Jeremy, thanks for the nice article, and the kind words. I'd like to offer a couple of more resources for folks interested in making a difference on this issue. One great resource is http://www.scoutingforall.org The site is very self explanitory and has excellent resources. Another is to write a letter to the National BSA. While you will get a form letter back, it is good for people, especially those involved in scouting, to make their opinions heard. The BSA believes that 85% of parents support their discrimination. The address is:
Gregg Shields, BSA Spokesperson
National Headquarters Boy Scouts of America
PO Box 152079
Irving, Texas 75015-2079
Thanks and best to all of you. Ted Soldan
[submitted on 28 Feb 03]
RC
Jeremy, I'd forgotten about how tremendously intolerant Houghton can be. You may recall the suburban legend about how the Houghton high school football coach, in probably '89 or '90, encouraged the team to harrass a student at the high school who was suspected of being gay. Stories like these, the "gay bar" bumper stickers, another bumper sticker I can recall very clearly stating that "The government can have my gun when it pries my cold dead fingers from it," our schoolchild venacular of everything and anything remotely dispicable being "gay" or "faggot," heads turning one afternoon in Calumet when two black men were spotted--I'm sure anyone familiar with this all-too-familiar culture could bring down your server with anecdotes and examples.
By this point in my life I'm lucky enough to have chosen friends and influences that work to eschew these anti-everything attitudes, and in my ignorance I've been considering setting up somewhere after I'm done here at school in a more rural place where housing is cheap, the landscape is pretty, and the weather is cold and temperate. Unfortunately many of the locales in the US that meet these criteria are places in which shielding one's self from from the rhetoric you describe is nearly impossible. There's the U.P., there's Utah, there's northern California, there's Rhinelander (currently hiring two librarians and in the job announcement offering free optional Hodag innoculation), there's the college I went to where a librarian or two has expressed a desire to hire me, where one of the residence halls is So-And-So R. Gay Memorial Hall, where the annual dorm t-shirt usually says on the back, "Mom and Dad, it's just the name of a guy."
[submitted on 28 Feb 03]
Gregg Shields, BSA Spokesperson
National Headquarters Boy Scouts of America
PO Box 152079
Irving, Texas 75015-2079
Thanks and best to all of you. Ted Soldan [submitted on 28 Feb 03]
By this point in my life I'm lucky enough to have chosen friends and influences that work to eschew these anti-everything attitudes, and in my ignorance I've been considering setting up somewhere after I'm done here at school in a more rural place where housing is cheap, the landscape is pretty, and the weather is cold and temperate. Unfortunately many of the locales in the US that meet these criteria are places in which shielding one's self from from the rhetoric you describe is nearly impossible. There's the U.P., there's Utah, there's northern California, there's Rhinelander (currently hiring two librarians and in the job announcement offering free optional Hodag innoculation), there's the college I went to where a librarian or two has expressed a desire to hire me, where one of the residence halls is So-And-So R. Gay Memorial Hall, where the annual dorm t-shirt usually says on the back, "Mom and Dad, it's just the name of a guy." [submitted on 28 Feb 03]