponsored by All Souls did not actually meet at All Souls but at Saint Edwards in East Harlem. The alternatives discussed involved finding another organization to replace the BSA, shifting the boys to other troops or the troop to another sponsor, with questions about how long this would take. There was clearly a good deal of heartache for some over the necessity for leaving, and a strong feeling by some that the BSA has made many valuable contributions. All agreed, however, that as things were, withdrawal was necessary.