Hello everyone,

I have been a subscriber to Free Inquiry before, but recently let it lapse. I must renew. However I came here today for help with a dilemma. My boy wants to join Boy Scouts of America.

I don’t believe is forcing my secularisim on my boy - it would be as wrong a forcing a religious view on him. I believe in teaching him to think. I also think about 99% or more of Scouting is solid, character building stuff - no reasonable person find fault with it. The 1% though is very troubling.

Their membership form actually has this statement:

“The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God and, therefore, recognizes the religious element in the training of the member, but it is absolutely nonsectarian in its attitude toward that religious training. Its policy is that the home and organization or group with which the member is connected shall give definite attention to religious life.

Only persons willing to subscribe to these precepts from the Declaration of Religious Principle and to the Bylaws of the Boy Scouts of America shall be entitled to certificates of leadership.”

I have let my boy join, and told them to “teach away” when it comes to their Religious (Mormon in this case) views. I have confidence my boy will think for himself. I am torn on taking part myself, but I am sure I will end up doing so. The challenge will be to not end up offending the other adult members when I “sit out” of prayers, and to resist offering provocative counter arguments to their scripture. In my life, I have not found religious types to be very accomodating of people who choose not to agree!

Anyway - I felt the need to do something. So I have started a petition at the White House Website. Here is the link to it. http://wh.gov/0kIK

If 25000 people sign this in the next month, it gets reviewed by The White House. Please take a moment to sign it if you agree with what I drafted.

Thanks
SNMITCH
A Dawkins 6 and then some!

I’ll check out your petition, Snmitch, but meanwhile, could you go back and edit your post to change the color of your quotation, because, as the forum rules state, blue is reserved for official Moderator communications with members?

Thanks,
Occam
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Sorry, I spent 25 minutes trying to get past the stupid anti-spam program from Captcha (the worst one on the Internet) to get onto “We The People”, and couldn’t do it, so I couldn’t sign your petition.

O

Occam,

Thanks for correcting me on the rules and I’ll check them before I post again. The Captcha is annoying at the White House site - I had to go at it a handful of times to post in the first place. They must choose the most illegible pieces of print they can find in the Library of Congress!! Thanks for trying though, I appreciate it.

SN Mitch