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Activist Group Targets ‘Are You Tougher Than a Boy Scout?’

Jan 24, 2013  •  Post A Comment

Nat Geo’s "Are You Tougher Than a Boy Scout?" reality competition series is coming under fire from the activist group GLAAD, reports the Los Angeles Times’ Show Tracker.

GLAAD is angered that Nat Geo is moving ahead with the show and isn’t criticizing the Boy Scouts of America, which has policies that forbid gay leaders and members.

"That National Geographic would brush aside countless gay teens suffering at the hands of the BSA, shrugging off injustice as just another ‘point of view,’ is irresponsible. By airing this program, National Geographic is providing support and publicity to an organization that harms young people simply because of who they are," GLAAD President Herndon Graddick wrote, according to the story.

A Nat Geo representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, the piece adds.

5 Comments

  1. I strongly disagree with the GLADD president’s positon that the BSA harms young people. He should take a closer look at the positive influence this organization has had on thousands of boys. The BSA helps to guide and develope young men, both mentally and physically. They are an encouraging light in these uncertain times that our young people live in. Negative influences are everywhere. People in our society have gotten used to not hearing the word “no”, that some things are wrong. Maybe he should take another look at what harm his own organization is doing to young people, encouraging such immoral behavior.

  2. Bob, the work scouting has done for millions of young men over the past 100 years definitely should not be ignored but “an encouraging light in these uncertain times?” Sadly, that light you speak of has shined brightly on young men and adults the organization has deemed unworthy. While the BSA may not literally “harm” people, it’s position of excommunication of hard-working scouts who happen to be homosexual is a slap in the face of every leader or scout who once embraced the tenets of scouting. The current stance is not friendly, courteous, kind, or brave.

  3. Bob, The Boy Scouts have done much good in the past, but that does not excuse the organization for the intolerance they are showing today. Would you be as tolerant if the policy was to exclude people of color? The Boy Scouts policy is one of bigotry, and they don’t argue that. So the question is, do we excuse the bigotry today?

  4. As a long-time Boy Scout/er (23+ years), third-generation Scout/er, and former professional, I do understand Bob’s perspective.
    The impact upon the youth is meant to be local, and individual; not dictated by corporate policy and fear.
    In the 1980s (when I was still a Cub Scout) the Youth Protection films made it ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that there was a distinct difference between homosexuality and pedophilia.
    However, Scouting has largely lost that message, and Nationally-speaking, HAS, in fact, stood more for exclusion than inclusion since 2001. Remember, Bob, that before that point, there was no regulation about homosexuality in Scouting – period.
    Bob, are you willing to admit that the THOUSANDS of men, let alone hundreds of Eagle Scouts, who are gay are immoral? Did they not learn the same values and concepts as a result of their interaction with the program that straight men did?
    Perhaps we should focus on the words of revolutionary individuals like Robert Baden-Powell and James E. West; they were trying to make their world a better, more well-round place to live.
    Or, should we perhaps go back to the days before Civil Rights and begin excluding non-whites from the program again?
    If Scouting is a program that benefits all, great! I know it has not only been largely responsible for making me the well-educated, and -rounded man I am today, but it has also provided me the chance to experience firsthand (at fairly young ages) the impact that one individual can have on the life of another.
    However, if Scouting wishes to become more and more exclusionary, as its recent partnership with the American Heritage Girls leads me to believe, than the movement has lost its focus, and will only implode upon itself – something I DO NOT wish to see happen as my generation takes the reigns of the American program into the 21st Century.

  5. Ditto, Bob. It’s a free country and these people have every right to start their own organization. If their voices are as numerous as they claim, they should have no trouble garnering support for a program that supports their behavior.

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