{"id":299266,"date":"2010-02-08T19:56:24","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T00:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011018922_boyscoutsturnold.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-02-08T19:56:24","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T00:56:24","slug":"boy-scouts-turn-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/299266","title":{"rendered":"Boy Scouts turn old"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Anniversary tarnished by discrimination<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As an Eagle Scout who served in youth and adult leadership positions, I will always value scouting [\u201cScouts from boys to men carry oath on,\u201d NWSunday, Feb. 7]. It shaped my life and I was honored to help bring scouting to others.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the 100th anniversary is a hollow celebration for me because the Boy Scouts of America have \u2014 since 1991 \u2014 adopted discriminatory and exclusionary policies. These policies deny gay youth and adults the opportunity to participate in scouting \u2014 just as \u201cdon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d denies gays the opportunity to defend our country. Both policies are wrong and both deserve to be changed.<\/p>\n<p>I joined the Boy Scouts over 50 years ago and know many gay scouts who met my definition of \u201cmorally straight.\u201d The Scout Oath and its values are clear to me: They are about your own character and that you should respect and defend the rights of others. This does not mean sexually straight.<\/p>\n<p>Society is changing and scouting\u2019s relevance is tarnished by their discriminatory policies. The Girl Scouts, Campfire USA and the 4-H Club do not have such policies; The Boy Scouts shouldn\u2019t either. The 100th anniversary should provide the opportunity for the Boy Scouts to end these discriminatory policies.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 John Chaney, Fall City<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anniversary tarnished by discrimination As an Eagle Scout who served in youth and adult leadership positions, I will always value scouting [\u201cScouts from boys to men carry oath on,\u201d NWSunday, Feb. 7]. It shaped my life and I was honored to help bring scouting to others. Yet the 100th anniversary is a hollow celebration for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}