From: bones@u36.uucp (Lance Sibley)
Subject: Re: Proposal? (girls, atheists, sexuality)
Organization: U36 Research
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 22:08:05 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.233424.14974@ulowell.ulowell.edu> rcashman@cs.ulowell.edu (The Jester) writes:
>
>Along the same lines, Mr. Strom, you apparently have not read the
>rather extensive section in the beginning of the Boy Scout Handbook
>that discusses a young man growing to adulthood.  The Handbook
>encourages (entirely inferred, of course, but nonetheless) a mono-
>gamous, heterosexual family relationship.  In no way does it encour-
>age homosexuality.

In my many years in Scouting before I left Toronto for university,
I was never exposed to anything in the Handbook regarding my growth
to adulthood in the manner to which you refer.

And, just for the record, here is the Promise and Law by which I was required
to conduct myself:

On my honour, I promise to do my best;
To love and serve God, my Queen, my Country, and my fellow man,
And to live by the Scout Law.

A Scout is:
Helpful and trustworthy,
Kind and cheerful,
Considerate and clean,
And wise in the use of his resources.

Nowhere in my Handbook does it explain the meaning of any of these
as "pertaining to the 'nuclear family.' [sic]" Yes, it mentions
God, but the reference is generally understood to refer to whatever
your religious beliefs might be. For atheists, I suppose you could
use the equations that govern evolution (loosely phrased for the sake
of simplicity).

(And by the way, Mr. Cashman, there is no need to sprinkle "sic"'s
throughout my postings. I mean what I write and I write what I mean.
No more, no less; and I carefully review everything I write to ensure
that I have done just that. So I stand by everything I wrote in my
last article; your attempt to draw attention to my position as being, 
in your opinion, "wrong," is pathetic at best.)

>These are just two of the many ideals that the organization attempts
>to teach.  

There are organisations out there that are trying to "teach" people
that the Earth is flat, too.

>If you are not willing to practice, conform to, or, at the
>very least, encourage these ideals, you should not expect to be in-
>vited to become a member.

"Encourage?" I.e., spread propaganda that anything out of the statistical
norm is wrong and should be repressed?

The only thing I would ever encourage any son of mine (if I were ever to
have any) would be to do what he thought was right. He would be ultimately
responsible to himself for his choice of morals. Similarly, I am willing
to take responsibility for my morals, which include not hurting anyone
and trying my best at all times to make this world a little better place
for all of us to live in. And if you can't accept my morals, who has
the bigger problem? Hate to break it to you this way, but you're not
the ultimate arbiter of human morality.

>Priests and friars are not excluded from lead-
>ership roles in the scouting program because, while they cannot conform to
>scouting ideals in terms of sexuality, they have dedicated their life to
>another, slightly more important ideal of the organization: religion and
>service to God (in whatever form).

Wait a second; you can't have "first-class" ideals and "second-class" 
ideals. No one ideal can be more important than any other; this directly
implies that the two can possibly come into conflict with each other,
otherwise why bother distinguishing them? And if an "ideal" conflicts 
with *anything*, it must by definition not be truly ideal.

Make up your mind; do you want me to be straight and worship God, or
can I just worship God and you'll overlook the rest of my (perceived)
flaws?

-- 
Lance A. Sibley     "Sybok! This Sybok is a madman!"
Waterloo, Ontario   "Not so, Captain; in fact, he has cured me of my delusion
bones@u36.uucp       that I was Shirley MacLaine in a previous life."
                          - Kirk/Caitlin Dar, "Star Trek V: The Funny Frontier"