Boy Scouts of America votes to ease ban on gay members

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by August

No further than the discriminatory and exclusionary step of refusing access to all women to the Boy Scouts goes too far. The BSA is not a co-ed organization. The reason that the co-ed division exists is because of sexuality. Homosexuality is sexuality. What's the difference?

The practice of sexual segregation is well-established with single-sex schools, sports and so on.
There's an important distinction to be drawn here between gender and sexuality. Segregation of gender happens all the time with children, because boys and girls grow up differently in terms of development and biology and such. Segregation of sexuality doesn't and shouldn't happen. A gay boy* grows up the same as a straight boy, segregating this out further just causes problems, as far as I can see.

*=for sake of this argument let's assume sexuality is inherent

The same way it would if we made the Boy Scouts co-ed. You have brought sexual tension into a situation that did not openly contain it beforehand. You cannot deny it wouldn't have a major impact.

Certainly an impact, not sure about major at all. I'm not sure it's worth the general negativity of excluding people on basis of sexuality, which as you point out is not what Scouting is about.

Putting on our pants in the morning was the true first level of complexity we face. There have been a lot of layers of complexity since. I never claimed sexual segregation makes the Boy Scouts complexity free just less so.

Gotcha!

Whether that is a good thing or not depends I think upon the group. Do you think human sexual habits are something the Boy Scouts should be concerning itself with?

Not at all, but the BSA is directly involving itself by excluding on the basis of sexual preference. Of course, the discussion now about changing that rule brings it all up again, but that should all quiet down once it's decided.

So you really think it won't be that big of a deal? Well good luck getting the churches to agree with you and they are the ones who keep Scouting going.

There have been plenty of companies withdrawing donations because of the discriminatory policy, the scouts are out of money either way, perhaps.

If this causes the BSA to fragment and die will this exercise in social engineering have been worth it? I find that difficult to accept.

Definitely a sad thing to happen, but if basic homophobia turns out to be the only thing holding it together then I'm not sure if it's worth keeping. Six of one