A student at a private Berkeley high school was recently denied the Boy Scouts of America’s most coveted achievement on grounds of being gay and is now being forced out of membership completely.
Despite spending numerous hours building a “tolerance wall” in a nearby high school to qualify for the Eagle Scout Award, Maybeck High School senior Ryan Andresen was denied the award in spite of having completed the requirements. Furthermore, Andresen’s membership is being revoked as a result of his alleged failure to comply with religious and sexual identity guidelines.
The organization’s officials claim that Andresen was rejected for the award on the basis of his sexual orientation but also for violating the organization’s oath, which stipulates that members must honor their “Duty to God.”
“While the BSA did not proactively ask for this information, based on (Andresen’s) statements and after discussion with his family, he is being informed that he is no longer eligible for membership in scouting,” said Deron Smith, the organization’s spokesperson.
Andresen — who has been a Boy Scout since he was six years old — started gaining international attention after the boy’s mother circulated an online petition pressuring the scoutmaster for San Francisco’s Troop 212 to sign off on the award. The petition on Change.org had collected more than 350,000 signatures as of Monday, and it continues to grow.
“Ryan worked countless hours with elementary students to amass a wall of 288 unique tiles, all illustrating acts of kindness,” said Ryan’s mother Karen Andresen, in the petition.
According to an article by ABC News, the troop’s scoutmaster Rainer Del Valle — who ultimately did not sign off on the project — knew of Andresen’s sexuality but was nonetheless excited about the project.
“(Del Valle) was leading me on the whole time,” Ryan Andresen said in a comment in the ABC article. “He was in love with my project.”
Del Valle did not respond to ABC’s requests for comment.
In recent years, the organization has received heated criticism for its policies regarding sexual orientation.
According to an article from NBC News, the Boy Scouts began a private review of its policies regarding sexual orientation in 2010 but ultimately rejected any changes. The decision drew international criticism, including a public statement of opposition from President Barack Obama.
Contact D.J. Sellarole at [email protected].
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Why don’t you try to become “Miss America”?
There was one qualification the young man does not have, so that’s why he cannot be an Eagle Scout. That’s the bottom line. Start a new troop of scouts which does not have that requirement and create the award for him. Do that or desist.
BSA is a private organization and has a right to set their own membership policies. No matter what they choose to do, it’s better than letting obama and his jackbooted government thugs control every aspect of everyone’s life, which is what liberals want.
You said, “Obama”, but you got confused. You should have said, “Hitler,s jack-booted thugs”. I may have it wrong though if you see Obama as worse than Hitler, and Obamacare as worse than “The Final Solution”.
So according to the BSA their so called “God” promotes hate and intolerance. How pathectic! Like anyone needs a “god” like that!
The Scouts actually don’t have a particular god. They accept the gods of all major faiths. However, they don’t look at it as promoting hate and intolerance. They view homosexuality as mostly a psychological condition that leads people to immoral sexual choices. They don’t say that people should hate homosexuals. They believe people should love homosexuals by telling homosexuals that there is a better life outside of their immoral actions. There is no reason to tolerate someone’s immoral actions.
Who the hell are YOU to tell someone that being homosexual is “immoral”?? PLEASE give me a logical reason that homosexuality is bad for the human race.
I am not telling you that being homosexual is immoral. However, there are actions that are immoral. For example, one of my homosexual friends has had hundreds of sexual partners. That is immoral. This would also be immoral for heterosexuals. Everyone should treat others as humans instead of like sexual tools. Homosexuality doesn’t often do anything that is any worse than what regular people do. The only real time where homosexuality was obviously bad for the human race is with the spread of HIV/AIDS in non third world countries. We have thousands of dead men and women because of homosexual actions. I have had about a dozen homosexual friends to date, and three of them are dead from AIDS, and several others are getting tested often because of the life they are living. When so many are dead or risking death it is bad for the human race, because I consider homosexuals human.
Many heterosexuals get STDs. Does that mean it is is obviously bad for the human race because millions of heterosexual men and women are getting infected because of the life they are living?
Your logic is sorely flawed, particularly because you want to push you homophobic point of view. Disgusting.
It is obviously bad for the human race when heterosexuals are living lives that spread STDs. There isn’t anything flawed about my logic. If your sex life can get you or others injured or killed that is logically a bad thing. You are at Cal. Start thinking like someone who goes to one of the best universities in the world. A thinking person would realize that someone who tells you not to do things that can get you injured isn’t someone who is homophobic. If I actually hated you, then I would tell you to go on living your life just the way you are.
You can define immorality as doing things that are bad for the human race, if you wish. Not everyone subscribes to that definition. The Scouts seem to be working from a roughly Judeo-Christian stance.
The scouts essentially have a DADT policy. There are plenty of Eagle Scout awards given to homosexual scouts. It is unlikely this young man had decided on a homosexual preference at age six when he became a scout. It seems an abdication of parental duties that he was not effectively advised to adhere to DADT and keep his choice of sexual preference to himself given the scouts’ well known position on the issue.
Here is the Scout Oath….
Scout OathOn my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.
This article did not make clear the way Ryan violated the “organization’s oath.”
Ryan proactively notified his unit leadership and Eagle Scout counselor that
“he does not agree to Scouting’s principle of ‘Duty to God,’ and does not
meet Scouting’s membership standard on sexual orientation,” the
statement reads. “While the Boy Scouts of America did not proactively
ask for this information, based on his statements and after discussion
with his family, he is being informed that he is no longer eligible for
membership in Scouting.
http://www.wltx.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=204584
Even without the sexual orientation issue, any other Scout making this statement would be denied an Eagle Scout award and barred from Scouting.
This is good information to know. Thanks.
The boy’s mom can create a petition, but she knew all along about the rules of the Scouts. If your kid is gay, don’t put them in Scouts. They will eventually have to leave the organization.
So you can’t do something that you want to do because of your sexual preference? How can you justify that?
They can justify it by the fact that the Boy Scouts don’t have to pander to homosexuals. Why don’t you start your own Gay Scouts and see how many parents let their kids join?
Do they similarly have to “pander” to blacks? You cannot discriminate against a group of people in the United States because of the way they are…if you don’t like it, I’m sure that you could go to some other country.
In case you haven’t figured it out, homosexual behavior is not a racial or ethnic characteristic.
Race isn’t the issue. The kid enjoyed a long scouting career, but is not qualified to be an Eagle Scout because of his own unwillingness to accept the requirements that were always in place. Nobody is hurting him more than he is hurting himself.
Please keep posting! Who knew the comments section could bring me so much free humor?
It can be justified by two points. First, scouts are based in the major faiths of the world, and none of those faiths believe homosexuality is healthy or moral. Second, until science can show that homosexuality isn’t just psychological, then it is a result of choice, no matter how subconscious that choice may be.
Actually, gay kids can stay in the Scouts if they don’t let anyone else know of their sexual preference. However, that simply won’t do for most gays, who just HAVE to let the WHOLE WORLD know of their particular preference, as if they are making some great political point.
Right, like you would be happy concealing your own identity to try to fit in with a group of people. Just imagine if you as a straight guy had to live in a world of gays who thought that being straight was weird. Uncomfortable, lol?
If you’re trying to make the argument that people have no control over their own behavior, then you are only playing into the hands of those who say gays can’t control their own urges, and therefore should be separated form others. Ever thought of that?
“gays can’t control their own urges, and therefore should be separated form others”
Non sequitur much?
Well, that would be the argument you are making if you insist that a gay teenager can’t keep his sexual preference to himself. As I have stated previously, nobody would know you’re gay if you didn’t advertise it.
This is too funny.
Funny, but I noted you were rather selective in editing Stan’s quote, to the point where you took it out of context. Distort much?
Yeah, how dare gays feel entitled to express their sexuality in the same manner as straight people! Almost as if they’re equals! You’re an idiot.
A long time ago, Black girls could not join the Brownies. The Bluebirds was established for them and those members flourished in it. Being homosexual puts you in a qualification that is not available to straight people and that is loving the same sex. If a straight person has a gay person fall in love with them and the same love cannot be reciprocated from that straight person, it’s just the course of nature. Now this Eagle scout issue can also be compared with my wanting to be an astronaunt. I could raise a stink about it, or I could just face the truth that I’m too old and out of shape and have bad eyesight so cannot qualify that way for the space program.
“…and continues to grow expotentially.”