Friday, July 26, 1985
The Nebraskan
Page 5
Scout railing
im P K.
been in any way useful to me. Comes now the
news, however, that there is a difference between
the two uniformed services. The Boy Scouts
require a belief in God.
-V Richard
Jbz Cohen
boy for religious belief
Ihave been in uniform twice in my life. The who even as a very old man insisted on sleeping
first time was in the Boy Scouts and the on the porch. Better half-hitch yourself to
second time was in the Army and nary a another star,
difference did I discern between the two. One But there is a matter of principle involved
taught me knots and the other taught me how to here and it is more important than knowing
duuu unuges auu neuner are skiiis mat nave mat moss grows on the north side of the tree.
That happens to be something called religious
toleration the reason, after all, the Pilgrims
set sail for the New World and so many others
followed. The real worth of scouting is that it is
supposed to teach true American values and not
just how to build a radio out of dry leaves and
polar bear spittle. One of those values is that you
should be judged by what you do, how you act,
not by what you believe.
As far as Scouting goes, Trout's atheism
ought to be besides the point. It puts out no
fires, it scares off no animals and it does nothing
to erode the land. It simply sits in Trout's head
as a personal belief a conclusion he has
reached by following the dictates of his own
logic. Most people have reached a different
conclusion, but that should hardly disqualify a
young man from membership in the Boy Scouts.
The purpose of Scouting, as I recall, is the moral
and physical education of young men so they
grow into wonderful old men. One of the;
characteristics of wonderful old men is religious
tolerance, a phrase that should certainly embrace
atheism.
After all, if some beliefs are to be considered
beyond the Pale, then where would you stop?
Why is a belief in the "wrong" God better than a
belief in no God? And if one of the exalted, if
unstated, tenets of Scouting is to follow your
intellect, then how can you tell a kid that his
beliefs not his actions have taken him
right out of a movement he cherishes? What is
the lesson here for kids that you are free to
believe anything as long as it is accepted?
The Scouts respond with the Scout Oath and
its reference to doing "my duty to God and my
country" a non-answer reminiscent of other
times when casually chosen words formed the
basis for discrimination. But no words alter the
fact that a young man has been penalized for his
religious convictions. If there's a merit badge for
hypocrisy the Scouts have earned it. With just an
oath and a closed mind, they have shown how
little it takes to build a wall of intolerance.
1S35, Washington Post Writers Group
Sapp Brother's Ford
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If this is news to you, it was news also to Paul
Trout, a 15-year-old West Virginian who failed to
make the rank of Life and was bounced from the
Scouts for admitting that he did not believe in
God. From the very highest levels of Scouting
came a ruling that, while a Scout does not
actually have to be brave or (for sure) clean, he
had better be reverent: "If a person does not
believe in a Supreme Being, then they (sic) can
not be a member of the Boy Scouts of America,"
wrote Ben H. Love, chief scout executive and a
man who shakes hands with three fingers.
Forget for a moment that Ben H. Love will get
no merit badges for grammar, and concentrate
instead on the principle implied in his letter to
Trout's parents: that a person's beliefs are
infinitely more important than the way he or she
behaves. Trout, for instance, managed to almost
make it to Life, the penultimate rank, before it
was discovered that he was an atheist. And he is
praised by those who know him as a Boy Scout par
excellence. "I hated to lose him," said Albert
Magahee, his scoutmaster. "He was the best
disciplined and most helpful of the boys in my
troop."
In a cynicism borne from a Scouting exper
ience in which boys who could not tie their shoes
were forced to make knots that could handcuff
an octopus, I would counsel Trout to forget all
about Scouting. It instills in young men useless
woodland arcana which comes in handy only
should you choose to live in a tree. I would
remind him also that the entire organization was
founded by an eccentric, Robert Baden-Powell,
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