It has been about three weeks now since the national leaders of the Boy Scouts made the somewhat unexpected decision to reverse a longstanding policy and allow openly-gay scouts to participate in the organization. In the wake of the Southern Baptist Convention’s decision to leave it to individual churches to decide the future of their relationship with the troops they are hosting, I thought I would add my own contribution to the conversation.
First the decision itself. This was an ill-conceived decision that seems to have satisfied exactly no one. Now, on the one hand, this was viewed as a compassionate decision. After all, why should any boys be prohibited from becoming Boy Scouts simply because they identify themselves as physically attracted to other boys? As one commentator observed, aren’t boys in this kind of a place in particular need of the character formation laden in the scouting program?
Jonathan Waits
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Yet more reflection must follow. I certainly agree that the mission of the Boy Scouts is important enough that every boy should be able to participate regardless of the gender to which he happens to be attracted. Yet, albeit being officially secular, given the explicitly Christian foundations of the Boy Scouts, why not remain consistent with their founding worldview and take the approach of affirming that every boy regardless of any external or internal factors is welcome to participate, but then go on to make explicit both the kind of character they will be taught and to which they will be expected to adhere?
More specifically on this particular issue: it does not matter at all to whom you happen to be attracted, no sexual contact of any kind is morally permissible outside of the context of marriage, and marriage is further defined as the covenantal union of a man and a woman designed for, among other things, glorifying God, character formation, creating the morally-appropriate context for God-intended sexual expression, increasing joy, and creating the best and safest context for conceiving and rearing children. This approach would have accomplished the same ends as the national leaders were apparently seeking without obviously and badly bowing before the pressure of the increasingly culturally powerful homosexual lobby. Now to be sure, such an approach would not have satisfied their cultural foes, but it would have been more consistent with their foundation.
Herein we come to the real trouble of the decision by the national leaders of the Boy Scouts. On the one hand, prior to the vote the Scouts have spent the last several years battling a relentless attack from the homosexual lobby to reform in accordance with their cultural values. This pressure has mostly come by way of a litany of lawsuits from which the Boy Scouts have successfully, but expensively, defended themselves all the way to the Supreme Court.
With this line of attack having failed, the tactics changed and they began pressuring companies that support the Scouts financially to withdraw their support unless they became open to gay individuals participating openly — at the Scout level, yes, but especially at the leadership level. Indeed, some sponsors responded to this pressure and withdrew support. The Boy Scouts then found themselves in the position of possibly facing a future financial challenge. Few things speak as loudly as money.
On the other hand, in the weeks leading up to the vote, more conservative voices (On My Honor and the SBC, to name two) raised the prospect of the Boy Scouts losing thousands of meeting places around the country and possibly hundreds of thousands of individual Scouts.
So on the one hand the Boy Scouts were going to anger powerful cultural forces that had intertwined themselves with their finances, and on the other they were going to anger the culturally conservative and religious groups who had long since been their strongest ideological supporters. So what did they choose?
To anger both.
By taking the approach of voting explicitly to allow gay young men to participate openly (and presumably without moral commentary), thus offering tacit approval to the cultural definition of the openly gay lifestyle, they did unnecessary harm to their relationship with the variety of religious and culturally conservative groups who have been their bedrock support since their founding. But, by not going all the way to allow openly gay men and women to lead individual troops they did not go far enough to appease the homosexual lobby.
Such an act of partial compromise will only lead to a redoubling of efforts to see the leadership policy change they so desire. Indeed, Caterpillar recently announced that they will withdraw their financial support unless the Boy Scouts allow openly gay leaders to serve. In being forced to choose between siding with the people who have made them what they are and the people pressuring the companies who have financed them to stop without desired changes, the leaders of the Boy Scouts made a foolish compromise and satisfied neither. They gained nothing culturally except more intense battles and walked in a direction away from their moral foundations — a loss on both counts.
So what happens next? That remains to be seen. The fallout is still falling. The national decision was not supported, I would wager, by the vast majority of local troops and they should not be punished for it. I believe the SBC’s recent decision in favor of local church autonomy was the right one. If individual host churches find the situation intolerable they should break ties, but a national policy would benefit no one.
On the other hand, such churches had better have a backup plan in place and ready to go for the boys affected by such a move. Boys in this country desperately need the character formation provided by the Boy Scouts. We as the church have a duty to provide it. Let us not let the folly of national leaders whose priorities are out of place keep us from our mission. Let us instead pray for their flagging moral courage.
Jonathan Waits ([email protected]) is pastor of Central Baptist Church in Church Road, Va.