“It’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” said a quite astute friend a long, long time ago. He was describing how people and institutions would be “snatched” by leftism and start operating as a bizarre collective with alien ideas. Enter (or maybe it’s “exit”?) the Boy Scouts of America.
It was only in the 1990s and into 2000 that the BSA went to court to defend its policies against accepting girls and openly homosexual members and its policy of having God in its pledge. It won those battles. But the dam broke in the 20-teens, with the organization first accepting openly homosexual youth, then likewise disposed leaders, then girls who think they’re boys and, finally, girls who know they’re girls. And if there was any doubt before, the BSA has now come full circle, with an anti-white “diversity and inclusion” badge Eagle Scout requirement.
According to Flag & Cross, which reported on the story Monday:
The Boy Scouts of America has announced that scouts will now have to earn a “diversity and inclusion” badge pushing the radical gay/transgender agenda with training that will include anti-white courses to be able to earn Eagle Scout status.
The Boy Scouts long ago went full woke, but this new “diversity” badge amps that up to full speed.
The BSA added that it will include information about George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor in its indoctrination of boys and girls. In its announcement, the organization insisted that it “has not been as brave as we should have been” to address evil white supremacy.
Oh, but to put us at ease, the BSA insisted this isn’t about left-wing politics… even though it is.
In fact, the BSA actually stated that this “is not a political issue” at all. This is silly because, with government having grown to a point at which it’s involved in most everything, most everything is a political issue.
But to state what the BSA is trying to express better than its leadership understands it, the organization means that these racial matters aren’t just a political issue, but also a moral one. Yet this also misses a point: Governments generally involve themselves in things in the belief (or pretext) that at issue is a moral imperative or a corollary thereof. If there weren’t — if the issue were just a matter of preference or taste — what would be the justification for involvement?
But here are the changes the BSA, after self-righteously stating that they “always stand for what is right,” announced in a ScoutingWire letter:
- Introducing a specific diversity and inclusion merit badge that will be required for the rank of Eagle Scout. It will build on components within existing merit badges, including the American Cultures and Citizenship in the Community merit badges, which require Scouts to learn about and engage with other groups and cultures to increase understanding and spur positive action.
- Reviewing every element of our programs to ensure diversity and inclusion are engrained at every level for participants and volunteers by applying a standard that promotes racial equality and denounces racism, discrimination, inequality and injustice.
- Requiring diversity and inclusion training for all BSA employees starting July 1 [2020] and taking immediate action toward introducing a version for volunteers in the coming months.
- Conducting a review of property names, events and insignia, in partnership with local councils, to build on and enhance the organization’s nearly 30-year ban on use of the Confederate flag and to ensure that symbols of oppression are not in use today or in the future.
“These are our next steps but certainly not our last,” the organization then boasted.
More steps may already be in the offing since the BSA’s letter is dated June 15, 2020 (it’s now getting some more media exposure).
Notable here is that while the BSA’s mandate is to mold children, it’s behaving childishly. That is to say, it adopted the above measures in the midst of last year’s George Floyd-fired racial frenzy, following corporate America’s lead, when doing so became fashionable. But this reflects the impulsiveness of a babe, a being prone to flights of fancy and sudden change.
The fully adult proceed differently. Being truly mature requires having wisdom, which means, in part, knowing what proper principles are and why we should adhere to them — even when it’s difficult.
Of course, that the BSA had already transitioned from a Christian sense of sexual propriety to sexual devolutionary norms reflects how the organization, like most of today’s society, has long been awash in wisdom’s antithesis: mushy-headed relativism. For whether or not it was right to prohibit openly homosexual members, as an example, it certainly didn’t become alright because it became all the rage. Truth does not “transition.”
The good news for parents still interested in scouting is that there are more Truth-centered BSA alternatives. Trail Life USA is an example.
As for BSA, it ironically still does require scouts to take the oath, “On my honor, I will do my best to … keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” But a pro tip for them: A “fallacy doesn’t cease to be a fallacy because it becomes a fashion,” as Chesterton put it — and a moral doesn’t cease to be a moral because it becomes a minority view.
