I really don't want to beat this conversation into the ground, but some of your references don't hold much water.

First of all, I am not interested in "civil libertarians" filing suits to keep Scouts away from schools, or the Pledge of Allegiance, or kids wearing crosses around their necks, or maybe even some poor kid forgetting themselves and praying over lunch. I know what their agenda is. The objective is not getting atheists, gays, or whoever into the Scouts, the objective is the destruction of the Boy Scouts and religion as moral influences, combined with a general antagonism about Western value systems in general. Nancy Powell falls into this category. So does Rob Sherman. Like women who demand to be allowed to join exclusive men's clubs, usually smoky, testoscerone-riddled places a normal woman wouldn't want to be dragged into with a tractor, the object isn't being allowed in, the object is destruction.

I'm sorry, but these people are not being abused by society. They are using atheism as a political weapon, the same way Jesse Jackson uses skin color as a weapon, and for similar reasons.

The leftist interpretation of the First Amendment to mean that no entity that has anything to do with the government can have anything to do with something religious, is basically nuts.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof... has an exact meaning. A police station or school offering space for meetings is NOT "making a law establishing a religion." Knowledgable people know exactly what the purpose of the First Amendment was, back when governments and religions were often deeply intertwined in England and elsewhere.



I wish that leftists would apply this oddball zero-tolerance interpretation to the Second Amendment. I would be able to go out and buy an anti-tank gun from the local WalMart.

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Michael and Terry Randall do seem to fall into the category of the type of people I was looking for--people who were apparently prevented from being in the Scouts for their lack of religious beliefs. I would like to see more details on exactly how they were "kicked out." The fact that their father is a personal injury lawyer by profession I'm sure had nothing to do with the development of a major court case. Mark Welsh appears to fall into this category, but as with the Randalls, having a father who is an officer in the Freedom From Religion Foundation probably had nothing to do with making a court case out of it, either.

Clifford Grambo also falls into this category, but as in many of the cases you referenced, it seems to be less a case of official BSA policy and more a case of these kids running across Scout Leaders who were unusually oddball or fundamentalist in their beliefs. The quotes I read about would seem to imply this. The purpose of Scouting is to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ?? News to me, and probably to most Scouts and Scout leaders. I think a lot of this is running across the wrong kind of leader. After all, it's not like there is a formal screening process for them. Maybe this is no different than condemning the Scout organization or an entire church because one of their staff turns out to be a pervert? Maybe this is no different than unfairly condemning all schools because a few teachers are communist lunatics? I would be really curious to know if any of these kids tried different troops before their parents went on the warpath. Speaking of which...

One kid points out, correctly, that Scouting relies heavily on Indian traditions. With council fires, various orders, and other Indian-derived rituals, I dare say I learned a lot more about Indian traditions in Scouts than I did Christianity. I don't recall any Christians getting bent out of shape by being "forced" to participate in rituals with pagan roots.

Most of the activist atheists on these web pages are people with a serious feather up their ass. If they consider the Scout Oath ("Do my duty to God and my country") as a major obstacle in their lives, then perhaps they are a little too serious about their atheism.

Now, as an example, I firmly believe that taxation is theft. I have a strong philosophical and historic background for this, yet I sit down every year and pay them. I am scrupulously honest with the IRS, as you might suspect I would have to be with my political leanings, and don't even write a grumpy note on the envelope.

I could get a feather up my ass about this. Some hard-line conservatives do, and write protest notes on their forms, or refuse to pay with paper money, or make some oddball case about why they really don't have to pay taxes and tie up court time. Some of them are willing to go to jail. Are they right? Maybe they are. But you know what? I don't do any of those things.

Sometimes you have to know what hill you're willing to die on, and why. If this makes me inconsistent, or as Ayn Rand would have called it, with contempt, a "compromiser," well, so be it. Ayn Rand paid her bloody taxes too. I don't have the time to make a political martyr of myself, and it sure as hell would not do my family any good.

I don't know these people who have declared war on the Boy Scouts specifically, and religion in general, but many of them seem to wear their atheism as a badge, and have a chip on their shoulder they are dying to have someone knock off. This is a far cry from the image being projected of their children tearfully being shown the door at a Boy Scout meeting.