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Mormon Church completely severing ties with the Boy Scouts of America

Kraken3dfx

Kraken3dfx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,944
Denver, CO
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The Mormon church said Tuesday it will sever all ties with the Boy Scouts of America at the end of next year and place its remaining 425,000 boys into a gospel-focused youth program it is developing. The move ends a nearly century-old relationship that was based on their shared values.
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As someone who grew up in the Mormon Church in the deep south and was just shy of being an Eagle Scout, this is crazy, but it's good to see the BSA stand up against religious conservatism that would disallow membership or leadership based on sexual preference or sex in general. I find this kind of intolerability to be the most toxic part of religion, and seeing an organization I was a part for many years stand against it feels good.
 
SweetNicole

SweetNicole

The Old Guard
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Oct 24, 2017
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dzyrUl2.gif
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

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Oct 25, 2017
38,958
You think this is primarily in response to BSA/Scouts allowing girls to participate, or BSA generally becoming more welcoming of LGBTQ community? Or... a combination?
 

Firebricks

Member
Jan 27, 2018
2,127
The mormons were rather a large part of the boy scouts, but now that the boy scouts picked up the girls, it should be fine.
 

Deleted member 2226

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Oct 25, 2017
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The Albatross said:
You think this is primarily in response to BSA/Scouts allowing girls to participate, or BSA generally becoming more welcoming of LGBTQ community? Or... a combination?
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I think it's as simple as the Mormons were the biggest anchor towards any change on the above because they were such a big part of the membership. Seems like the Scouts leadership decided they were better off losing them and trying to become a more appealing organization to other people, which irrespective of your opinion on the politics I think was the right call. Trying to appease everyone was only going to hurt them more long-term, especially since the Mormons have been talking about this for a while now.
 
Nassudan

Nassudan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,345
The Albatross said:
You think this is primarily in response to BSA/Scouts allowing girls to participate, or BSA generally becoming more welcoming of LGBTQ community? Or... a combination?
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Most likely a combination of both. The BSA are making moves to stay relevant in the 21 Century, the Mormon Church (like many religious institutions in general) are going in reverse.
 
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OP
Kraken3dfx

Kraken3dfx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,944
Denver, CO
Firebricks said:
The mormons were rather a large part of the boy scouts, but now that the boy scouts picked up the girls, it should be fine.
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Click to shrink...

Yeah, everyone in our troop was a member of the church, the Scoutmaster was and all of the kids as well. The few times we had someone join the troop that wasn't Mormon, they usually didn't last long because of the hard sell the heads of the troop hit them and their parents with about joining the church.
 
AlexFlame116

AlexFlame116

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
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Nov 17, 2017
23,177
Utah
This will probably be ignored or brushed off, but this wasn't the only thing they did. Everything was restructured when it comes to teaching or youth programs. All the youth programs are changed and even the adult teaching stuff has been changed too. The announcement was made at the same time in tandem with this.

But I'm LDS so I'm probably not the best one to talk about this.
 
DopeToast

DopeToast

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,289
This will definitely hurt the Scouts numbers, but I'm glad they've made the decisions they've made in recent years. Screw the Mormons for this one. Your new organization is gonna suck ass.
 

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The Albatross said:
You think this is primarily in response to BSA/Scouts allowing girls to participate, or BSA generally becoming more welcoming of LGBTQ community? Or... a combination?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This is the Mormon Church wanting to create their own group and get all of the money/rewards from that, compared to only getting a piece of it from BSA
 
HylianSeven

HylianSeven

Shin Megami TC - Community Resetter
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Oct 25, 2017
19,026
Good bye and good riddance!

I'm an Eagle Scout and glad to see them go. BSA (or Scouts BSA now?) has really impressed me lately welcoming LGBTQ scouts and girls, after many many years of intolerance. I'm hoping this is a major step in possibly welcoming non-religious scouts.
 
mentallyinept

mentallyinept

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Oct 25, 2017
3,403
2 out of the 3 Gs fell in the last few years, and now with the Mormons out, will the 3rd fall and let Atheists openly participate in the organization?
 
Netherscourge

Netherscourge

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,902
The Mormon church said Tuesday it will sever all ties with the Boy Scouts of America at the end of next year and place its remaining 425,000 boys into a gospel-focused youth program it is developing.

So, this cult controls the lives of 425,000 boys? They can't join the BSA on their own? Or will they get banned by the Mormon Church if they do?
 
demosthenes

demosthenes

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,587
The Albatross said:
You think this is primarily in response to BSA/Scouts allowing girls to participate, or BSA generally becoming more welcoming of LGBTQ community? Or... a combination?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Npr interview said it's a culmination of a lot of stuff, items you mentioned but also how mormonism is bigger outside if america and they can use the new program they're starting worldwide.
 
Thrill_house

Thrill_house

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,602
The Mormon faith is batshit crazy as is. When I learned how the religion was founded I immediately thought "Oh, that's why they don't openly discuss this, holy shit lmao".

Good riddance I say.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

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Oct 25, 2017
38,958
On the topic of Mormonism, the book Under the Banner of Heaven was a very interesting read. Though it focuses more or less on Fundamentalist Mormonism, which has broken off and been mostly disowned by the mainline LDS Church.
 
CallMeShaft

CallMeShaft

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
3,355
You have to be pretty fucking petty and immature to cut ties with a company simply because they've decided to allow little girls to partake in the same activities as the boys.
 
Swig

Swig

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Oct 28, 2017
1,494
Sucks for non-mormons who want to get into Scouting in Utah. All of the troops are based around churches.
 
Ramuh

Ramuh

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Oct 25, 2017
839
TBH I thought they would have done this a while back. Doesn't Mormons constitute a large part of the scout community, even more so in funding?
 

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A lot of the church-hosted scout groups were essentially already just scouting groups only for that church with Official Branding. Seems more like them swapping one branding for another.

I've never seen a church-hosted scout group actually have any kid from outside it's congregation (for any sect)
 
SieteBlanco

SieteBlanco

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Oct 27, 2017
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User banned (4 days): inflammatory generalization, accumulated infractions.
Religious people shouldn't be allowed to raise children. That's 450,000 kids that will grow up to be brainwashed, close-minded bigots.
 
MrNelson

MrNelson

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Oct 25, 2017
4,356
Kraken3dfx said:
Yeah, everyone in our troop was a member of the church, the Scoutmaster was and all of the kids as well. The few times we had someone join the troop that wasn't Mormon, they usually didn't last long because of the hard sell the heads of the troop hit them and their parents with about joining the church.
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That's odd. The whole time I was in Scouting I don't think we had any members or adult leaders that were Mormon. We didn't even meet in Mormon churches. I didn't even learn about their connection to the BSA until years after I had earned my Eagle.
 
NCR Ranger

NCR Ranger

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,838
This is good news as far as i am concerned. The close tie between the two when I was growing up pushed many people out of scouting. It was almost impossible to be a scout if you weren't an active member of the Mormon church.
 
Kasai

Kasai

Member
Jan 24, 2018
4,281
This is almost certainly about the letting girls in.

I have no issue and think that it's fantastic to let girls experience Scouts.

However, my mother and most of the parents in my brothers troop are actively against the idea. They think that it's because we're too "PC" or something similarly stupid.
 
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