I am disappointed in the Boy Scouts

Anyone who knows me knows that the Boy Scouts of America are a huge part of my life. My father was an Eagle scout, my brother was an Eagle scout and my brother-in-law and I got our Eagles together, on the same day.

My brother and I both met our wives through the Boy Scouts. My wife used to come to the meetings with her father and John's wife was staff at summer camp.

Growing up, my brother was involved in the Order of the Arrow and on camp staff. I started out at McKee as a CIT (Counselor in Training) but everyone always thought I was the younger brother, even though I am three and a half years his senior.

Working at McKee, we had to undergo "Youth Protection" training which was a goofy set of videos followed by a discussion. We made fun of the videos because they were ridiculous. An adult would climb into a shower with a boy or someone would be holding a video camera and shouting, "Here we are right now at the World Wrestling championship."

We made fun of the videos, which is what we were supposed to do. The man giving the training said if someone wasn't laughing then that was a sign something was wrong.

The phrase, "That's not for me!" which is what the boy in the shower said, became something of a dark joke around camp. As in someone would do something perfectly innocent but which might have had another dirty meaning.

"Hey, pull on this," the scout would say.

"That's not for me!" everyone around would say at once.

It was sort of like, "Smoke this and we'll see."

At the time I assumed that the youth protection was a gambit to eventually allow homosexuals to be scout leaders. The national organization had nearly bankrupted itself with legal fees, defending itself from lawsuits. They wanted to keep out gays, atheists, and an entire list of peoples who didn't conform to their morals.

There were also boycotts. The most effective was when Levi jeans pulled their support. Levi Strauss manufactured shorts for the Boy Scouts of America, but I also had seen the Levi outlet store in Dupont Circle when I had been in Washington on a field trip. The new shorts were not and still are not as durable as the denim shorts.

There was a brief ray of hope in the 1990s when the BSA allowed women to be scout leaders for the first time. They had always allowed them to lead Cub Scouts. When my father first worked with my den in the cub scouts he told me that when his mother had the same job she had been "Den Mother."

With all that going on, I also realized the Boy Scouts were becoming more and more conservative. Every time they would piss off a liberal group then the conservative groups would gain that much more control. Pretty soon it would be nothing but the Catholics, the LDS and the Baptists.

None of those groups are gay friendly. The LDS church is considered to be the main backers of the Prop 8 ammendment that barred gay marriage in California.

I can honestly say that all of my gay friends were Boy Scouts. When George Takei came out as gay on the Howard Stern show he said his first gay experience was at a boy scout camp.

Like it or not, the Boy Scouts and homosexuality are intertwined, like sweaty lovers more or less.

When my friend from college (who had been married at McKee in a Pagan ceremony which wasn't legal) was looking for a boy scout alternative for her son, I didn't have to ask why. It was the gay thing.

I told her about the YMCA Indian Guides program although I have no idea whether it is still around or not.

I still consider myself to be a Boy Scout, and I still think about the oath and law everyday. I can't in good conscience endorse an organization that spouts hate, regardless of whether they see it as God's plan or not.

It's the 100th anniversary of the Eagle Scout award, and last week a committee met in secret and issued a statement affirming the Boy Scouts stance on gays.

The committee met in secret and none of the members signed the statement. In an election year where gay marriage is likely to be a wedge issue, this seems like a purely political move from an organization that claims to be above politics.

That's not for me.