EDITORIAL: More nibbling at the Boy Scout oath

OPINION:

The assault on everything normal continues. The Boy Scouts of America abandoned the Scout Oath three years ago, which obliged a Scout to “keep myself morally pure,” and opened its troops to boys who identify with the homosexual persuasion. Two years later it invited gay Scoutmasters to mentor the boys.

The Scouts made their final capitulation to the political agenda of the lavender lobby this year, opening its ranks to the minuscule number of sexually confused girls who think they’re boys, or want to be boys, and boys who want to be girls, to join the just plain boys on the trail and around the campfire.

However the capitulation pleased the LGBTQ lobby, it saddens the parents of most of the Scouts. The Boy Scouts of America took a poll to see what the parents and public thought of the capitulation, expecting to hear spirited applause, and the response by a margin of almost 2 to 1 was that the Scouts should remain what they had always been, an organization to train boys to resist temptations to stray from the straight and narrow path to manhood.

The latest invitation to the transgendered is perplexing, since the number of boys and girls who want to trade their sex — or “gender,” as the squeamish prefer — is tiny, though noisy.

The Boy Scouts of America further loosened its membership requirements a week after a Kristie Maldonado of Secaucus, New Jersey, filed a discrimination complaint against the Northern New Jersey Council of the Boy Scouts, demanding the readmission of her son Joe, who turned 9 on Feb. 1, to organized Scouting. He had been asked to withdraw from Cub Scout Pack 87 after a month as a member. A spokeswoman for the Boy Scouts of America told The New York Times that Joe had not met the eligibility requirements to participate in the Cub and Boy Scouts, and the appropriate organization for those born female were Brownies and Girl Scouts.

Fortunately, there are options for boys and sponsors with moral objections to the new and unimproved Scouting programs. Several religious denominations, which have traditionally been major sponsors of Scouting, providing places for troop meetings, have established their own Scout-like organizations. These include the Royal Ambassadors of the Southern Baptists, the Royal Rangers of the Assemblies of God and the Columbian Squires of the Knights of Columbus, an organization of Roman Catholics.

One of the fastest-growing alternatives to the Boy Scouts of America is Trail Life USA, which is faith-based but non-sectarian. It was organized in 2013, and is a partner with American Heritage Girls, an alternative to the Girl Scouts of America. Within a year Trail Life had organized 600 troops, or local affiliates, in 40 states with 20,000 members.

Trail Life mirrors the Boy Scouts in many ways, even copying, with revisions, the Boy Scout oath and salute. Boy Scouts salute with three fingers, and Trail Life scout with the full five-finger military salute. Trail Life scouts take an oath much like the oath taken by Boy Scouts before the corporate salute to the politically correct: “On my honor I will do my best to serve God and my country; to respect authority; to be a good steward of creation; and to treat others as I want to be treated.”