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Boy Scouts of America changing name to more inclusive Scouting America after years of woes
(apnews.com)
submitted
4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)
by
GlassHalfHopeful@lemmy.ca
to
c/upliftingnews@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/20749204
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.
What? As a complete outsider (I'm from Sweden, ~~scouts isn't a thing here~~) what does scouting have to do with religion? Why would they discriminate against atheists?
I thought scouting was about natural sciences, and helping out in the local community? Which to me sounds pretty nice!
Edit: Scouts are a thing here in Sweden. Thank you for the corrections, I'm quite baffled I've managed to miss that.
What? Sweden don't have scouts? My daughter was on a scout camp there last year and I believe there were swedish scouts also.
Regardless, in Denmark we have a few scout organizations. One of them KFUM (which would translate to the same as YMCA) which is the christian boy's scouting org, that also allows girls, and the similar one for girls that don't allow boys. Both of them has Christianity as a pretty foundational thing and most of the clubhouses are in or near churches and they have church services on camps and shit. Then there's DDS (dark blue uniforms) and they're not connected to any faith, but are still committed to the "spiritual development" of the scout. However this can be done in other ways than inflicting religion on children. In 1973 they merged the boy and girl scouts, so it's just one thing now. The yellow scouts branched from DDS in the 80's, with a mission to go back to more traditional scouting values. Not sure what that means, but they're a also non-religious and non-political organization.
Finally there's some Danish Baptist scouts but I don't know much about them other than they're likely a more religious variant of KFUM, attached to another christian flavor.