Posted on 11/05/2002 12:27:48 AM PST by kattracks
SEATTLE (AP) — An Eagle Scout who has earned 37 merit badges said Monday he has been kicked out of the Boy Scouts for refusing to declare a belief in a higher power. Darrell Lambert said he was told of the decision earlier in the day by the Chief Seattle Council, the Scouts' regional governing body.
"Am I bitter? No. Disappointed? Yeah," he said. "We're in the 21st century. Our country was founded on religious freedom, and the Boy Scouts of America are still discriminating."
Lambert said he plans to appeal the decision within the Scouting council within the required 60 days.
On membership applications, Boy Scouts and adult leaders must say they recognize a higher power, although not necessarily a religious one.
As a private organization, the Boy Scouts can bar anyone it chooses from membership. The organization's ban on gay leaders was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2000.
The issue arose about a month ago, after Lambert attended a Boy Scout leadership training seminar where he argued with a Scout leader about whether atheists should be expelled from the organization.
Last week, the council said it would give him about a week to declare his belief in a higher power. Lambert refused, saying that to lie would make him a bad Scout.
The Irving, Texas-based Boy Scouts of America did not return calls seeking comment Monday.
Lambert, 19, said he has been an atheist since ninth grade, when he concluded that science had disproved the accounts of creation given in the Bible.
He had declared his atheism to the Scout leaders overseeing his Eagle Scout application last year, but was still granted the award.
"They commended me on my honesty," he said.
His mother told CNN that no one in their family attends church, and that her husband is also an atheist.
"Darrell's not just fighting this for himself. He's fighting this for all the Scouts that have no real belief in God," Trish Lambert said.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
That freedom is exactly what allows groups to exclude those who disagree with them. The gentleman is perfectly free to start his own atheist Boy Scouts group, if he wishes.
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Sorry, punk, the Boy Scouts is a quasi religious organizarion. You don't have any more right to membership in that organization than you have to be a Catholic priest.
he doesnt have to ...if doesnt believe in god the he doesnt it dont mean he should be kicked out of the scouts..i mean what.just cuz he dont believe all of a sudden that makes him a threat? i dont think so
It was only an oath you made:
On my honor, I will do my bestSo get a lawyer and see a judge. Oaths mean nothing to them either.
To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.
It is very plausible that he didn't think that was a critical criterion for membership. There are LOTS of private organizations that don't hold to their membership rules too strictly as long you more or less pretend to follow the rules. Hell, I can't think of any offhand that truly follow the letter of their nominal charter. As long as he was a model Boy Scout in all but this regard, I can at least see why he is surprised that the Boy Scouts is making a big deal out of it, as a pragmatic issue. Nonetheless, the Boy Scouts is a private organization and I fully support their right to determine membership any way they damn well please.
Yeah, discriminating means you either believe it or you do not, plain and simple. What's so hard to understand it?
When you sign the "contract" in the very first beginning, one signs in good faith and truth.
If one misrepresents his oath (one way or another), he should be trown out no questions asked, period.(achievements or not, this is not the issue).
point taken
I think this action by the Boy Scouts was wrong. I am an Eagle Scout with a bronze palm, was Vice President of the Order of the Arrow over 4,000 scouts, and had earned the God and Country award. I was, and still am, not convinced of a higher being or order in the universe.
Kicking a boy out of the scouts because of his views here says much more about the scout chapter than it does the boy. It means that they have failed to supply a logical arguement to an individual to change his mind. This is the scout chapter, and it's leaders, failure not the person they booted. It flies in the face of the United States Constitution regarding religious freedom and Scouts are sworn by the pledge of allegence to support the Constitution. You can't have it both ways. You can't support liberty while stepping all over it.
And no... I don't support gays in the scouts for the same reason I don't support people with criminal assault records in the scouts. The two are one in the same in my book.
But stepping on ones religious freedom is way out of line.
This former Scout needs to take a history lesson. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits non governmental private groups from discriminating. In fact, the Constitution provides for freedom of assembly and association with like minded people.
Secondly, it is impossible that this former Scout was unaware of the requirement that he believe in a higher being - since it is one of the principal rules of scouting and is taught to Cub Scouts from the second grade on up.
This is just another case where an individual is so self centered and egotistical that he has decided that his personal conviction (or lack thereof) should trump the convictions of thousands of other scouts.
Also-there's a vast difference between being sexually assaulted vs physically assaulted..yet you seem to believe they are the same..I can easily see that your lack of belief in God-could allow you to adopt such twisted thinking..further proof that you need to disassosicate yourself from the Scouts..I wouldn't want anyone like you around my son.
How can you in good conscience consider expelling this individual from the BSA to be stepping on his religious freedom.
The BSA from its foundation is a Christian organization. This individual has professed his disbelief in God.
He has in effect violated his Scout oath every time he recited it at the start of every Scout meeting. He lied every time he recited the oath, because he did not believe the words he was uttering. This fails the morally straight part.
Also as far as the Constitution is concerned I believe that freedom of association is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. The BSA is perfectly with in its rights to decide who its membership will be.
If the young man has decided to stand on his principles to profess his disbelief in God, why should he feel put upon or surprised that the BSA stands by its principles and removes him from its membership when his principles are contrary to theirs.
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