Boy Scouts Case Study

Boy Scouts Controversial Law Changes I was a part of the Boy Scouts of America(BSA) for many years and during that time I saw many different rule changes in the program that affected my troop and many others in different ways. The first law change that immediately affected my troop was when the BSA lifted their ban on letting homosexual scouts into troops. Another law is lifting their ban on homosexual leaders in the troops. Finally, The last controversial law change is letting girls into the boy scouts. I will address how these laws have affected my troop and other troops. Another point I will address is how they have affected the overall scouting community and whether the laws have driven people away or if the laws unintentionally shut

This argument had started a long time ago with supreme court case “Boys Scouts of America v. Dale(2000).” In this case a scout leader by the name of James Dale came out as gay in a newspaper article, he was quickly removed from his leaders position in his troop and he soon sued the BSA for discrimination. At first the case looked good for Dale as the court thought that him being a part of the troop would not alter the group in any significant way and had the BSA reinstate him. However, later the BSA said that their First amendment rights were being infringed upon so it appealed to the U.S supreme court. After much discussion the ruling turned in favor of the BSA because it was a private organization and homosexuallity was against the groups values, the supreme court ruled in favor of the BSA(Brannen). This law change brought up issues like the law allowing gay scouts into the organization like the charter organizations disbanding troops and the scouts leaving the troops so the modifications to the law will be similar to the gay scouts. Let the troops charter organization decide if they would allow gay leaders into the troops and it would fix some of the problems to like letting the charter organizations keep their beliefs in the troop, the charter organization would be able to decide who they let in so there would be no more dibanding troops, and there would not be as much controversy on the

This brings a lot of controversy for many reasons. One of them is that parents are worried about girls and boys sleeping in the same tent(Turkewitz). Another one is that the Girl Scouts of America accused the Boy Scouts of waging a "covert campaign to recruit girls into programs run by the Boy Scouts." And it would be a shame if the Girl Scouts suffered as a result(Wall Street Journal). One way we can fix these problems is to continue to keep the girls out of the boy scouts. There are the girl scouts who pretty much do the same stuff as the boy scouts and many people do not understand why there is a need for them to join the boy scouts. If the girl do wanna hang out with guy friends there is a boy scout program called venture crew which is a separate branch from the boy scouts that allows boys and girls to be co-ed in there campsites and other activities. In addition there are ground rules which involve the guys and girls sleeping in the same tent or hammock saying that it is not allowed. So, the only thing that needs to be modified with this law is just get rid of the girls, there is no point in creating a law to allow girls in the BSA if programs already exist that do the same things as the boy