Today I did voter registration at a local library. We were set up at a table in the foyer. At another table, a teenager in a boy scout uniform was publicizing his Eagle project -- a good project, actually, a blood drive for a local hospital.
My husband talked to the boy and was about to give a donation but I stopped him. We don't do donations to the boy scouts.
I went over to talk to the boy and his girlfriend a little later and explained that it wasn't anything personally against him, but we don't support the boy scouts because of their anti-homosexual policies. The girlfriend looked startled and said, "Really, I didn't know anything about that!" The boy said, "Well, it's 'don't ask, don't tell.'" I said, "Sorry, no."
"Boy scouts, wow, they're as American as apple pie," but I don't like the Boy Scout organization and I want people to know why. I may have come across as a scrooge, but at least I had planted the idea in the girlfriend's head that the organization is discriminatory and hopefully she will google and find websites that confirm what I said.
When the young man said, "It's "don't ask, don't tell," it made me seethe silently. First of all, "don't ask, don't tell" is the army's policy, not the boy scouts, and the army repealed DADT last September. Second, the Boy Scouts of America does not have DADT as their official policy, it's just something that some local groups do. Third, where do they get off forcing young homosexual boys to stay in the closet. WTF!
Okay, that's about all the venting I can do tonight.