Some of my material is now being published on another site. \u00a0Copyright rules say I can’t reproduce them here for six months. \u00a0The six months are up so I can post it here.<\/p>\n
Robert M Gates, the national president of the Boy Scouts of America, addressed his organization at their national business meeting (BSA, 2015) earlier this year.\u00a0 In his speech he raised the thorny issue of gays in the Scouts.\u00a0 The organization had long held in place a ban on atheists, agnostics, and what they call “open or avowed” homosexuals participating as members (BSA, 2012).\u00a0 In 2012, presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both spoke out against the ban on homosexuals.\u00a0 A year later the Scouts National Council approved a resolution removing the restriction on youths.\u00a0 That resolution went into effect at the beginning of last year.\u00a0 The restriction on homosexual adults remains in place.<\/p>\n
Mirroring the military, the organization has over the years gone from the explicit policy banning homosexuality to one of something akin to \u201cdon’t ask don’t tell\u201d (BSA, 2015a).\u00a0 Their position statement in 1991 (BSA, 1991) was that “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight\u2026clean in word and deed.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Homosexuals were explicitly described as undesirable as role models.\u00a0 Two years later the organization (BSA, 1993) said explicitly again that “we do not allow for the registration of avowed homosexuals as members or as leaders of the BSA”.<\/p>\n
Over the years, membership has been revoked, employees have been fired, and volunteers rejected whenever homosexuality was discovered.\u00a0 In one case an employee was fired upon the discovery of a bill from a gay resort where the employee had vacationed.\u00a0 Three years ago, the BSA reaffirmed its position although with a \u201cdon’t ask don’t tell\u201d clause (BSA, 2012).<\/p>\n
Dr. Gates is well aware of the incendiary nature of this discussion.\u00a0 He peppered his remarks last week by acknowledging that his words might be unsettling and even anger listeners.\u00a0 But he also hammered home two points.\u00a0 First, he noted the changes in the landscape.\u00a0 Several state councils oppose the BSA national policy.\u00a0 The military reversed its \u201cdon’t ask don’t tell” policy five years ago, on the order of the California judge.\u00a0 State laws are increasingly being passed protecting the employment rights of homosexuals.\u00a0 And of course this summer the Supreme Court will rule on gay marriage.\u00a0 Revoking the charters of the councils objecting to or openly defying the National Council\u2019s policies, Dr. Gates pointed out, would deprive a vast number of youths access to the Scouts.<\/p>\n
He concludes with a plea that the BSA give careful consideration to its membership policies.\u00a0 He points out that its legal position is growing increasingly weak.\u00a0 He warns that without action on the part of the BSA, it is possible that the courts will issue some kind of imposition on membership standards of any kind.<\/p>\n
Is Dr. Gates moving the BSA forward simply out of pressure to change with the times, i.e. out of self-preservation?\u00a0 Or does he believe less cynically, as he says in his speech, that maintaining current membership practices which ban homosexual participants does a disservice to the community, to the youths and families the BSA exists to serve?\u00a0 We would have to know Dr. Gates personally before we can venture a judgment on that.\u00a0 Is Dr. Gates right:\u00a0 should homosexuality be allowed in the scouts?\u00a0 That question is far beyond the scope of this blog.<\/p>\n
But the thrust of his argument is in the phrase that resonates as an important guide for public debate, personal quarrels, and psychotherapy.\u00a0 That’s an admittedly grand statement and I will try to justify it in the brief space allotted here.\u00a0 Dr. Gates says at one point:\u00a0 \u201cWe must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
In psychotherapy, as in public and private discourse, this is where discussion must begin.\u00a0 Consider for example the great abortion debate.\u00a0 Are you pro-life or pro-choice?\u00a0 Frankly, most people I know are both.\u00a0 It’s a pointless argument until you bring it down from these lofty abstractions into which we often try to squeeze the world, and into the realm of what the world really is.\u00a0 It’s easy to take a position on abstraction; it’s much harder to deal with real life.\u00a0 Consider for example the following cases:\u00a0\u00a0 1) A 14-year-old girl is raped by her drunken uncle, and becomes pregnant;\u00a0 2) a 35-year-old career woman with two children becomes pregnant from a man she met on a vacation and will probably never see again \u2013 she does not want the child.\u00a0 There is much to debate in both of these cases; and how difficult it now seems to create an overarching, national policy that accounts for all the issues in just these two cases.\u00a0 On a personal level, if any of you have ever witnessed or experienced an abortion, even seen a demonstration with models that went into the medical detail, you may well have had the experience of realizing that your perceptions and feelings about the matter of much more complex than you originally thought.<\/p>\n
People often enter counseling with a great many confusing, often contradictory and abstract ideas about who they are and how they want to live.\u00a0 These are, of course, at odds with reality \u2013 which is one reason why they seek treatment.\u00a0 Our first task is often to interrupt the reliance on abstraction and begin to look at “the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be”.\u00a0 Your most obvious example of this, unfortunately, is the victim of domestic violence.\u00a0 In her book, “Cupid’s Knife” (Stein, 2013), Abby Stein is painfully articulate about how the both the victims and the aggressors often manage not to see the world as it is.\u00a0 The former view the violence as a sign of passion, as trivial, even as their own fault; the latter have been heard to say in counseling \u2013 with sincerity, believing what they say \u2013 that they are not angry people, all data to the contrary notwithstanding.<\/p>\n
Finally, as we listen to public discussion over the many recent incidents of violence at the hands of police, how often do we hear the facts?\u00a0 It seems to be in our natures to react too quickly, haphazardly, to look for easy answers.\u00a0 It is more difficult, it seems, to restrain ourselves, to withhold judgment and emotion until we actually know what is going on.<\/p>\n
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references:<\/p>\n
BSA [Boy Scouts of America].\u00a0 (1991).\u00a0 Position Statement.\u00a0 Retrieved from https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/supct\/html\/99-699.ZO.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n BSA.\u00a0 (1993).\u00a0 Position Statement.\u00a0 Retrieved from https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/supct\/html\/99-699.ZO.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n BSA. \u00a0(2012). \u00a0Boy Scouts of American Clarifies its Membership Policy.\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/blog.scoutingmagazine.org\/2012\/06\/07\/boy-scouts-of-america-clarifies-its-membership-policy\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n BSA.\u00a0 (2015).\u00a0 National President Dr.\u00a0 Robert M. Gates Delivers Remarks During 2015 National Business Meeting.\u00a0 Retreived from http:\/\/scoutingnewsroom.org\/press-releases\/national-president-dr-robert-m-gates-delivers-remarks-during-2015-national-business-meeting\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n BSA. (2015a).\u00a0 Membership Standards Resolution.\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/www.scouting.org\/MembershipStandards\/Resolution\/Resolution.aspx<\/a>.<\/p>\n BSA.\u00a0 (1991).\u00a0 Position Statement.\u00a0 Retrieved from https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/supct\/html\/99-699.ZO.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n BSA.\u00a0 (1993).\u00a0 Position Statement.\u00a0 Retrieved from https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/supct\/html\/99-699.ZO.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n Stein, Abby.\u00a0 (2013)\u00a0 Cupid\u2019s Knife:\u00a0 Women\u2019s Anger and Agency in Violent Relationship.\u00a0 New York:\u00a0 Routledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some of my material is now being published on another site. \u00a0Copyright rules say I can’t reproduce them here for six months. \u00a0The six months are up so I can post it here. Robert M Gates, the national president of … Continue reading