When the troop reached the campsite, I learned that I had been assigned Bill Rentner for a tent-mate. Bill and I were classmates, but he was not a good friend. In fact, I would have preferred just about anybody to Bill. But part of the Scouting experience was learning to get along with everyone - do what was good for the whole troop, not just yourself, and if that meant sharing a tent with Bill Renter, then so be it.

Bill was an only child. His parents wanted to make sure he was provided for. They didn't want him to be uncomfortable. So they took the BSA motto of "Be Prepared" to heart and sent Bill on this 2 day campout prepared for everything from extreme summer to extreme winter conditions. Practically the whole tent was taken up with Bill's gear. He never apologized but I could tell he was embarrassed. I mean, as I said, it was Indian Summer. We went to bed that night sleeping on top of our sleeping bags because it was so warm.

When I awoke in the morning, I found myself in my bag and cold, even shivering. "It must be an early morning chill," I thought to myself. I poked around to find my jeans and shirt, dressed quickly, and walked out in my stocking feet ... into ... into 3 inches of snow! And it was still coming down! I ducked back into the tent and searched through my stuff. I eventually dressed in everything I'd brought: a shirt, two sweatshirts and a light jacket, jeans and sneakers. I gathered with the other guys in front of a fire. It couldn't have been there more than 10 minutes than out walks Bill, my tentmate in his flannel-lined jeans, snow boots, the equivalent of a down parka and a ski cap. We all just stared at him, stares of disbelief. How had he known?! Needless to say, it was a Scouting memory that I will never forget.

And I've got lots of them - mostly really quite good memories. I loved Scouts, everything about it. I entered Weiblows then followed it with Cub Scouts. Then on to Boy Scouts where I held nearly every office possible and was awarded the rank of Eagle - at the time, I was the youngest boy to have achieved Eagle in our region. Then in my first year of Explorers I was inducted into the Order of the Arrow, a special and exclusive Indian brotherhood by invitation only. And I loved it all - I couldn't get enough of it.

While I was aware of all the accusations people made of the Scouting program, those were never my experiences. Looking back on it, I suspect that many of my troop's adult leaders were quite conservative, maybe reactionary - but then, who in my village wasn't (it was a very conservative place to grow up). But issues of theology, ideology and sexual orientation never seemed to come up. What Dan Kennedy describes as his experience was mine too: "My memories [in the Scouts are] a series of transformative experiences," experiences that introduced me to the splendors of nature, the joy of being part of a group, the styles and nuances of leadership as well as quite a few skills that I still use with frequent regularity.

When the Unitarian Universalist Association first began having a contentious relationship with the Scouts, many of my friends and colleagues responded by saying, "What do you expect from a fascist boy's organization that salutes and wears brown shirts!" I'd heard these kinds of things before, especially in college and seminary, two places that I dared to never mention my love for Scouting, it just didn't fit into the spirit of those places and times. Yes, I suppose there were those who always viewed the Scouts with suspicion if not hostility but I was never one of them.

Nevertheless, I was surprised but not shocked when in 1985 the Unitarian Universalist Association reported that they had come to the defense of Paul Trout, "a 15-year-old West Virginia boy who was being denied advancement to [the rank of] Life Scout because he didn't believe in a 'Supreme Being.'" Then UUA President Bill Schulz thought that this case could directly impact on UU boys in the Scouts so he championed Trout's case with op-ed pieces in the NY Times and The Christian Century as well as an appearance on "The Phil Donahue Show." Ultimately, Trout was awarded his Life Scout rank, and the relationship between UUs and the BSA has never been the same. After this, there were other similar kinds of cases that made their way into the courts, and it wasn't uncommon for the UUA to file a friend of the court brief on behalf of the complainant. Unitarian Universalism's challenges to Scouting were always set in a larger context of contention and litigation. And so, the fact is that the UUA has been one of the very few faith communities to steadfastly challenge the BSA around religious beliefs issues. And now around sexual orientation.

A little bit of background: In 1990, two discrimination suits were filed - one in California and the other in New Jersey. Both dealt with individuals being denied participation in the Scouts because they were homosexual - the Scouts claimed that homosexuality was antithetical to the Boy Scout Oath which requires a member be "morally straight." The Scouting organization claims it abides by this oath as a way of protecting participants from "improper influences." The Scouts went on to claim that as a private organization they could deny participation based on this requirement. Both cases were decided this summer - the California State case was won by the Scouts, but they lost the New Jersey federal case and have appealed to the Supreme Court.

Now, I give you this background because in 1992, "the UUA Board of Trustees adopted a resolution criticizing the BSA for its discrimination against gay and atheist or agnostic scouts" and then rewrote the UU Religion in Life curriculum to reflect this resolution. You see, Jews, Catholics, Protestants and UUs all have a congregation-based curriculum for any young person - but usually its Scouts - who wish to study their faith's history, polity and theology. They can receive a citation and medal after successfully completing the program. The UU curriculum is called Religion in Life (in my childhood church it was the God and Country Award and it's one of the few Scout programs I never completed!). Scouts in good standing are encouraged to wear the medal on their uniform. Since I've been minister here, we have given this award several times and the UUA reports that since 1995 they have given out more than 1400 of the chalice-shaped emblems to Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts

You might remember that in May 1998 the Boy Scouts of America wrote the UUA informing them that after a review of our Religion In Life curriculum, UU congregations were to immediately stop awarding the emblem to all Boy and Cub Scouts and that we were to remove the emblem from any Scout currently wearing the award. I'll quote from their letter:

Well, you could imagine our shock. Many of you who have boys in Scouts asked me what was going on - what should you do. Over the last year, the UUA and the BSA worked together to try resolving the issues. This past April, President John Buehrens announced that the conflict had been resolved by revising the program. In a press release, John even quoted the BSA letter thanking the UUA for their fine work. And then, one month later in a decision that was reported in most major newspapers, the BSA rescinded its approval and instructed the UUA to notify its congregations that the deal was off - while we had rewritten the curriculum, we had not changed our theology (and it essentially took them a month to figure this out!).

And that, my good friends, is what this all comes to - theology. As Unitarian Universalists, "we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person." That's every person, no matter what - no exceptions, no strings attached. That is a quintessential piece of our theological DNA. How dare the Boy Scouts of America or anyone else even remotely suggest that because our theology, our faith, is inconsistent with our understanding of their program that we change our beliefs! Actually, what's going here is not just our beliefs, as important as these are. Dan Kennedy scratched the surface of the bigger challenge when he wrote:

Well obviously Kennedy is wrong - the culture war is not over and it won't be for some time to come. Actually, it's not so much a culture war either - culture has merely become one of the several fields on which the struggle is occurring. It's not so much about culture as it is about difference, diversity and change.

You see, whether or not the Boy Scouts is a public or private, an open or closed organization will eventually be decided by the Supreme Court. But regardless of what the rule of law says, the perception has always been that the Scouts is a public, open organization. And how did they acquire this image? They created it, they have fostered and championed it - just read the Scout Laws and Oath, there's no question about it, they read like a 4^th branch of the government, as though they were a public school and so it's no wonder that citizens see them as an open organization.

As a high profile, public organization, it should be no surprise that they have been challenged by all of the same diversity and change issues that this nation is experiencing. As most organizations, like the Scouts, have moved beyond the public accommodation obstacles of the civil rights era, the Scouts and all of us now face basic, self-defininition challenges that force us to reflect about who and what we are, challenges that go to the very core of what we believe and what makes for the individual identity that we have taken for granted - that is to say, issues of faith and sexuality. The Boy Scouts have chosen to respond to these challenges by taking the road well-traveled - the road of resistance, intolerance and confusion. They have chosen the road of fear.

The Scouting organization hopes to hide behind the shield of "private club," hoping that this will protect them from change, even though this has never been their image, this was never the way I saw them. Having the status of private club is not the issue, regardless of what the courts might say and in this sense the Scouts might win the battle and lose the cause. Denying membership to those whose sexual orientation challenges their "morally straight" persona, asking those to leave who can't affirm Scouting's insistence on belief in and duty to their version of God, these are ways to avoid revealing several hypocrisies, inconsistencies and fears of the Scouting program.

First, you might be interested in knowing that the Girl Scouts don't have this problem. That is to say, while they, just like all of us, are facing the challenges and discomfort of diversity and differences, listen to the way they have reacted:

I have to admit that I never quite saw the Girl Scouts on equal footing to Boy Scouts: I always understood them to be an inferior, copycat organization. But here again, male chauvinism has done me in because it turns out that the Girl Scouts, like many of their mothers, were far out ahead for their time, blazing a trail that the Boy Scouts have yet to find.

What could account for such a glaring difference in belief and practice? We all understand that any organization reflects its membership and often membership becomes leadership. For the Boy Scouts, churches are the largest single sponsor and while there are some churches that will challenge them on their requirements, three of those churches sponsor over 30% of all scout troops - and those three are the United Methodist Church, the Catholic Church, and the Mormons: all three communities are well known for their orthodox, conservative theology and social stands, they are well known for their unwillingness to accept those who fall outside their theological parameters which have been narrowly and tightly drawn

As a result, what this appears to be coming down to is an ideological and theological fight for whom will not just be allowed in Scouts, but who will run the Scouts. And so far, it's nothing but a lose/lose confrontation: the churches lose as do communities, but most importantly young boys and families lose. By insisting that young boys be able to affirm, without question, belief in the BSA's God as well as clarity about their sexual orientation, by insisting on these the Scouts make a mockery of themselves and call into question their commitment, as was stated in one council's letter, "to serve as a positive, unifying force, bringing together many faiths and viewpoints to fulfill a common mission." I'm afraid that the mission they are serving is being shaped by the theological prejudices and confusion of several of the nation's leading orthodox and fundamentalist faith communities.

And I'm sorry because it is prejudice and confusion, and I don't blame them: I mean with all that's going on in our world, I've got a lot of prejudice and confusion too. Frankly, I've got a lot of fears about the unknown, about all this diversity and the pluralism I'm expected to embrace. It's all very unsettling, it's all very new and foreign to me. But where we, as Unitarian Universalists, go with this diversity and where the Scouts and their shapers have gone with this diversity couldn't be more divergent. Because we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person, because we promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations, because we affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth, because of these three Principles we want to throw the net of inclusion in a wider and wider circle, and then as Thoreau wrote "If it proves to be mean, then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; [but] if it is sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it."

I'm describing not just two very different kinds of theology, I'm describing to wildly divergent styles of living, attitudes for life, and outlooks on the world. One at the slightest sign of challenge, difference and disruption draws backs, limits conversation and withdraws the "welcome" mat. And the other, well we too might take a step back, we might go silent, but may the Goddess help us all if we role up the "Welcome" map and consequently bring to a halt all hope of conversation, discovery, support and relationship.

You know as well as I do that this is about more than the Boy Scouts of America and the Unitarian Universalists. It's about the growth of a nation, about the acceptance of people, it's about change in a global community among citizens who appear to be suspect and often terrified of change and are willing to do anything to protect their illusion of stability and permanence. Now more than ever, we as Unitarian Universalists must share our gospel. For though our way of religion is small in number, our message is world-class. And it is a saving message.

As Scouts in the troop of Unitarian Universalism, let's be on our honor to share our good news, a message of hope, love and unity for all.

© the Rev. Fredric J. Muir
November 7, 1999