Boy Scouting’s professional staff generates a cost of just over $5 million per year for retirement costs. Assuming that’s 8% of salaries, you’re talking about $55 million per year for salaries. http://www.scouting.org/filestore/about/AnnualReports/pdf/2011_TreasurerReport.pdf ~ which would be, at $12 per hour, a going rate for custodial caretakers these days, yields a maximum of 2200 paid staff people. The annual report says there are 1.2 million volunteers. The gay decision benefits no one but the paid staff and a couple of big donors who have already whacked the amount they contribute. Driving off any percentage of the volunteers will destroy the organization.
Ding, ding, ding... Yes, as usual, this is about the money. The full-time BSA staff voted to put the Scouts at risk and bring the whole Scouting organization to an end in order to keep their jobs for a short while longer and line their pockets with money. Despicable.
When I told my son, a First Class Scout, last night about this decision, he immediately said that he wanted to quit Scouting. When I asked him why, he told me that this decision did not fit with the “morally straight” ideal in the Scouting Oath. I agreed with him and we have both decided to resign from Scouting.
A pity, but I am hoping that this travesty will spur like-minded parents from across the nation to form a new group more in line with the original concept of the Boy Scouts and form an organization along those root principles.