Another positive step in the right direction for an organization rife with brokenness. There's a lot I don't like about the organization, but this is something a love--a scouting organization open to young women and the lgbtq community. The next step is being inclusive of nonreligious agnostic and atheist youth and leaders. As well as ending the cultural appropriation of Native American peoples.
May this organization continue to build up youth, never allow further violence against youth, and make amends for all the wrongs. There's a lot of good that comes out of organizations like this and I won't discount it even though it's riddled with a dark history.
Please do atheism and agnostics next. I finished all the way up to doing my eagle project, all I had left was to finish some paper work and I would have gotten my eagle. I quit right about then, because what was the point? They were just going to take it away from me later for not believing in some magic book, I wouldn't be the first they did it too. Absolutely ridiculous.
Edit: Any magic book** they don't even discriminate against other religions is the part that drives me even crazier. You just NEED to believe in one.
I have the Scouts to thank for turning me into first an atheist, then through their example of militant protheism, I became a militant antitheist and a secular prohumanist.
I didn’t find my spirituality because of them, I found it in spite of them.
This post is a cesspool of hateful comments from anti-establishment people with zero actual experience with scouting. Scouts is a wonderful organization, full of volunteers who give children - especially disadvantaged children - knowledge, life experience, and a general sense of accomplishment and competence. My involvement with scouting was the best thing about my entire childhood.
This is good. Scouting (in developed countries) in Europe is one and same for boys, nonbinaries and girls, mainly non-theistic (apart from the obvious theistic groups) and focused on making sure health, hygiene, happiness and life skills are taught and practiced. Girls, nonbinaries and boys coexist, do the same tasks, chores and sleep in the same tents.
So does the girl scouts have to accept boys now? Is there gonna be a merger? When they go camping, do they separate the girls and boys? Also why? This is probably good for parents who have multiple kids so they can bring them all to the same place.
It's a pity that I'm still ineligible to work with the Scouts. I have a lot of happy memories from my decade in Scouting, and still have a significant interest in many of the things that I did while I was in the organization. Unfortunately, my religion is, shall we say, disfavored within Scouting, and is not permitted for either youth or leaders.
The next step is being inclusive of nonreligious agnostic and atheist youth and leaders.
Technically, they already are, with the possible exception of nihilists.
The scout oath does include a "duty to god", but they do not define what they mean by "god" or "religion". Instead, they explicitly leave those definitions to the scout.
The only requirements they actually have on the subject of religion is 1. tolerance for the beliefs of others, and 2. "reverence" for your own creed.
Under their policy, "the laws of thermodynamics" is a perfectly acceptable "god", and "In this house, we respect the laws of thermodynamics" is a perfectly acceptable "religious" creed.
"The environment" is a perfectly acceptable god, and "we must preserve and protect our environment" is another perfectly acceptable "religious" creed.
I readily concede that their policy is needlessly complex. It would be easier to just drop the "duty to god" and "reverent" requirements entirely.
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