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Scouting For All
National

Homosexuality and Scouting from a Heterosexual Point of View
--Mick Rabin, October 2002

Mick Rabin, Eagle Scout

When I made the Boy Scout Oath as a youth, its legacy carried into other parts of my life beyond scouts. The line that guides me more than any other is the promise to "help other people at all times". Other people sounds like a pretty inclusive statement. . .there's nothing excluding gays or atheists in the oath, it just says, "help other people at all times." It means that we need to look beyond the mirror and embrace people from all walks of life.

However, in virtually every facet of our society--the corporate world, professional settings, the institutional education realm, and our social circles--we have so much further to go when it comes to acknowledging, welcoming, and loving our LGBT brothers and sisters.

How often have we heard an off-color joke or remark about fag-this or gay-that go unchecked by people who would ordinarily be outraged by comments smacking of racism or bigotry?

How often do we read the headlines about teen suicide among LGBT kids skyrocketing way beyond their straight counterparts? How often do students in Grossmont School District (of East San Diego County) need to hear the religious right proclaiming that THEY'RE NOT homophobic, but that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of God?

And to further the cycle, how often do students need to get their butts kicked after school because straight kids look at them as monstrosities. . . and we all know how much easier it is to harm an evil monster than it is to knowingly harm a living, breathing, loving human being facing most of the same joys, successes, and travails as those of the aggressor.

Some may view it as condescending to say that our LGBT community should be the recipient of "help at all times." Certainly, in my interactions with LGBT people on GLSEN and Scouting For All, I can honestly say that the LGBT community isn't wanting for people who empower themselves and have transcended overwhelming obstacles to do that. But I doubt anybody here would claim that the field is level.

Newspaper and Television Reporters

True scouts would look at the way that atheist LGBT folks are treated in our society and offer their hands in solidarity.

And yet, at a San Diego City Council meeting in December, there were hundreds of scouts--young and old--who filled a convention hall to offer their support for a BSA policy which is a betrayal to the ethical and inclusive standard that scouting is SUPPOSED to uphold.

There were hundreds of scouts that day who justified their actions because they twisted their interpretation of "morally straight" to suit their hateful agenda.

And there were hundreds of scouts who totally abandoned the scout law tenet of being "brave" because they chose to accept rather than to reject a decision popular with the religious right--the group which incidentally controls all policies of the BSA.

There were numerous scouts who giddily stoked the flames of hate by giving Roger Hedgecock (our very own local "talk-radio" host) the time of day. And there were six city council members and our mayor who chose to renew a lease of prime public property--paid for with our tax dollars--to a group that proudly professes its status as a discriminatory organization.

Six city council members and our mayor chose to support a group that went all the way to the supreme court to duke out their right to exclude gays and atheists. Six city council members and our mayor chose to support a group that cited a legal precedent set by the KKK in a previous case in order to maintain their right to exclude any group they like.

While adding a footnote about fully supporting the exclusion of atheists our beloved mayor Dick Murphy voted to renew the sweetheart lease despite his stated reluctance to do so. And we are supposed to derive consolation from that. The mayor's sincerity is ever so gratifying.

As a public school teacher, I strive to make every child feel welcome in my class. The population of students with which I work is one of great diversity. The differences among them are sometimes obvious. But not all characteristics that differentiate one student from another are as explicit as skin color. I'm not at liberty to find out how many of my students are current or future agnostics or atheists, but I'd wager a good number of them will grow to call themselves such.

Likewise, if we think of the "10% of the world" statistic, that means that at least 76 students--2 students out of every class I'll have taught over a 38 year career--will grow to be a part of the LGBT family. But I don't need 76 students to move me. All I need to know is that ONE student identified themselves as LGBT.

All I need to know when I teach my students about diversity and acceptance, is that ONE student somewhere along the way will look back on his or her school years and know that there was somebody out there who cared about them. There was somebody who accepted them for who they were and respected and cherished them for their individuality. It is an unconscionable act to turn my back on any student for any reason, and I won't begin now.

Teaching is a rewarding profession because, when you really want to reach the students, it requires a great deal of personally infused passion. I teach my students about people who affected a change for all people. Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mohandas Gandhi¹, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez. These were visionaries and hopeful people.

They looked into themselves and found the strength to promote a societal change. The message is that with a student population as diverse as the one I teach, we leave nobody out of the equation. I remember posing the question to them "How do you want the history books to remember YOU?" Which side of the fence would you prefer to be on? And when I asked that question, it stood to reason that I would question my own qualifications for asking such a question.

Supporters of equal rights listen.

I've long shared Martin Luther King's belief that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, but that leaves us open to the question of what to DO about it. When the Boy Scouts of America went out of their way to exclude youth and adult gays and atheists alike, they forced my hand.

Wearing an Eagle Badge no longer had the same positive resonance that it used to. The accomplishment NO longer belonged on a job resume. It NO longer was an honorable thing. The Boy Scouts of America had betrayed the standard of tolerance that they are supposed to represent and turned the badge into a weight of shame.

I imagined the confusion and pain in the eyes of my students if they could glimpse the true ugliness of an embittered contingent of society bent on making us ALL share their ignorance and distrust in humanity. . . .an ugliness which has led to outlawing gay and atheist youth and adults from scouting.

A simplemindedness that, at its core, would inexplicably equate gays and lesbians with child molesters. A need. . .a desperation to maintain their grips on the chains of hate which at another time in history were created as manacles for people of color, Native Americans, folks of the religious minority, people with physical and mental disabilities, and the impoverished.

So on a June day in 2000, I undid the stitches of my Eagle Scout badge from my boy scout uniform. With an assuredness and resolution I never possessed before and haven't had since, I sent it as a form of protest to Stephen and Scott Cozza, co-founders of Scouting For All. It will remain in their safekeeping until the Boy Scouts of America rescind their current policies of discrimination.

The badge meant a lot of things at one time, but by continuing to wear it on my uniform, I felt personally that I was allying myself with the forces of hate, bigotry, and all that is ugly about humanity. Not on my watch.

Last year when I spoke at this same gathering, I was totally new to all of this. I knew that I was going to go through with my speech publicly for the first time no matter what, but I also had those creeping little thoughts about what my colleagues at work would think of me, what my friends and neighbors would think. I wondered if my words meant the beginning of an adventure or jumping into an abyss. The unknown is always tough to negotiate. When you take a stand for what is truly right, though, you know that there is NO GOING BACK, and every time you draw a line in the sand, it is easier.

So believing in something and doing something about it are separate things. Bob Dylan 's song "My Back Pages" is one of my favorites because it contains the lyric: "Equality, I spoke that word as if a wedding vow". It means that your commitment to justice is immovable. Your actions based on your commitment mean that YOU--whether GLBT or straight, atheist or secular--will not sit on the fence for any form of intolerance.

Signing a petition

YOU will be the one who cuts into the laughter in the wake of an off-color joke or remark and tell them who is hurt by that joke, no matter HOW uncomfortable it is. You will be the one who writes a letter to the editor of your local newspaper and asks why public entities like the City of San Diego are willing to cut a sweetheart deal to a group that is proud of their discrimination.

YOU will be the ones who ask why Eagle Scouts like James Dale and Darrell Lambert, who lived lives of honor, are treated with such disdain. You will be the one who tells your friends why a vote for a mayor and city council members who give the green light to discrimination is a vote to continue the cycle of hate leveled against the LGBT and atheist members of our society. And know that if YOU do these things, you are never alone.

My own family and friends have been extremely helpful. My mom and dad are the blueprint and foundation for my beliefs throughout my whole life; and my wife, Pam, supports me through ALL of my efforts and shares in my desire to bring our child into a world of hope and justice for ALL people. And my scouter friends have shown great enthusiasm for bringing tolerance to the BSA.

I was down at the GLBT Pride back in late July passing out flyers to folks about Scouting For All and the upcoming rally. Most folks were positive about our efforts, but there were a few who didn't appear to care and there were even some who felt that our efforts were a waste of time. To some degree that can be explained away by a sense of apathy or lack of empowerment, but we are NOT powerless here.

The bottom line for getting the BSA to rescind their policies of exclusion is to pressure and force all of the public entities in the nation (like the City of San Diego) to withdraw their monetary support and subsidy of the Boy Scouts. We need to make it so that the Boy Scouts can't walk into a soup kitchen line and get a free ticket.

Our opponents would ask how we can sleep at night when 8 year old kids wouldn't be able to use these wonderful facilities. Folks, that is what you call a sacrifice. If the City of San Diego and the 300 odd scouters that filled the room to support the renewal of the public land lease had any moral fortitude, they would have said, "WE DON'T WANT OUR KIDS IN AN ORGANIZATION LIKE THIS."

Has anybody ever heard about the Montgomery Bus Boycott? Were people inconvenienced by not being able to use the bus to get to work and back? You bet, but they had the strength to move beyond that for the greater good of everybody in the community. That SHOULD have happened with this land lease, but it didn't. The only way we can effect a true change at the national level is by forcing any supporters to halt all subsidies for the Boy Scouts.

Let the scouts pay full price for every square inch of public land, for every church hall that they have weekly meetings in, for every school auditorium they use to recruit more scouts in. Pressure the groups like the United Way to end the millions of dollars of support they give to the Boy Scouts.

Write a letter to George W. Bush asking him to resign his post as honorary president of the boy scouts. Wear your inclusive scouting patch wherever you go. Give the inclusive scouting patch to all scouts and scout leaders who have an open mind about inclusion of all kids.

I look forward to the day I can get my Eagle Scout Badge back and wear it with honor. That can only happen when the Boy Scouts reject their current policies of discrimination and embrace the true spirit of scouting contained within their very own oath and law. Let's continue to remind them of it. Thanks again for your support.

End of speech.

¹Monhandas Gandhi was the name he was born with. However, his followers gave him the nickname of Mahatma (meaning "Great Soul") which he reluctantly went along with.

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"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." –Martin Luther King, Jr.