paracaidista508

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Everything posted by paracaidista508

  1. Ok- so the BSA isnt allowing openly gay men (there has to be two adults- 2 deep leadership, so why not 2 gay adults just for the sakes of argument? ) to be scout leaders and take kids on overnight trips now? I thought that is exactly the kind of thing the policy change ALLOWS. Whether it is practice or not is an entirely different issue. I didnt mean literally one adult gay male with a scout and pair them up, I meant it in the context of putting gay adult males with the kids.
  2. Why in the world would you send money to an organization that openly is against our values and pairs up gay adult males with young boys?
  3. I thank you for bringing that to my attention. Here is a more current article (it is a few months old ) and this kid followed up with his threat. Now he is an adult summer camp counselor http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/03/boy-scouts-in-new-york-hire-openly-gay-eagle-scout-in-spite-of-national-rules/ And it proves my point I made in another thread re young gay adults working at scout camp.
  4. This wont end well. Interestingly, the first openly gay boy scout...er "Eagle Scout" turned 18 a few months ago and immediately applied and was accepted as an adult summer camp counselor. Now it begins. Here is a quote from him in the article: ""On my 18th birthday, I'm planning on applying to be an adult leader for the Boy Scouts so that we push the issue," he said." http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/openly-gay-boy-scout-eagle-scout-article-1.1610308
  5. To be fair re sources...the churches own press release was just as vague. They didnt even bother to mention we actually had a couple members there for what amounted to a symbolic vote. The church is the most reliable source and we still dont really know much. http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-re-evaluating-scouting-program
  6. No matter I suppose...this program is done. All it is doing is dying a slow death and someone just needs to administer the coup de grace.
  7. I'm about as careful as you are. The quote I posted essentially said the same as the link you posted in response: "Hawkins of the LDS Church criticized the timing of the BSA's decision as inconsiderate and hasty. "In spite of a request to delay the vote, it was scheduled at a time in July when members of the church’s governing councils are out of their offices and do not meet," Hawkins said. "When the leadership of the church resumes its regular schedule of meetings in August, the century-long association with Scouting will need to be examined."
  8. Exactly---it isn't a major issue apparently or they would have been there.
  9. Wearing a hoodie??? So the church's stance on Gay adult leaders is the equivalent of wearing a hoodie to school? I'm disappointed because apparently this wasn't important enough to make sure other scheduled events (vacation it seems) wasn't postponed or whatever needed to get our vote in there. Then again maybe it really isn't all that important. If it isn't, someone should just stand up and say so instead of acting like we have been victimized because of a last minute vote. We get lectured all the time about standing up for what we believe, be brave, etc.... and we cant even take a couple days off vacation or Skype our vote? I'm pretty sure the church has the resources to get those folks there IF THEY WANTED THEM THERE. We do amazing things and I'm pretty sure it would not be too hard to shift things around on a calendar for things that supposedly are important. Granted they may have had other things scheduled, but is a Stake conference, meeting with a patriarch or whatever more important than the future of a key part of our priesthood youth program?
  10. Does anyone know how our LDS reps on the BSA executive council voted? in RE to the allowance of openly Gay leaders? I have found an article inferring the LDS members of the BSA Executive Council were not present for the vote: http://www.bgdailynews.com/features/mormons-struggle-with-scout-vote-on-gay-leaders/article_adc52b08-a832-558c-830a-0e079ebe0036.html "Reconciling its relationship with the Boy Scouts as the national youth group become more accepting of gay equality appears to be growing more difficult for the Mormon Church, whose press office put out a statement Monday, saying leaders were “deeply troubled” by the lifting of the ban, as well as by the fact that they had asked for a delay in the vote because the church bureaucracy takes off in July." I'm no genius at reading into things, but it would appear that many of or all of the LDS members of the BSA executive Council didn't even vote on this because they were......on vacation? Has anyone heard this? Perhaps it is just me, but if our church feels so strongly about not allowing openly Gay leaders you would think they all would have jumped on a plane to go vote on this. If this is the case, why did they not show up? If they didn't vote because they were on vacation then I am very disappointed. I hope I am wrong.
  11. No drama....yep prob the stake, but like I said, we have a couple paid district / council execs or something like that in our stake so poss it can come from the district / council...hooo knows
  12. THis was a member of the Bishopric who stated it. As for origination??? Don't know and not worried about it as we have always had a quota. Do I know what for sure??? That it was said? Yes. My mind sometimes tells me to do crazy things, but whatever I think I hear, is what I hear. At least that is what the voices in my head tell me. I don't know if it came from stake level or higher up. I never asked because it was of no concern to me. It would not surprise me because our stake is constantly announcing arbitrary goals and quotas from the pulpit (via the Bishopric) re indexing ( I think our goals is in the neighborhood of a million something), every adult ward member WILL go out with the missionaries....don't know how that works with the women, but I am sure that was meant for men only as we are the only ones who are actually commanded to do missionary work. For everyone else it is optional supposedly. Just because the authorities in your area are doing all the right things policy-wise doesn't mean mine are. We do have two members at the high priest level in the stake who are paid employees of the council so maybe they are lobbying for a raise pending outstanding marketing returns......who knows. No matter- I'm not giving them anything anyways.
  13. We had a quota last year....we were told in Priesthood mtg our ward was expected to pony up $2200. No a lot of money, but no one cares about scouts in our ward so it was a serious undertaking to get the needed donations and my ward has lots of six-figure earners in it. I think the SPs tell the Bishops this, but also tell them not to tell the ward. We got hit with this every sunday for a month. One of the counselors said they were gonna keep asking until the goal was met or exceeded. Drives me nuts.
  14. This brings up yet another reason why LDS should get out of the scouting business or at least quit donating to FOS: We (our stake) are sponsoring our own week-long camps at least every other year now. Not only does this facilitate the cakewalk what is meritbadge classes, but we are also not using the BSA Scoutcamps which are staffed by paid staff who get their paycheck from....guess where? Yep FOS. Also the camp facilities are paid for with funds from FOS. Essentially what we have here is the mormons paying for the traditional troops to use BSA camps and their staffs and we go and run our own camp and pay for that too. Stupid way to operate if you ask me. What happened to the "Thrifty" part of the Scout Law? Pretty stupid way to finance a program. We should be going to the BSA camps not our own. Why pay for other kids to go to camp and then get beat over the head again to pay for our own separate but equal camp???
  15. I “liked” your post because it was senseless… funny I guess. Sorry for not having a "Stellar" attitude. I wont be having a "Fabulous" attitude about it either.Anyway- I already wasn’t donating to FOS for a couple years now because I refuse to give to an organization that totally and completely overlooks the lying, cheating and overall fake scouting program that is many LDS troops in my area to include my own. I can’t speak for any that I have not personally been in, but the last three and our Stake for sure are not even trying to do scouts right, yet we still churn out more eagles than the traditional troops could ever dream of. Our stake life to eagle guys let some of these kids do some seriously weak Eagle projects. We do not enforce the standard hardly at all and in many cases give away this highly sought after recognition. Additionally, a few years ago during the national recession our stake recalled most of our ward’s budgets and essentially told us no more camping and no more spending for the rest of the year. That being said, none of my scouts could advance because they were not allowed to go on campouts (even ones I offered to finance out of my own pocket). This was about in the March/ April timeframe. In the fall, our district was tasked with sponsoring the district camporee which believe it or not cost some $$. Of course our stake coughed it up so we could go play, but they were not interested in paying for activities that actually contributed to the advancement of the kids…..wouldn’t even let me pay for their campouts. The camporee had several events, but in order to win ANY of the awards the troop had to be physically present (on Sunday morning) in order to get a trophy. This was calculated to exclude the LDS troops because they knew we would be home ironing our white shirts and going to church. They so openly disrespected us (rightfully so I might add) with this action. Obviously our troops didn’t stay into Sunday and got nothing for their efforts. We LDS made a big deal out of living our religion as far as the Sabbath goes and we were punished by the traditional troop sponsors by withholding awards. They openly spit in the face of our Scouts due to our religious beliefs and no there were no events on the Sunday other than a campsite inspection. This was supported by our council by the sheer fact it happened. I am 100% positive this event was not approved without our council CEO reading the details. Now we were punished for sticking by our beliefs and they still wanted money out of us. Our ward was having none of it and donations were few and far between. I was asked a few times, had a slip mailed to my house and each time I returned them with a $0.00 on it. I was finally cornered at Elders Quorum and handed a slip. I said “no thanks and If you ask one more time I’ll never donate again as long as I live.” He handed it to me again, I tore it in half and stuck it in his front shirt pocket. I have not been asked in two years now to donate and interestingly the council hasn’t mailed me a slip either. They used to mail at least three every collection season till I responded with $$ which I used to do. If the CEO is going to collect a $295K per year salary (According to 2013 IRS form 990- see link below) and allow us to be treated like that I’m surely not going to donate. The adult gay leader thing isn’t making it any better. Perhaps you now see why I don’t donate. I’m sick of the corruption and the open disrespect to the church and our kids…..and despite that, many of you will keep sending them money. Not me. I sound bitter eh??? You bet http://207.153.189.83/EINS/860101295/860101295_2013_0aae9e27.PDF
  16. I'm not too smart (well at least I'm smarter than those who went on missions apparently) but how did I help u make up your mind to donate to FOS?
  17. They wont get anything from me. I stopped donating a couple years ago due to them harassing us for money. Now I have two reasons not to donate.
  18. So what the church is doing is sending its dumbest boneheaded kids to go out and spread the gospel, but the competent ones we keep at home??? Doesnt sound like the best way to win at this game...send in the second and third stringers? I agree- boys are boneheaded though.
  19. http://www.scouting.org/filestore/intl/pdf/130-118_WB.pdf This is where we are going to see a major influx of openly gay adult scout leaders / counselors:.......if it happens. How awesome would it be if you were gay and 29 yrs old and had summer access to 18 year old boys? Just saying cuz I know if I was a single guy and would be living with a bunch of 18-30 year old girls in a cabin at a scout camp I'd be there every summer....If I was so inclined to live that life. Perfect for a young gay school teacher who has the summer off. Never mind the juvenile scouts...18 year old young men and they are legal. Dont know if this will happen, but I bet within five years it will be well known scout summer camps will be the place to work in the summer and be able to network with other like-minded gays. They have websites for this kind of thing.
  20. The explanation is IF the YW truly want all the programs (or equivalent) the boys have, the awards, campouts, the trips, etc they can have all the boys have and be commanded to go on a mission too- just like the boys. If they dont, they will be unfitting to be much of a wife...Kind of how in many ways lack of serving a mission makes a second class citizen out of a young man. Treated just like the boys and all the bells and whistles too. Most of the boys think scouting stinks anyway once they get to be about 14. Many of our scouts are scared to get dirty and so are many of their priesthood leaders.
  21. We need to make missions MANDATORY for the girls...just like the boys. I do agree that the girls have much less hoopla in their program, but again that is because they get to choose what they do and that is what the choose to do. Granted there is no formal award like the eagle and that is a dis service.
  22. I agree-I have seen this in every single ward I have been in for the past 20 yrs or so. Granted the level of fudging varies, it is not at all unusual and people are very open about it. I counseled for several merit badges and after a couple years no one called me any more. Word go out that I actually made them do all requirements to standard and they were not having any of that. I also helped out with a few MB clinics at the stake level and it was so ridiculous there that I just called the local BSA and told them to cancel all my MBs, take my name off and remove me from an ASST scoutmaster position. I was released very shortly after that. My experience with LDS troops is they are second rate, lack general integrity and the leadership is rarely dedicated to even running things at the bare minimum standard. I have seen some good ones...really good ones but the regular troops outside the church usually make ours look like we dont even bother trying.
  23. Apparently it wasnt as important back then as it is now. I get there was a war going on, but what makes it the thing to do back then and now the young men of this church are discouraged (by making the mission the only acceptable option) from serving their country in a time of war? We have been in a war for 13 yrs now and it is just getting started. That aside, he joined and was not drafted. Served about a year or so and then went to school and got married. Plenty of time to serve a mission. I have no problem with the choice he made, but it is funny how now it is absolutely the wrong thing to do.
  24. So where exactly does the path lead when one does not serve a mission?