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[MarkusRJR]

Families looking for an alternative to the Boy Scouts of America after the group voted to drop its ban on gay youth earlier this year descended on Nashville, Tenn., this weekend to help launch a Christian-based scouting organization.

More than 1,200 former Scout officials, parents and youth from 44 states were attending the two-day national leadership convention where the group unveiled its name – Trail Life USA – and logo, officials with the group said. One of the founders John Stemberger, a former Eagle Scout and father of two scouts, created OnMyHonor.Net, a coalition of disgruntled BSA members who left the organization after the controversial vote in May.

“Most of us are coming from a highly-structured environment that has 103 years of culture and language and program and symbols … and we are starting from scratch,” Stemberger said late Friday as he asked for patience as the group began “a program that we believe will be stronger, safer and more principled in every way.”

“I want to have a prominent faith component that will be weaved in every fiber of the program,” said Stemberger, an Orlando attorney. “But at the same time, we are not going to become religious and churchy. This is not another church program. This is going to be a masculine outdoor program to raise young men.”

Wahls and other gay rights advocates, such as GLAAD, have accused Stemberger of being anti-gay, pointing to his work as president of the Florida Family Policy Council, which promotes controversial gay conversion therapy on its website and which helped with the campaign to pass a law banning same-sex marriage in Florida.

“I want to be clear: We are not an anti-BSA organization,” Stemberger said late Friday. “In fact, we are not an anti-anything or anyone organization.”

Jeff Rayno, 51, a field researcher from Pooler, Ga., said he’d like to lead a troop in the new organization. His son Daniel, 14, is a Boy Scout, and Rayno, who believes that homosexuality is a sin, didn’t want him to be exposed to gays or discussion about sexuality through the program.

“I’m very excited that we can be starting a new thing that’s historical in nature that will be talked about years from now as being a cultural shift,” he said. “People are drawing somewhat of a line in the sand, saying that we have something that we believe in, we have a right to associate with people that think the same way that we do.”

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/07/20363903-christian-based-scouting-group-launches-after-boy-scouts-allow-gay-youth?lite

Hmmmm...

 

[ridethepiggy]

Pray the gay away

 

[Thug Waffle]

lmao at the phrasing "catch 'the gays'"

smh at the entire idea

 

[Kangi]

Pray the gay away

Avoid the gay and it will go away.

 

[Derwind]

“I want to have a prominent faith component that will be weaved in every fiber of the program,” said Stemberger, an Orlando attorney. “But at the same time, we are not going to become religious and churchy. This is not another church program. This is going to be a masculine outdoor program to raise young men.”

Yeah it kinda already is by virtue of it being bigoted and religiously motivated. :/

“I’m very excited that we can be starting a new thing that’s historical in nature that will be talked about years from now as being a cultural shift,”

This is the part that makes me laugh and laugh and laugh...

Bigotry, the cultural shift. Bigotry, the new progressive movement invented in 2013.....

 

[Loxley]

For some perspective - last year the BSA had around 910,000 active Scouts around the country, and nearly twice that if you include Cub and Venture Scouts.

So, yeah, these folks are certainly in the minority, good luck with that "cultural shift".

 

[Chance Hale]

Hopefully all the bigots go with them and leave the Boy Scouts which from people I know is a wonderful program more often than not. The camp counselors chosen can change this but with a group like this taking the hateful ones away it will have some hopefully great role models for the kids. Of course it would be better for this splinter group to not be a thing at all but change comes slowly I suppose. These are a minority group though, don't think they will get that big a membership.

 

[DarkFlow]

don't let door hit ya were the good lord split ya.

 

[Giygas AF]

Who cares?

 

[IrishNinja]

yeah, in that regard, this is pretty cool to see: the BSA drops its awful stance, and presumably those who were willing to plant their flag on bigotry likewise leave.

out of curiosity, do they still have their prior stance on atheism?

 

[120v]

as an eagle scout myself this is just sad. not only for the obvious reason of bigotry but its pointless.. there were several gay members in my troop - a mormon troop, no less - and it didn't really affect anything at all. now i don't know what it'd be like if it were paraded around that they were "the gay kids", which might be what it's like now, i don't know. but there were no issues

and most scouts drop out after age 14 or so, so you have a bunch of kids who are years and years away from really grappling with their sexuality anyway.

out of curiosity, do they still have their prior stance on atheism?

i haven't heard of there being any issues with atheism, but if so that's another pointless matter. troops are (usually) sponsored by churches but the activities themselves don't really involve anything religous. i participated in sunday mass once but i was told i didn't have too, but i was a kid and didn't give a shit

 

[Blood Diamonds]

there is no escaping the gay

the gay is the future

the gay is now

 

[pirata]

Who cares?

As a former Boy Scout and a gay man, I care quite a bit. I'm actually glad these people are leaving BSA, as long as they stay small in number. But this new organization is a little troubling...it's an extension of the trend of the religious right walling themselves off culturally from the rest of the country (only consuming right-wing/religious news and media, sending children to private schools, etc.) that will only lead to them drifting off from the rest of the country even further.

 

[rudieboy77]

This already exists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rangers

 

[Mr-Joker]

New scouting group for parents that don't want their kids to catch 'the gays'

Ugh, the level of stupidity is beyond this universe.

You can't "catch the gay" nor is there a "cure" for it, not that there's anything wrong with being gay.

I just feel sorry for the kids as they suffering from their ignorant parent.

 

[CornBurrito]

Who cares?

People are free to marry whoever they like, just like private business owners are free to sell cake to whoever they like. You don't have to agree with it, but it is an unalienable right.

I guess not someone who thinks a business should be able to deny service to people based on race, gender, or sexual orientation.

You seem to be unable to fathom that not everyone thinks like you,

 

[Necromanti]

I could not help but become a bit curious, so I took a little look back...and well, I guess it falls in line with history.

Protests over the inclusion of African Americans arose early in the program. When Boyce departed, he turned the Boy Scout corporation over to the members of the Executive Board with the stipulation that the Boy Scouts would not discriminate on the basis of race or creed.

The BSA established the position that African Americans should be included, but that local communities should follow the same policies that they followed in the school systems. Thus, much of the American South as well as many major northern communities had segregated programs with "colored troops" until the late 1940s.

Some troops in the South threatened to leave BSA and burn their uniforms if African American Scouts were permitted, but West was key in overcoming those obstacles.

I wonder if any new splinter groups formed as a result, though.

 

[Acerac]

I can't imagine how they'd think this will be any more effective at filtering out the gays than anything else. I'm gay and was in a Christian Boy Scout-Lite group. *Shrug*

This already exists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rangers

Oh hey that's the one!

 

[ridethepiggy]

Who cares?

Still havent learned, have you?

 

[Goron2000]

 

[Dead Man]

“I want to be clear: We are not an anti-BSA organization,” Stemberger said late Friday. “In fact, we are not an anti-anything or anyone organization.”

Uh huh.

 

[Stinkles]

This is going to be a masculine outdoor program to raise young men

sounds gay.

 

[FyreWulff]

They've made themselves easy to identify so I can make sure they never receive a dime of support.

 

[anarckitty]

there is no escaping the gay

the gay is the future

the gay is now

Your comment totally made me gay, in the traditional sense.

 

[Stinkles]

I guess not someone who thinks a business should be able to deny service to people based on race, gender, or sexual orientation.

You seem to be unable to fathom that not everyone thinks like you,

he's a former progressive liberal though.

 

[lamaroo]

Poor kids.

 

[Toxi]

“I want to be clear: We are not an anti-BSA organization,” Stemberger said late Friday. “In fact, we are not an anti-anything or anyone organization.”

Suspiciously Specific Denial

 

[Kusagari]

Glad to see the father so committed to keeping his 14-year-old son shielded from the gay. There's no way he'll encounter it outside the boy scouts.

 

[Alchemy]

Disgusting human beings.

 

[teh_pwn]

Yep, sounds like TN. I grew up there. I remember the cure the gay camp around 2005. I recently learned about the "don't say gay" thing where gay teachers cannot tell kids their sexuality. Gay was a slur in grade school...like a vicious one looking back. Probably still is today.

Wait, downtown Nashville? I would have expected a bit better from them. I guess the lack of a booming tech industry is weeding out all of the open minded thinkers from the area.

 

[Atraveller]

"Catching the gays" ? What?

 

[jello44]

Don't they have pills for it if you happen to catch the gay?

 

[Effnine]

It's so hard to believe that "Christians" like this would follow the teachings of someone like Jesus ... love thy neighbor indeed ... shameful

 

[kidko]

So annoying when these bigots use religion as their excuse when it's so obviously hate / fear / ignorance

 

[ringwaldhaze]

and most scouts drop out after age 14 or so, so you have a bunch of kids who are years and years away from really grappling with their sexuality anyway.

Doesn't gay work by infecting you from a young age?

 

[Bel Marduk]

There should be studies to measure the emotional damage these freaks do to their kids by removing them from society. I only have anecdotal observations on home-schooled kids myself, but they seem to be pretty fucked up.

 

[MarkusRJR]

Ugh, the level of stupidity is beyond this universe.

You can't "catch the gay" nor is there a "cure" for it, not that there's anything wrong with being gay.

I just feel sorry for the kids as they suffering from their ignorant parent.

As a gay man, I'm pretty aware that there's nothing wrong with being gay and that you don't catch it. I was just joking around.

 

[Devolution]

I just feel sorry for the kids that will no doubt be repressed because their parents are shitheels.

 

[xenist]

“I want to have a prominent faith component that will be weaved in every fiber of the program,” said Stemberger, an Orlando attorney. “But at the same time, we are not going to become religious and churchy. This is not another church program. This is going to be a masculine outdoor program to raise young men.”

Is it just me or does the bolded sound super-gay?

Edit: Leather bar gay not Queer Eye For The Straight Guy gay.