Friday night on the short ride home from his Boy Scout meeting, my 11 yr old son was quiet and sullen. I asked him what was up. Had anything happened at the meeting that he wanted to talk about? I saw him looking at me from my rearview mirror, gauging how to tell me disappointing news.
“I found out tonight that I can’t become an Eagle Scout.”
He’d never been all that enamored with Boy Scouts. He didn’t much care for camping, or the tough kid role so many of his contemporaries played out with the survival skills training and competitive war games. He’d decided to ‘bridge’ from ‘Webelo’ Cub Scout to a full-fledged Boy Scout to become an Eagle Scout for the prestige sold to him by his troop leaders. ‘Presidents, senators, and successful icons like Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Neil Armstrong were Eagle Scouts,’ the BSA marketing touts.
“College admissions officers recognize the award and consider it in their decisions. Eagle Scouts are eligible for many scholarships. Many employment recruiters look for “Eagle Scout” on a resume.” These are just a few of the perks on an Eagle Scout information page for the Boy Scouts of America, and one of the reasons we agreed when our son said he wanted to stay in their program.
I stopped at a red light and again we made eye contact in the rearview mirror. By his furrowed brows and slight frown I got that my son wasn’t sad, but bemused, bordering on angry. “What do you mean you can’t become an Eagle Scout?”
“Mr. Baker told me tonight that even if I get all my merit badges, and fulfill all the other Boy Scout requirements through middle and high school, I’m not qualified to become an Eagle Scout.”
I felt my heart pounding, reverberating in my throat. “Why?”
“The new scoutmaster said in order to achieve Eagle Scout, or any other rank, Boy Scouts must live the Scout Oath, which means we have to believe in God.”
My husband and I introduced our son to scouting when he was 5 yrs old. Fourteen Christians and one Jew, and our kid was the only member of his Webelo troop being raised without religion. Most of our neighbors, and our kids’ classmates attended the local church. My husband and I are Atheists. Our kids are not privy to the benefits of participating in this tight-knit religious community. Scouting seemed like a positive way for our son to meet other boys his age in our area.
We didn’t consider the Boy Scouts an exclusively religious organization. We’d heard stories, of course, and knew of the lawsuits for discrimination against gays, transgenders, atheists, virtually anyone who falls outside the Christian racist dogma. It motivated me to ask the women at the Cub Scout table during kindergarten school registration if their troop was religious, and if so, how. Both women assured me their Den had several different faiths among its members, and their policy was to keep religion at home, not practice it in scouting.
They were true to their word during the five years our son belonged to their Den, participating in most events from hikes to community drives for food banks, and even popcorn sales. He earned quite a few merit badges along the way. Religion, even prayer, was never practiced or promoted in any way.
This was not the case after he ‘bridged’ to full Boy Scout.
A few months back, on the drive home from his first official Boy Scout meeting, my son informed me the troop leader held a prayer at the end of their meeting. He had the boys hold hands in a circle and bow their heads while he said stuff like, ‘Lord, bless our troop with your mercy, bla, bla, bla… In Christ’s name, amen,’
I felt my blood start to boil but kept my voice even and calm when I asked him how he felt about that.
He looked at me in the rearview mirror and practically winced. Then he confessed he’d already branded himself a non-believer. The scoutmaster asked him to lead the prayer at the end of that first meeting. He’d refused, stating he wasn’t sure there was a God, and he thought praying was a waste of time because he was certain there wasn’t anyone listening. He was publicly labeled “misinformed” by the scoutmaster at that first Boy Scout meeting, marking my son as ignorant in front of the other boys.
“Do you want to quit the Boy Scouts,” I’d asked him on the ride home from that first meeting months ago.
“I wanta be an Eagle Scout, Mom, to help me get into a good college.”
I assured him good grades, participation in extracurriculars and such would get him into the university of his choice. The Boy Scouts’ branding would be unnecessary. We discussed finding a non-religious troop, if there was such a thing, but my son didn’t want to be with a bunch of kids he didn’t know since most of the Webelos he’d been with the last five years had bridged to this new troop. He just wouldn’t recite what he didn’t believe, he’d told me.
That wasn’t good enough for advancement to Eagle Scout, according to his new scoutmaster. No matter how lax about religion our son’s lower division Den, the rank of Boy Scout and higher stuck to the rules of the BSA, the scout leader told our son at the end of last Friday’s meeting. A religious association and faith in God are required for rank advancement. Commitment to community service, practicing Scouting’s core values of “honesty, compassion,” as well as continually exhibiting “diligence as a contributing team member,” were irrelevant. Belief in a god was more important than social service. Atheism is a sin, the scoutmaster assured our son.
It took all my will not to U-turn right then and go back to the church where the meetings were held, hoping to catch the troop leader before he left. I was so enraged that this man told my kid his belief system was a sin I couldn’t construct anything but a rant to say to him so I didn’t turn around. No sense in destroying what little relationship I had with the man if my son wanted to continue with the troop.
“I could lie that I believe,” my son suggested, “If I have to…”
“Think that’s a good idea?” I asked, glad to be driving, which made it easier to keep emotional distance and sound casual.
“Maybe. I just don’t get why I have to pretend I believe in God. The Boy Scout handbook says we’re supposed to ‘respect and defend the rights of others to practice their own beliefs.’ But they’re not.”
Ah, from the mouths of babes…
He’s right, of course. Click on the official BSA website, and bring up the “Scout Oath and Law” page. The first line in the Scout Oath proclaims the scout will ‘do his duty to God [and country].’ Every level of advancement requires a promise or show of faith in God. Boy Scouts are instructed to respect the beliefs of others, but they are taught this respect should only be awarded to those who believe in the Christian/Judaeo God. Turns out, prejudice, hate, racism are systemic to the Boy Scouts of America, and a large part of what they quietly, and individually through their troop leaders, promote.
The Cub Scout sign-up table was at our public school. The Boy Scouts were allowed to promote their organization even though federal and state laws explicitly state discrimination by sex, race, or religious orientation is illegal in our public education system. Nowhere in the BSA literature we received and perused before or after our son joined the Boy Scouts did they say they were a faith-based organization that required their members to be believers. Had they disclosed this with all transparency, as do churches and other religious organizations pushing their beliefs, my husband and I would not have guided our son to participate.
We impose no religion on our children. We discuss it often— the concept of one god versus many; various cultures and their belief systems from ancient to modern man, using everything from the Tao to biblical references. Our kids get additional religious education through their friends, and faith-based celebrations with extended family. My husband and I try and expose our children to many possibilities, trusting they will discover their own spirituality, a belief system that works for them, with a moral code that positively impacts the lives they touch directly and indirectly.
Parents who provide religious training for their kids early on, and, it would appear, register them in Boy Scouts, are looking to validate their beliefs by indoctrinating their kids with the religion in which they were raised. And most of these parents have never stopped to consider whether the rhetoric their parents sold them is truth. They are blind believers, and turn their children into the same.
“The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) takes a strong position, excluding atheists and agnostics,” according to Wikipedia.
In 2014 the BSA finally voted to allow gay kids. They still ban atheists.
Perhaps the BSA works with the Church to convert unsuspecting children. Hook ‘em when they’re young, a mere 5 yrs old, in Cub Scouts. Get them to work hard for advancement, then deny them further advancement unless they convert to Christianity. Whatever BSAs agenda, and our son now sees they clearly have one, the meeting with his troop leader last Friday night soured him to continuing in scouting. It’s a shame, really, because the Boy Scouts have so many positives to offer. Weirdly enough, they tout much of the same morality I preach to my kids, like being courteous, honest, caring, and compassionate. The only difference between us is I don’t believe a god gave us this wisdom. I give credit to humanity, over eons, watching what works to build thriving societies.
There is no god that’ll save us from hate, prejudice, nationalism, and exclusionary religious sects like the BSA who lure kids in, like the Pied Piper, under the guise of community involvement, then change the rules mid-play. Regardless of our differences, religiously, culturally, politically, PEOPLE, me and you, must use our collective wisdom to unite as one race—the Human race—for our continued existence.
jcafesin.com 