American Heritage Girls and an Order of the Arrow Chief respond to the recent action by the Boy Scouts of America to relax its membership standards:
“It was with great disappointment that American Heritage Girls, Inc. Board of Trustees received the news of the change to the Boy Scouts of America’s membership standards. It was our sincerest hope the voice of the majority of those associated with the BSA would be heard and that the BSA would continue the amazing 103-year legacy of its founder to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices. Unfortunately, the organization chose to step away from that commitment.
As a result of leaving its time-honored traditions, the BSA has left American Heritage Girls with no choice but to dissolve our Memorandum of Mutual Support. We do so with a heavy heart. We have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with BSA through the years. However, the American Heritage Girls Board of Trustees has decided that we cannot in good conscience continue in a formal relationship with the BSA.
As an independent, faith-based leadership and character development organization, we want everyone associated with the American Heritage Girls to know that our board members unanimously affirm the AHG Statement of Faith and its Scriptural foundation, and we are committed to continue providing a safe environment for every girl involved.”
The American Heritage Girls have sent a clear message that they will not pretend that the decision of the Boy Scouts of America to remove the requirement to be “morally straight” from its members is not a serious one. Whereas, on the other hand, this member of The Order of the Arrow, is scurrilously attempting to encourage scouts who took that oath to ignore it.
Dear Arrowmen of Coosa Lodge,
I know many of you are concerned about what has just happened with the change to the Boys Scouts of America’s membership policy. On May 23, 2013, the National Committee held a vote on whether or not homosexual youth scouts would be allowed into the Boy Scout program. Out of the 1,400 delegates over sixty percent voted to approve the new resolution which states,
“Youth membership in the Boy Scouts of America is open to all youth who meet the specific membership requirements to join the Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Varsity Scout, Sea Scout, and Venturing programs. Membership in any program of the Boy Scouts of America requires the youth member to (a) subscribe to and abide by the values expressed in the Scout Oath and Scout Law, (b) subscribe to and abide by the precepts of the Declaration of Religious Principle (duty to God), and (c) demonstrate behavior that exemplifies the highest level of good conduct and respect for others and is consistent at all times with the values expressed in the Scout Oath and Scout Law. No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.”
Although the resolution has passed, it shall not take effect until January 1, 2014. The reason for this is to give us and our leadership time to adjust and prepare for the upcoming change. Many of you have expressed your opinions and thoughts on this matter, and whether this is right or wrong, do not let this affect the true core values on which the upon which Scouting was founded: to get our youth active in the outdoors, to instill proper skills for the future, and to gain the ideals of leadership and service in today’s youth which will help build a better future for our country and world.
The road ahead will be a long and hard one for our organization. Many scouts have already expressed their desire to leave the program, but I would like to issue a challenge to you all in the hopes that the Boy Scouts of America will come out stronger than it ever has before. In the upcoming months, speak to your fellow brothers about how you can help build our organization. Please do not focus on someones sexual orientation, but on what you yourself can do for Scouting. It is up to us as the leaders of tomorrow; to be the best we can for the packs, troops, crews, and other groups within Scouting. Scouts will be looking for someone to show them what to do. Let us lead the way by showing them Scouting is no different than it was before. Our focus is still to build leadership and skills for our youth and to give service to our local troops, councils, and camps and we intend to keep it that way. I am proud to call myself an Eagle Scout and Vigil Honor recipient, and I am ecstatic to have the opportunity to be a part of this great organization.
As a former Star Scout and member of the Order of the Arrow, my response to the Chief of the Coosa Lodge is that his feeble attempt to minimize the significance of the degradation of standards represented by the board’s action is not worthy of an Arrowman or a Scout, and that I am requesting the removal of my name from the Lodge to which I belonged because I no longer wish to be associated with the Boy Scouts of America or the Order of the Arrow.
The seeds of destruction have already been successfully sown by the homosexual activists. Both the Boy Scouts and the Order will be rapidly following the way of the Girl Scouts, whose membership fell by 250,000, (about one-tenth), between 2003 and 2008. The BSA membership is already only half of what it was in 1972; the mass withdrawal of scouts, troops, and councils should see it fall by another half in much less time.
Tolerance is not a virtue. It is, as I have written in the past, “the sin of Jeroboam“. One would think that seeing one organization after another, one institution after another, decline rapidly after lowering its standards in the name of modernizing them would give the various leaderships pause, (for evil’s activists are never successful without the useful fools convinced by their false promises and tortuous arguments). And yet, as the BSA action shows, the same short-sighted attempt to appease the internal destroyers is repeated again and again and again.
So let the Boy Scouts dwindle. They have made their bed, let them lie in it. Let their decline into irrelevance be a lesson to you. Vigilance and internal discipline is necessary for every organization that wishes to preserve itself against the wolves in sheep’s clothing. Relaxing your standards and abandoning your traditions is always the first step along the easy way that leads to destruction.