Boy Scouts are about exclusion

The Dec. 20 Daily Herald carried a full-page story on the Boy Scouts of America as the BSA reaches its 100th Anniversary next February. The story pointed out the BSA's discriminatory policy in excluding from its membership boys who may be gays or atheists. It is for those reasons that I am no longer supportive of the BSA, though back when I was boy I was a member, becoming a First Class scout.

It seems to me that the Boy Scouts teach our young boys to have an exclusionary attitude toward others who may not believe as they do, and I certainly did not want my own children to be raised as youngsters with such a discriminatory frame of mind. If a young boy is gay, it is because of his genetics, and it's not a matter of choice. And if a young boy is an atheist because he believes that he may be a good person even without a belief in a god, then I do not think he should be shut out of the Boy Scouts simply because of his beliefs.

Also, I believe that the Girl Scouts are just the opposite and do not teach young girls to be discriminatory toward their friends. My own philosophy on this subject is that I would prefer to teach our youngsters to be welcoming and inclusionary toward others, rather than exclusionary and unwelcoming, inasmuch as what we are taught as youngsters molds our morality and behavior as we grow into adulthood.

The Daily Herald correctly pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the BSA is a private organization and therefore may have such policies as it wishes, and the BSA is free to be the discriminatory organization that it is. But the BSA will no longer have my support because I wish to teach our young people to have tolerance for all rather than to become discriminatory bigots.

Theodore M. Utchen

Wheaton