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An Open Letter to the Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America
September 11, 1998
Mr. Jere B Ratcliffe Dear Mr. Ratcliffe: For the last ten years or so I have watched with increasing concern the Boy Scouts of America's increasing and inappropriate political entanglement
with the so-called Religious Right. This entanglement has subjected the Scouting movement in this country to severe but well-deserved public criticism through its defense of these political commitments in a series of
court cases. In these court cases, the Boy Scouts of America, the congressionally chartered custodian of the Scout Oath and Law has - with much success - portrayed itself as a private club that can keep
gays and girls and atheists out of its organization on much the same grounds as a country club or the Ku Klux Klan can restrict people of color from their memberships. Hardly the company with which most
morally serious people would choose to associate, don't you agree? And hardly appropriate for an idealistic youth organization founded by congressional charter. Given the Scouting organization's politics of
late, I found it quite ironic that on March 16, 1998 your agent, Mr. Roy L. Williams, sent Mr. David Rice of Petaluma, California a letter of termination on the grounds that he allegedly involved Scouts in inappropriate
political activity. Mr. Williams, in his letter of that date, states:
By your actions of involving Scouting youth in your efforts to change Scouting's policy of not selecting open homosexuals for leadership positions, you have disqualified yourself from volunteer
leadership in Scouting. While adult members of Boy Scouts of America are free to engage in responsible efforts to seek changes in Scouting policies through appropriate channels, members are not free to promote their
own contrary views on policies among Scouting youth. Adult membership is granted in order to advance Scouting's mission of instilling the values of the Oath and Law in Scouting youth, not to serve as a vehicle for
promoting a personal social agenda.
It should be pointed out that Mr. Williams' interpretation of Scouting's policy in this regard does not exclude homosexuals from Scouting leadership positions - only open homosexuals. Apparently only
forthright homosexuals are inappropriate role models; closeted ones are fine. He has also neglected to mention that the Scouting organization's policy excludes gay youth as well as adults. And
it should also be pointed out that at no time did your organization make any serious attempt to establish Mr. Williams' allegation. If you had, you would certainly have followed the Boy Scouts of America's very own
Procedures for Maintaining Standards of Membership. Your refusal to abide by your own rules - as outlined in Mr. Rice's letter to you of September 2nd, ensured not only that Mr. Rice was denied his right to due process,
but also that the people making this decision would be denied access to the necessary facts. This policy of selective process makes adult Scouters such as myself wonder how seriously we should endeavor to
conform our own or our chartered churches' Scouting activities to National's policies, considering how sorely neglected they are by National itself.
An objective analysis of the information at Scouting for All's web site I have acted in strict accordance with the guidelines provided to me by the Redwood Empire Council, Troop 74 committee, and the Scoutmaster with respect to my advocating inclusion of gays in BSA.
Those guidelines were provided me by Terry Kelley, Scout Executive of the Redwood Empire Council, Cathay Zortman, chair of the Troop 74 committee, and Scoutmaster Theo Mainaris; they are as follows:
1. Not to mention the matter at troop meetings or activities, 2. Not to wear the Scout uniform in connection with the matter, 3. Not to identify with the troop number, and
4. Not to contact parents or Scouts about the matter.
My most serious complaint with Mr. William's letter, however, is his position that Adult membership is granted in order to advance Scouting's mission of instilling the values of the Oath and Law in
Scouting youth, not to serve as a vehicle for promoting a personal social agenda. Mr. Rice apparently has the dubious distinction of being dismissed from Scouting for promoting an oxymoron. What on
earth can Mr. Williams mean by a personal social agenda? The values of Scouting's Oath and Law, as instilled through organizing and participating in National's own Scouting for Food drive or voter
registration drives (to cite just two examples) is apparently acceptable. Instilling the values of the Oath and Law in Scouting youth through teaching acceptance - mere acceptance
- of gay and non-theistic people is, according to Mr. Williams own statements, not tolerable. In a pluralistic, democratic society, politics are defined by personal agendas. If personal agendas
unacceptable to the National Council are silenced via the McCarthyite tactics of personal attack and intimidation, then political agendas of a "tolerable" nature become mere rubberstamps to totalitarianism
unacceptable in an organization congressionally chartered to teach democratic process to American youth. Is not feeding the hungry or promoting participation in democratic process examples of personal
social agendas? I suggest you read the reports out of Sudan (to say nothing of the biblical accounts of the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament accounts of Jesus' efforts in this regard) to
see just how political such activity is. It is quite evident to me, based on my 31 years of involvement in the Boy Scouts of America, that the Scouting program is - and should be - inherently political. In
both Boy Scouting and the Order of the Arrow, we teach young boys (and will eventually teach young girls) to elect their own leadership. We advise such leadership in the tools of representative democracy to empower them
to develop their own program. And we teach that a necessary part of such a program is the political activity of service to others. It is the particular Scout Oath and Scout Law guided commitments of Mr.
Rice's alleged political activity that your institution finds objectionable, not political activity itself. And now it is your particular political commitments that I find objectionable. Your
policies teach impressionable young men that gay and non-theistic adults are inappropriate role models - just as you taught Scouts of my generation that women were inappropriate role models - and that gay, non-theistic
or female children do not belong in the recreational, social and educational company of decent boys. So you and those leaders who teach their Scouts inclusion and acceptance of those who are different are
both involving the youth in politics - only yours is the politics of ignorance and fear while theirs is the politics of understanding and fellowship. In the end, Mr. Ratcliffe, the Boy Scouts will reverse
its immoral policy of excluding gays, atheists, and girls from membership in its program in much the same way as it reversed itself with respect to the acceptability of women leaders. As with that issue, one day the Boy
Scouts - no doubt only after being forced through governmental pressure and public outrage - will simply announce (with no apology) that they are now, suddenly, acceptable. And the Boy Scouts of America will inevitably include gays, atheists and agnostics, and girls because Scouting's current exclusionary policy in this matter violates its very own Oath and Law. Scouting's house is divided against itself, Mr. Chief Scout Executive and - as history and the scriptures teach us - cannot stand. The Scouting organization's own blundering efforts to get the toothpaste back into the tube - as witnessed by its unscoutlike behavior in
the David Rice affair as well as by its recent and disastrous attempts to dictate the content of religious education to the Unitarian-Universalist Association - are serving to push relatively moderate Scouters such as
myself into taking a sadly overdue public stand on this issue and initiating appropriate political action. From this point forward, I plan to be vocal and active regarding the Scouting organization's
immoral policy in this matter. This open letter, as well as any correspondence I receive in response to this letter, may be forwarded or posted electronically. Sincerely,
William Bekkenhuis [1. The original link on the letter (
http://www.scoutingforall.org/dismissal.htm) has gone dead. The same article referenced in this letter can be found at the new link. WFB 11/26/99] Return to Return to Return to The Inclusive Christian |
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