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featured essay: november 2002 Scouting For All by Dale McGowan Okay, I did it. My boy is a Cub Scout. Oh, put your tongue back in your mouth. It wasn't an easy process, but it was a good one -- which is not to say I'm not ambivalent. I am very, very ambivalent. Connor's in second grade. A great kid, very thoughtful, intelligent, multifaceted and caring. And I wanted him to have the opportunity to do what a Cub Scout does, which is a lot of good stuff... yes, in addition to some not so good stuff, stop finishing my sentences. I remember the feeling of accomplishment as a Cub when I earned this or that Merit Badge for who knows what. It was a feeling I hadn't really had before, the thrill of setting a goal, meeting a standard and reaping a reward. I felt different when I saw myself in that uniform. I stood a little taller whenever I stepped out into the wider world, late in the day, searching intently for a "good turn" to do before bedtime. Now who can argue with that? Now I'm a bit overexposed to life, I suppose. I see the little uniforms now and sure, there's pride and self-respect there...but I also flash on Hitler Youth and the Red Guard. The Scouts place a HUGE premium on Obedience as a cardinal virtue, and you know, that just makes me itch. I just know too much about history and about people to put capital-"O"Obedience too high on my values list. When I took my little guy to get his uniform and talked to him about Discipline and Duty, I didn't even flinch (much), bleeding heart though I am. Discipline's a good thing, dammit, even though its flipside is mind-numbing Repression. Learning a certain degree of Conformity to communitarian ideals has its virtues, even though none of the close synonyms -- Acquiescence, Submission, Compliance, Deference -- represent anything I want to give my boy. It's MINDLESS conformity and UNTHINKING devotion to Duty and FANATICAL Discipline -- those are the forms that bring the bile to my throat. Do I trust the Scoutmaster to know the difference? And none of these concerns get to The Big One, of course: gays and atheists are prohibited. Do I want my son participating in an organization that (1) is homophobic, and (2) considers me to be an inappropriate moral model because I've used my mind on the God question? I'd waffled and pondered throughout his first grade year, uncertain what the best move was. If I kept him out, was I just forcing my politics and priorities on him? No, that's ridiculous. That's what parenting is. You substitute your presumably mature perspective for the child's, which is not ready for prime time. It isn't "forcing my politics" on him when I teach him that racism and sexism are offensive, is it? Once I gave myself permission to keep him out, I was free to decide the issue on its merits. I began asking around and got one particular piece of terrible advice from two different people, both of whom I greatly respect: let him join, they said. Odds are he'll never even run into the issue. Is it possible to make a less defensible argument than that? Is it okay, for example, to belong to a country club that prohibits blacks and Jews as long as you don't actually run into any blacks or Jews while you're golfing? Membership is implied endorsement, right? And need I point out that he'll be sitting next to an atheist at every pack meeting? The religious overlay is very pronounced -- more pronounced than I had anticipated, and certainly more than when I was a Scout in the 70s. There's an overt Statement of Religious Principle now, for example: "The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God....Only persons willing to subscribe to this Declaration of Religious Principle and to the Bylaws of the Boy Scouts of America shall be entitled to certificates of leadership." As I sat in that first meeting, I flipped open the complimentary issue of Boy's Life Magazine he received -- right to a new feature called Bible Heroes, a four-frame Bible story in cartoon form. This one was Noah being ridiculed by his fellows for building the Ark: "But Noah didn't ask any questions; he did exactly as God said." There's that damned Obedience mantra again: Don't ask questions. Do as you're told. By that point I had an awful lot of reasons to march him back out the door and I didn't do it. And I think I was right for two reasons, one parental and one societal: Reason #1: Do our kids really benefit most if we labor to shield them from contact with bigotry and ignorance? I don't think so. The key is to give them the tools to recognize it as such and the character to work out their own eventual response. I am fully confident in my boy's ability to recognize stupidity. That doesn't mean he can fully process it, or develop a perfect response to it, but he can certainly recognize it -- which puts him ahead of many, many adults. If I shield him from stupidity, how will he ever develop the ability to respond to it, to address it, to confront it? Again -- I don't expect him to know how to do those things at the age of seven, but there must be a first step, a first encounter with it, the initial shock and confusion that leads him to make a moral decision on his own whether to go along or speak up or walk away. One of the things my son knows for sure -- and I know because he's told me more than once -- is that it is just plain stupid to think someone is a bad person simply because he does not believe in God. And he'll change that opinion only if and when someone gives him a darned good reason for doing so. Since there are no darned good reasons to assert such a thing, his opinion on that is unlikely to shift. So the first time he hears such nonsense from anyone in the Scouts (and he probably will), it will furrow his brow and trip his stupidity sensor in a big way. And he'll learn something about himself, and advance a bit in his own moral mechanism, because he was actually given a chance to see stupidity in its shirt sleeves. In short, the Boy Scouts are likely to aid in his moral development in a way they hadn't intended. Reason #2: Scouting was founded in 1910 as an utterly secular organization. Founder Lord Baden-Powell was evidently a Christian, but he renounced any exclusive religious claim on morality and specifically indicated that he wanted Scouting to carry no doctrinal or creedal directive. Scouting joins a long line of impressive ideas that were gradually hijacked by the Christian Right. The American founders, nearly all of them non-Christians (Deists, pantheists, liberal Quakers, and outright atheists), have been recast as fervent wearers of WWJD bracelets -- and we Americans, too ignorant of history or too busy or too blinded by fear or desire, we just swallow the notion whole. The money always said "In God We Trust," we figure (not true), the Pledge always said "under God" (no), the twelve characteristics of a Scout originally included "Reverent" (nope), the Presidential Oath is supposed to include "so help me God" (not according to Article II of the Constitution)... It's all part of a creeping revisionism that blurs our vision of the past and of ourselves, recasting much of our cultural life as a stalwart affirmation of Christianity. And now they're on to Scouting, recasting it as a Christian organization and claiming it has never been anything else. If we walk away from Scouting, they'll plant another flag, claim another hill. Do we really want to turn another great organization over to these people? If we disengage, that's precisely what happens. Better to be on the inside as well as the outside. So despite my ambivalence, for all its flaws, we're sticking with Scouting -- eyes and ears open and minds engaged. I'm not planning on a battle, not seeking a soapbox opportunity, and certainly not using my son as a pawn -- but I am bearing in mind the Scout's own motto as we join up: Be Prepared. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Scouting issue. Are you joining up? Turning away? Indifferent, amused, mad as hell? Send your own stories and insights to familyissues1@yahoo.com and I'll print a selection of them in the coming months. |
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