Posted on 10/31/2011 12:25:53 PM PDT by Recovering_Democrat
As a legal matter, you start getting into a grey area. Does the PTO receive any public support? The reason that Exploring was moved from the Boy Scouts of America into an affiliated corporation, Learning for Life, was because Law Enforcement Career Exploring Posts and Fire & Emergency Services Career Exploring Posts were often sponsored by Police Department or Fire Departments.
The ACLU was successful in winning suits against the Departments and the BSA because of the mix of public funds and the BSA's policy that youth believe in a higher being (God - as you define him or her).
Exploring was moved into Learning for Life, which doesn't require belief in a God, and Venturing was eventually introduced into the BSA as the co-ed program for the BSA.
The Boy Scouts have female leaders at all levels (I know plenty of female Assistant Scoutmasters and a few female Scoutmasters, and the world is chock full of female Den Leaders, Webelos Leaders, and Cubmasters). They camp with their units.
If you're male - say, a divorced or widowed dad - and you want to be active in Girl Scouting with your daughter(s)? Good luck. They few I know who manage to fight the battle face discrimination. At summer camp, they are either herded into a building and locked in at night, or they are transported in vans in the evening to another site.
Why? Well, because you have to protect the girls from possible sexual abuse.
It doesn't matter than the Girl Scouts have openly lesbian leaders, or that there seems to be some strange hypocrisy to the idea that girls must be protected from men, but boys don't require protection from homosexual men.
The Girl Scouts are immune from criticism.
of course these same idiots would be the first to sue if the Boy Scouts allowed a homosexual leader in who then molested their kid.....
My troop was sponsored by an elementary school PTA. We raised funds by collecting newspapers and showing movies in the cafeteria on weekends. I assure you that we had nothing like the extravagant equipment I observed at the troop my son attended at a Catholic church. The big difference was that the parents were involved to excess at the Catholic church sponsored troop. Extravagant outings with fancy gear. My own troop required the boys to do the work to finance their own outings. They were far more modest, but we never felt "entitled". We did no more than we could afford. I made Eagle in that troop as did quite a few of my peers.
Ping.
(St. Louis Suburb School Ends Sponsorship of Cubs Scouts due to "social justice")
The school didn't sponsor the Pack and Troop. The PTO did. It is BSA policy to not accept public schools as chartering organizations.
In March 2011, they suggest that PTOs/PTA’s should not charter organizations that require the PTO/PTA to make judgments or vouch for the character or morals of the other group’s members. They outline concerns with liability issues.
The PTA has done the same thing. The chartering organization is responsible for selecting leaders for a Scout unit and for ensuring their character and suitability for leadership. Some organizations don't feel that they can do this, or don't wish to accept the liability.
One parent asked how Girl Scouts are differently structured. Kathleen Unwin explained that GS charters are handled through a separate non-profit; Girl Scouts of Eastern MO. Boy Scouts are governed through a congressional mandate. Marie Richter asked for clarification on the national structure versus Girl Scouts. It would literally take an act of congress to change the way it is structured.
Both the BSA and the GSUSA have Congressional charters. Other than the establishment of the National organization, neither charter prescribes the structure of the underlying organization. No doubt "Girl Scouts of Eastern MO" is the local GSUSA Service Unit, repsonsible to their national organization. The local Boy Scout units fall under whatever their local Council is, which is also a not-for-profit organization and is responsible to the BSA's National Council just as the GSUSA's local Service Unit is reponsible to their national organization.
Hopefully someone connected with that Pack and Troop is aware that Federal law requires that schools receiving Federal money (certainly all public schools) cannot discriminate against youth organizations wishing to use their facilities for meetings and activities on the basis of their membership policies. In other words, the school can't tell the Scouts they can't meet there because they don't permit gays and atheists.
I had a gay leader once. He was an Eagle Scout. He came to the outings, stuck to the program, and never said "boo" about what he did when he wasn't at a Scout activity. I was glad to have him. We practice two-deep leadership very strictly, so neither he nor any other leader was left alone with any of the kids.
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