We already know that the Boy Scouts of America can and will kick out gay Scouts and Scout leaders. Lawsuits against the Scouts date back to 1981 when 18-year-old gay former Scout Tim Curran sued for the right to be a Scoutmaster. And in each case, courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court — have ruled that the Scouts have the right to exclude gays.
That discriminatory policy was in the spotlight here locally again when gay father Jon Langbert was “decommissioned” from his role as the “Popcorn Colonel” — leader of the annual effort to raise money by selling popcorn — for his son’s Cub Scout troup.
Now there’s this story to prove that the Boy Scouts’ homophobia isn’t gender specific.
After six years playing an active role in her son’s Boy Scout troup in Potomac Falls, Va., Denise Steele has been kicked out after another Scout’s mother discovered Steele is a lesbian.
Steele started out as a den leader for her son’s Cub Scout troop in elementary school when no one else would do it. Over the next six years, according to the Loudon Times, Steele’s son’s troop excelled at everything, winning the Blue and Gold Award — one of Scouting’s highest awards — for five years running. And when her son moved on up to the Boy Scouts, Steele moved with him.
All was fine until June this year when Steele accompanied her son and his troop on a Saturday-through-Monday camping trip. Because Steele had to work on Monday, her partner, Jackie Funk, showed up on Sunday night to pick her up. Assistant Scout Master Skip Inabinett then asked who the woman was that picked Steele up, and when she found out that Steele is a lesbian, and the woman giving her a ride was her partner, everything changed.
Inabinett started with a letter to a friend of Steele’s whose son was also in the troop: “If what you said about Denise Steele being an active sexual is true, do you feel comfortable talking with her about stepping down/resigning as an ASM … as her friend, this may be an opportunity for you to share with her about Christ’s love and the need to believe that as sinners we cannot get to heaven on our own and that we need a savior.”
Inabinett then proceeded to communicate with Steele herself over the next two weeks, focusing his efforts on telling her that her “lifestyle” is a sin and, according to Funk, bullying Steele to the point of tears.
According to Steele and Funk, Inabinett didn’t think he’d get the result he wanted — having Steele removed from her position with the troop — by going through the troop’s scoutmaster , the committee or the charter organization. So he went straight to the Boy Scouts of America. And he got what he wanted. Steele is now persona non grata with her son’s troop, despite her dedication and her stellar record as a leader.
Well, all we can say is, Skip Inabinett is a jerk, Boy Scouts of America is a bigoted organization, and the real losers in all of this are the boys in the Scout troop Steele has served with such commitment for so long.
Thanks for posting! Please check out the 40,000+ views and the 350+ comments at http://www.loudountimes.com. We all have to spread the word and get more individuals to discuss this very important topic. The BSA is out of touch…yet scouting is amazing. Help us create awareness and drive change!
His email address is skipnett@gmail.com. If you do a lot of research, you can find that he ran for office in MD against Steny Hoyer. He claimed to have been an atheist until 2 years ago…now his job is to spread the word of God…visit http://www.loudountimes.com to view the 350+ comments on this article.
Same thing happened to me. When I was married I was a district committee member, a trainer of leader trainers and let my son’s Webelos den. When I came out as a lesbian I was persona non grata. My son continued on with scouting and I supported him but was no longer allowed to participate directly with the troop.
So if we all know what a hateful group the boyscouts are why do we continue to support them? Why do we allow our children to participate and associate with such a terrible organization? I would never let them join the KKK because racism is wrong, I won’t. Let them join al qaeda becaue terrorisam is wrong, and I will not let them join the Boyscouts because homophobia is wrong. love doesn’t care what sex,or race you are and neither should the boyscouts. I’m not a pedophile just in love with another beautiful woman!
When local troop leaders are chosen, the chartered organization (church, civic club, PTA, etc.) is responsible for choosing and approving the adult leadership. When the person is officially registered, the BSA automatically runs a background check thru an outside organization. If any questionalbe information is obtained, the local organizaqtion is notified so they can make a determination. Usually gender preferences do not arise in the background check.
When it is reported to the BSA that a leader is gay, it is verified and then the adult, if true, is removed from membership.
The BSA consists of many churches and civic organizationswhose representatives make the policies, and evidently a majority of the active organizations do not sanction a gay person as a role model for their children.
My ex worked for the boy scouts and those who run the national organization are a bunch of bigots. Individual troops are most often run by caring individuals. The ones to target are the charter organizations. Not allowing troops in public buildings, etc. I do not support them anymore but my son was well on the way to eagle when I came out. Smashing his dream wasn’t an option I wanted to take. But when I was called to help in ANY way I told them “I can’t help remember? I’m a lesbian.” No cookies baked. No candy sold. Nope.. Not THIS girl. Today I don’t buy stuff sold by troops at the grocery store but I DO tell them why I don’t.
A few problems.
Cub Scouts is not a troop, it’s a pack. The Blue and Gold Award is nonexistent.
Don’t get me wrong, I support gay rights, and I don’t agree with the Scoutmaster, but I do respect the BSA’s decision to remove her from the program. They are a private organisation, and they have the right to remove people who they feel don’t fit the programs moral expectations. Part of the Scout Oath says that they should be morally straight. To the BSA, this means that homosexuality is against that.
To tell them that they can’t have that right is just as bad, is not worse, than one woman’s issue.
For those of you who go on to the original Loudoun Times article, you should be aware of problems throughout the piece. The “reporter” Laura Peters did absolutely no research in her mad dash to present Steele’s plight, and in the process made grievous errors which make the article laughable. I outlined the errors in an email to Peters and excerpt them below. The issue of course is that the reporter got these details from Steele herself, and they are outright lies–in some cases being impossible.
“First of all, your ignorance of BSA programs is advertised in almost every sentence. A few examples: Cub Scouts are organized into “packs,” not “troops.” Scoutmaster is one word, not two. The training to become an Assistant Scoutmaster takes less than a week, not a year. Now let’s get more specific:
1. You paint Mrs. Steele as a selfless volunteer who sinlehandedly saved a Cub Scout “troop”: “Steele started out in Boy Scouts as a den leader for her son, Jackson, 12, for his school, Horizon Elementary. No other parent would step up to the plate to take on the responsibility of leading a Cub Scout troop.[sic]” Den Leaders do not lead a Cub Scout pack. Packs are broken into dens, each den would be at least 2 boys and ideally no more than 8. The pack is run by a Cubmaster, not a Den Leader. Den Leaders are only responsible for leading activities during den meetings, and if a pack were to be unable to accomodate Steele’s son and his classmates, there are–like Boy Scout troops–many packs that they could have joined instead; for example, there are 5 Cub Scout packs within 10 minutes of my home in the suburbs of Richmond.
2. You report that Steele’s “troop [sic] excelled at everything, including accomplishing badges and winning the Blue and Gold Award all five years, one of the highest awards for Boy Scouts.” Again, your ignorane of Scouting shines. You are reporting on the period before Steele or her son were involved in Boy Scouting–they were Cub Scouts–yet you call them Boy Scouts. Worse than that, there is no such thing as a Blue and Gold Award in American Cub Scouting. Even if there were such an award, it would not be among the highest awards available to Boy Scouts, Cub Scout awards cannot be worn on the Boy Scout uniform (except for the Arrow of Light). The Blue and Gold Banquet is an awards dinner held by Cub Scout packs to recap their year and recognize advancement for the scouts; everyone in the pack is invited, it isn’t elite.
3. Your statement that “After graduating from Cub Scouts, the next step is to find the right Boy Scout troop. All boys are able to select which troop best fits them instead of being automatically placed based on the schools they attend.” implies that Cub Scouts are automatically placed in a pack based on school or street address. They are not. Like Boy Scout troops, Cub Scout packs are open enrollment. Again: Google is your friend.
4. Lest I spit it out, I had to postpone a sip of coffee when I read “The training process to become a scout leader usually takes about a year. Steele completed it in three weeks. ” This is utterly false. There are 4 training components to become an Assistant Scoutmaster and wear he “Trained” patch: Youth Protection Training, This is Scouting, Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills, and Leader Specific Training. Youth Protection training takes 30 mintes to an hour, max; it is an onlinevideo and quiz series, which you can view here: myscouting.org. This is Scouting is a basic introduction to the Boy Scout program, it is also online and takes less than an hour to complete. Intro to Outdoor Leader Skills teaches basic scouting skills to adult leaders (so they’re competent when teaching the boys) and takes one weekend campout. Leader Specific training is an indoor session that takes one Saturday afternoon to complete. If Mrs. Steele is the person that told you it takes a year to complete the training to become an Assistant Scoutmaster (as she aspired to be), then she lied to you. While you were eager to create an aura of “uber leader” around Steele by tauting her 3 week “accomplishment” all you really did was demonstrate that she took more time to complete the training than is necessary. Anyone can complete the training in 2 weeks.
On top of that, the only one of these 4 training components that is required to register as an Asst SM is Youth Protection; the others are optional. A National policy change will require the other 3 next year, but the fact of the matter is that currently Steele could be an Asst Scoutmaster in a matter of minutes.”
I think that there is a silver lining in this story. Yes Inabinett is a jerk. Yes, the national policy is way off base. (As a trained scout leader I have never understood the logic behind it. We are told that as scout leaders we are never to discuss and matters even close to sexuality with a scout, but rather if the topic comes up to simply say “I think this is a topic that you would be better off discussing with your parents. ” If we are forbidden to discuss sexual matters with a scout , what difference does it make what the scout leaders preferences are on the issue?) But I was encouraged to see that Inabinett had to go through many layers of the Scout hierarchy before he found someone narrow minded enough not to assess the situation on its merits but rather blindly enforce the silly rule.From what I can glean from the article he received no support in his quest from the Scoutmaster the troop Committee nor the chartering organization. So it seems like at least the people at the grass roots level are trying to do the right thing. While this is of course not as good as getting the national directive changed, it is a ray of hope and just maybe if enough grassroots people have the guts to stand up for what’s right, the message might make it upstream to the organizational leadership and cause them to re-examine the policy.
Dear “Anon”, be a man and say who you are. Yes, the person who wrote the article got some facts wrong. I’m a marketing person, so I would have done fact checks before posting. But while she called a den a pack…and referred to a troop vs. a den…and called the Blue and Gold Banquet an award, the facts of the story are true. We share more than 20 pages of emails with her. And she contacted everyone involved. Denise did singlehandedly step up. And there would not have been a den that year without her. The boys at our elementary school (or rather the parents) would not have gone to other schools or churches…they’re too busy. They would have said, “oh well” and their kids may not have experienced the joys of scouting.
What was “elite” was their achievement of all 20 badges as Webelos (6 months ahead of schedule). what was “elite” was the fact they all stayed with scouting because she made it fun, challenging and enlightening. And yes, they all achieved the Arrow of Light. So back off. If you read the article, you’ll see that we specifically stated they visited multiple Boy Scout Troops to find the best fit. And the training process does not take minutes. To get properly trained takes months. It’s not about saying you won’t molest children and having a background check done. It’s about lots of training over multiple weekends (if you do it right). And it’s about learning the ins and outs of scouting so that you can lead properly. You ought to know that. Grow up.
Your ignorance is astounding. There is a difference between leader specific training and “lots of training over multiple weekends”.
That training is called Woodbadge. Woodbadge is advanced training. It is not required. The training process ends once you’ve done the Youth Protection Training, This is Scouting, Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills, and Leader Specific Training.
Maybe it’s you who ought to know that.