By Bob Allen
Entertainer Charlie Daniels stepped gingerly into controversy over the Boy Scouts of America reconsidering its ban on gays at a local Boy Scouts fundraiser March 20 in Tennessee.
“I definitely have feelings about it, but I’m not a part of the Boy Scout leadership or organization,” Daniels told about 250 community leaders during the Trail of Tears District “Friends of Scouting” luncheon at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn. “What I have to say will not have any influence on what decision they make.”
The country-music legend closed his speech praising values he learned as a Boy Scout with the remark, “and I hope we protect them from those who would change the organization,” according to a report in the Daily News Journal.
It’s a topic likely on the audience’s mind. A proposal coming up at the Boy Scouts national annual meeting in May to adopt a nationwide non-discrimination policy has been widely criticized by conservative and religious groups, including a rare emergency resolution adopted between annual sessions by the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Daniels, 76, whose 30-year music career includes Grammy, Dove, Country Music Association, Academy of Country Music and American Music awards, usually isn’t shy about expressing his opinions on matters of politics and religion. His band website includes a “soapbox” page with running commentary on issues like gun control, President Obama and the military.
In 2011, his concerts drew pickets by members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., after he described the group known for protests at military funerals as “that bunch of dirty scumbags” in his pro-military song “Let ‘Em Win or Bring ‘Em Home.” He responded to their criticism in a Dallas Observer interview: “First of all: The Westboro Baptist Church isn’t Baptist. Second of all, it isn’t a church. A church is the body of Christ, and the God I serve is a god of love, not of hate.”
A singer, guitarist and fiddler who has been performing since the 1950s, Daniels rose to fame in 1975 as leader of the Charlie Daniels Band with the Southern rock anthem “The South’s Gonna Do It Again.”
He won the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance in 1979 for “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” The song became a crossover success the following year after it appeared in the soundtrack of the hit movie Urban Cowboy starring John Travolta.
Daniels also has recorded several traditional gospel and contemporary Christian albums. He has performed at numerous crusades with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and was the headline attraction for a 2009 community-wide Easter service at World Outreach Church, a 7,000-member non-denominational church located across the county line from Daniels’ home in Mt. Juliet, Tenn.
A local Scout leader suggested the idea of lifting the ban on gay Scouts and Scoutmasters isn’t going over well in generally conservative Middle Tennessee.
“This is a traditional values organization,” Jim Burton, vice president of special projects for the Middle Tennessee BSA council, told the Daily News Journal. “Right now the organization is in a decision process at the national level, and we have to wait until they make a determination.”