Be Prepared: Posse Out to ‘Save’ Scouts

Save Our Scouts, the group is called. It is Republican, religious and righteous too.

The Scouts in question are boys and, presumably, they are in peril, in desperate need of being saved.

Or at least that’s what the smoke screens appear to indicate. Or maybe that just steam instead of smoke billowing up from beyond them-thar hills.

No matter. You can rest easy, America. Led by those fun guys of the Orange County congressional delegation, this grown-up rescue posse has mounted its steeds, sized up the danger and begun pointing out the enemy in our midst.

Best I can make out, the enemy is anybody who doesn’t want to contribute money to the Boy Scouts because of its discriminatory stands. The Boy Scouts do not admit gays or people who won’t publicly declare a belief in God.

A recent Save Our Scouts newspaper ad, full-page with convenient clip-out boycott coupons, was particularly helpful in straightening this out.

Wells Fargo and Levi Strauss--both companies based in San Francisco , wink wink--were described as “powerful interests” that were challenging the Boy Scouts’ right to express themselves or associate with whomever they wish.

The companies and the Bay Area affiliate of the United Way (unmentioned in the $8,000 ad) have said they won’t contribute to the Scouts because they have anti-discrimination standards for those on the receiving end of their corporate largess.

In other words, they will decide how to spread their charity around.

(Bank of America had said the same thing earlier, but then flip-flopped after a protest was launched.)

Save Our Scouts says all this means that their boys are clearly under attack. And a very sneaky one at that.

Because, see, the non-conformers actually have the temerity to want to be Boy Scouts themselves, maybe even go on a few camping trips and place their sleeping bags next to those of their friends.

Or maybe the guys they thought were their friends during all these decades of Scouting life, until the grown-ups intervened and pointed the enemy out. (Title of the next bestseller I’m planning to ghost-write: “I’m an Eagle Scout and I’m Gay”).

Doesn’t matter, of course. Save Our Scouts understands that such fraternizing with the godless or the gay--or who knows? maybe a shocking combination thereof--cannot be allowed, for the good of the Boy Scouts and the good of America at large.

I mean, for starters, natch. Why, posse member and lame-duck Congressman Bill Dannemeyer, known for often taking the long and skewered view, calls the Boy Scout issue “Traditional America’s Last Stand.”

“But more than this, the stakes are actually and ultimately the future of Western civilization --a belief in God, self-accountability and responsibility, the traditional family unit and liberty within a moral order,” Bill wrote recently in a taxpayer-financed mailer that he sent to the good folks back home. The mailer was four pages devoted entirely to this.

And, keep in mind, this Boy Scout business has been going on for nearly two years.

Lawsuits have been filed, most notably that of the twin 10-year-old Cub Scouts who were kicked out of their troop in Anaheim Hills for refusing to say “God” in the Scouting oath. The twins won their day in court, and the Boy Scouts have filed an appeal. Another such case involving a 10-year-old Cub is on appeal in Illinois.

A gay man in Los Angeles hoping to become a Scoutmaster lost. This case, too, is on appeal.

(Question: What happens to all the smart alecks who won’t mouth the word God in the Pledge of Allegiance at school? Will they be rounded up and sent on a forced field trip to, say, Iran, so they’ll learn to quit whining about state-sponsored religion once and for all?)

So, sadly, it looks as if this Scouting stuff is going to be with us for a while.

The father of the Anaheim Hills twins, a lawyer, just filed suit against the Girl Scouts in San Diego because his client, a 6-year-old Brownie, doesn’t want to say God in her oath either. She says the troop leaders have canceled meetings just so she wouldn’t be able to attend.

Fortunately for the Girl Scouts, however, their pledge contains no mention of keeping one’s self “morally straight,” as does the Boy Scout oath.

Because, you know, things could get misinterpreted. My daughter, a 6-year-old Brownie herself, would surely never understand. See, she and I think it just means being good.