The Bigot Badge
by Ibn Hoja
The experience of wilderness can have the power to unleash a
formative awakening to the majesties of life. To travel through the
Valley of the Gods or the Devil’s Tower- hiking, camping, spelunking, canoeing,
climbing - there is no doubt that for many these adventures form an experiential
tapestry which will remain a glimmer in the eye for much of time to come.
And no doubt
such pristine memories will be made all the more pure by the absence of
ungodly “faggots” and “infidels”- who as “freaks of nature” cannot appreciate
god’s handiwork.
Enter the fabled Boy Scouts of America, chartered by an act of Congress,
with hands in federal, state, and local government’s pockets, doing its
utmost to act as a private organization while attempting to retain the
privileges of a public one. Enter the poison ivy of discrimination
against nontheists and homosexuals. Exeunt from the stage any semblance
of compliance to the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution- the
notion that the Church and State should remain separate in the name of
protecting both from mutual coercion and calumny.
It seems almost every month as of late, in different courtrooms across
the nation, and with varying levels of success, attempts are made to redress
the divisive policies of the B.S.A. But little surprise it is to
find that the B.S.A., while maintaining
its right as a private organization to cast away heathen undesirables,
merits only two badges- one in bigotry, and the other in chicanery, for
not weaning itself of its partial reliance on “public welfare.”
The issue is not so much B.S.A.’s right to exclude those who it has
conveniently branded as moral degenerates by omission. If the B.S.A. didn’t
accept a single cent from the government, they could certainly enforce
their “moral” phlogiston “principles.” As long as the Scouts aren’t
harming anyone (in a legal sense) but themselves with their ignorance,
I don’t begrudge their rights as American citizens to be “rationality-challenged,”
and to brain wash their children with half-baked ideas that a partially
heritable trait like homosexuality is a leprosy, a sin, and a choice- or
that a person has to believe in some magic formula whereby the riddle of
the universe is solved with supplication to some jumble of syllables or
another, or else he becomes a dangerous amoral rogue.
Distasteful as it may be at times, free association is protected, whether
based on delusions or sound reasoning.
A caveat: this is not to leave one with the impression that B.S.A.
is evil incarnate, completely irredeemable. There is no unanimity
on the matter, and there are those inside of the B.S.A. who take issue
with its discriminatory policies. While not particularly having a
way to quantify whether the enrichment the B.S.A. provides at local levels
outweighs any harm it might do by contributing to immemorial prejudices-
due criticism is due criticism. From my own impressions I have primarily
positive memories of my family’s participation in scouting over several
years. But these subjective experiences do not erase the power
of exclusion to nullify “Scout’s Honor,” and to void secular principles
which have permitted the flowering of freedom of belief- creed or no creed.
It can only be hoped that the B.S.A. will evolve and follow a progressive
trail, rather than getting lost in the dark woods of reactionary conservatism.
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