My Boy Scouts of America Survey Inputs

Boy Scouts of America asked me to take a survey.  Here are some of the comments I left:

I forget the exact question, but it's something like, "I enjoy participating with my son...".  I ranked it fairly high, but not the top and left this comment:

I've been Cubmaster of a large and successful Cub Scouts pack for over two years now. Many months into my service, I learned that as someone who happens to not believe any gods exist, I'm not technically welcome to serve.

Or maybe I am.  The policy is unclear. There's something about believing in things larger than ourselves. Like humanity? physics? The universe? I've not made an issue of it, but it's a lingering concern and it weighs heavily on my willingness to volunteer in the future.  I sincerely hope BSA can adopt a policy of non-discrimination soon.

If there was one thing that I would suggest to improve my Scouting experience, it would be. . .

End policies which discriminate based on beliefs and sexuality. Scouting SHOULD be a safe place for all, not another opportunity to exclude the out-group.  These policies must extend to all people: adult leaders, not just scouts.  Our kids see the bigotry wrapped in "family values".  They notice when an organization practices school-yard style exclusion.  

Discriminatory policies are a vestige of old cultural ignorance of beliefs and sexuality.  It's time to end them.

Resources for Atheist Cub Scouts

As a Boy Scouts of America (BSA) Cubmaster, father of a Webelos scout, and atheist, I'm frequently struggling with how to deal with the scout's bigoted policy regarding atheism and homosexuality. It's an unfortunate part of life that otherwise good organizations fall victim to the glorified bigotry of religion in an attempt to teach "values."  Rather than reject the whole organization over one disagreement, I've thus far decided to work within the organization.  Note that I discovered that atheists weren't welcome after I'd already accepted the Cubmaster position, and I've stayed on because the pack needs me.  Though our pack is sponsored by a church, they have been very hands-off, allowing us to run a secular pack that largely serves the local schools.  Few of our scouts members are members of the church that sponsors us and provides us with meeting space.  I can't help but wonder how they'd respond if they ever asked my religion -- I wouldn't lie, but it's never come up.

But this isn't about me. It's about my 10 year old son in Webelos Scouts.  Ten is too young to have a firm and defensible opinion on the nature of the universe. But since he's close to me and I talk about my beliefs with him often, he identifies as atheist. This could wind up being a problem for my him since BSA doesn't consider it an acceptable to admit honest, rational, and reasonably skeptical world views. I've been looking for a good solution, and I found a few useful tidbits to share.

Unitarian Universalist (UU) Fellowships are not merely tolerant of atheist world views; my atheism is welcomed as the perfectly rational worldview it is and there are many other open atheists in our local fellowship. I know that some atheists consider UU a religion, but I think of it more as a socially conscious club to which I'm a member. There's no dogma (no creed to join), and a very wide range of beliefs are welcome.

Why am I talking about "church"? Because to earn the Webelos badge, scouts MUST accomplish a religious requirement.  The Unitarian Universalist Scouters Organization UUSO Answers the mail for atheists by providing a comfortably secular perspective on scouting in their "Religion and Family" program (note the lack of "god" in the title).  They've done the hard work of getting a dogma-free curriculum through the scouts religion panel. http://www.uuscouters.org/ hosts PDFs of relatively simple workbook you and your scout can work through to complete his religious requirement without being brainwashed into accepting absurd and indefensible claims of magic sky wizards. The material focuses on values and the role of religion plays in society. By helping your son understand what other people mean when they say "God", it's possible to get all the valuable aspects out of scouting without the spiritual woo.

There are two main charitable organizations I regularly donate to that are working to solve this problem over the long haul. 

  Scouting for All: http://www.scoutingforall.org/

  Scouts for Equality: https://www.scoutsforequality.org/

Unfortunately, LDS, Catholic, and Baptist influences hold substantial sway and their closed-minded one True™ answer worldview makes them difficult to work with.