Scout’s Honor

Jos. Warren

@WarrenHillFilms

CNN has reported that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) are considering special dispensation to permit extending Scouting enrollment to openly gay boys. (Not that there weren’t gay kids involved for decades, they just didn’t talk about it.) They will maintain an embargo, though, on openly gay Scout Masters – those who lead the children: Not to be confused with those who play the Dominate role in a homosexual or other sexual relationship, like Catcher-Pitcher, Cop-and-Robber, and so on.

Because I have not been a member of the BSA for more than four decades, I really have no right to influence the BSA’s decision regarding this seemingly abrupt and discordant change: It’s entirely up to the parents of those with Scouting-age children and those who administer the BSA. But I do have some observations to make regarding salient issues facing the BSA that may otherwise languish unrecognized.

Merit Badges

When I was a Scout, as it remains today, I had to reach a certain level of accomplishment in order to attain a Merit Badge in a particular craft or capability, such as Camping, Canoeing, First Aid, Fishing, and Firearms.

After attaining the requisite skill, the Scout ceremoniously received the badge (and related certificate) and Mom sewed it swiftly to either his uniform or sash. The sash was used for excess Merit Badges accumulated by overachievers: People who were kiss-asses to the rest of us who aspired to achieve Badges of Merit in only the mostly manly of arts: Fishing, Hiking and the like. We disdained those who strived to acquire Badges in gay subjects like Business, Plant Science, Citizenship, and so on.

Today, if you take the time to peruse the list of Badges, you’ll see that there are innumerable subjects that weren’t even imaginable or hadn’t reached a level of Social Consciousness to be considered sufficiently enough relevant to be awarded a Merit Badge 40 or 50 years ago: Computers, Family Life, American Cultures, and a plethora of other varied and, What? sort-of subjects. In its entirety you may review the list here.

To be inclusive, as they say, if the BSA elects to acknowledge openly gay children in Scouting, ipso facto, they will have to introduce additional Merit Badges for accomplishments that fall within the purview of being an Openly Gay Scout.

I would suggest that the BSA ought to include:

Swallowing. How this might be demonstrated is anybody’s guess, but perhaps a large spoonful of Barium, as used in the Barium Swallow Test in Medical diagnostics, might be substituted for…you know...uh...

Anyway. To reach Merit Badge status, the Scout would be required to swallow the Barium in its entirety without allowing any of the substance to slide down his chin. Neatness, and not leaving trace evidence behind (no pun) as we know from our experience with President Clinton, is critical to achieving Badge status.

Sphincter Awareness. Combining both Agriculture and Gay Studies, this Badge tests both the flexibility and the pain threshold of the Scout, as well as his gardening skills, by requiring him to insert a zucchini, which he has grown, into his rectum. The level of achievement must be 90% of the zucchini in order to qualify for the Merit Badge. Additionally, the Scout may earn a Merit Badge for Cooking by rendering the zucchini, after-the-fact, into a well-known favorite bread following any of the more traditional recipes.

Reach Around. As we know from R. Lee Ermey in his epic portrayal of a Marine Corps Drill Instructor in Full Metal Jacket, nothing says cooperation and fraternity more than the simple yet kind gesture of providing the person being sodomized with a Reach Around. That is, extending one’s arm around the lower abdomen of the Sodomee and…

To demonstrate this capability I would imagine that the BSA sanctioned method of, Use The Scout Buddy System, described here, might best be employed to demonstrate competence. Extra credit may be awarded for simultaneous orgasm.

(If you have ideas for other Merit Badges, please submit them to the Editor for inclusion in one of our next issues, and we will eventually pass them on to the BSA.)

Scout Uniforms

Although sometimes refuted by some members of the Gay community, everyone knows that dressing in drag is a favored pastime for many gay men. Once again, to insure inclusivity, the BSA ought to consider allowing openly gay Scouts to cross-dress for meetings during the year: Halloween comes to mind, given the status of the holiday South of Market or in the Castro, both in San Francisco. Easter might also be officially sanctioned as a Scouting Cross-Dress event.

Variations in traditional Scouting uniforms might include allowing the openly gay Scout to borrow his sister’s Girl Scout uniform, or alternatively to design and sew a gown reminiscent of one worn by Bette Midler or other favored performer.

TID’s GL Hill recommends Kilts as an alternative to pants for the openly gay Scout. Pleated, they might add a touch of flair to the otherwise drabness of a Scout ensemble, especially when combined with knee-high white socks and a white blouse much like the girls at Mother Butler High School in the SF Bay Area did, with their frilly panties, and...but I digress.

Physical Fitness

I imagine no change to the existing curriculum for calisthenics, but do foresee a need to emphasize Push-Ups and Deep-Knee Bends. And, as in Yoga, practicing prolonged kneeling might be a helpful attribute for the gay Scout. Alternatively, Pillow-Biting.

Does all of the above seem crude, cruel or callous

to our sensitive readers?

It is, and here’s why: Sexuality is not a transcendent act. To the very antithesis, it is base level and fundamental to the existence of the species, or not in the case of homosexuality. One’s sexual practices ought to be no more important to someone else than which hand one uses to wipe one’s butt, if at all. Understand?

Sexual behavior is primitive, fundamental, foundational. Dogs do it; Cats do it; Cattle do it: It is not something to be publicly celebrated or recognized for the manner in which it is performed – it is something to be done, however one may choose to do it. And doing it, occurs at varied times and with particular emphasis based on the needs of the animal.

The answers to, How much we like to do it, In what position, and How we prefer to have sex are responses to questions we typically aggregate under Too Much Information, yet the implied answers to these and other questions underlie the nature of homosexual or gay sexual behavior, just as they do when one is heterosexual. In other words, it ought to be nobody’s business, yet we – collectively, Gay and Straight – are making it everybody’s.

If the BSA elects to embrace an openly gay policy, then they must also embrace and provide appropriate concessions for the Openly Heterosexual, Openly Sleepy, Openly Fat, Openly Stupid, Openly Smart, Openly Black, Openly White, Openly…

...Human, because these are all conditions, traits or characteristics of humankind. To single out one characteristic that does not define the person but only his base Maslovian self is absurd and inconsistent with the mission of Scouting.

There is no correlation between admitting a black child in 1916 and an openly gay child today: The BSA must refuse to bend to the absurd demands of groups of people whose interests are purely sexually based.