(This will be a fairly long post, so please bear with me!)
My son (he's 9 and in 3rd grade) joined Cub Scouts last August. I've been bugging him to join since he was in first grade and I guess I finally wore him down. (OK, I'll be honest and say that he actually joined because a scout leader came into his classroom and talked about racing pinewood derby cars and shooting BB guns. This, of course won him over...duh, right?) So due to his enthusiasm and the lack of parental involvement within the group I signed up as a den parent. I was ready to rock and my son was so excited.
As some of you may know, when you join Cub Scouts you have to buy a handbook that lists a ton of achievements. When you complete these achievements you receive awards or insignias that you can pin and/or iron onto your uniform. My son was so enthusiastic that he worked through the first 8 or 9 goals in record time. He got to stand in front of the group of parents and peers and receive his rewards for a job well done.
All was going well until two weeks ago when I spoke to the Scout Leader about the religious achievement emblem.
My son had completed his steps of religious requirements and in my excitement I searched for the website that contains pictures of the religious emblems that are available. We couldn't wait to see our religious pin. What would it look like? Would it be a pentacle or perhaps the Triple Moon Goddess? I searched the page once, twice....four times and didn't see any symbol for our religion. Surely I must have missed it! So, I searched one more time, just to be positive that Pagans were not represented. My mind reeled...how could this have happened? Was this for real? Surely we can't be the first Pagans to join the Cub Scouts. Right?
I decided against going off and being mean and hateful and decided to go to the Scout Leader and make him aware (nicely and politely) that our religious symbol was not represented. I mean, surely this must be some sort of mistake....or an oversight. I had faith that the Scout Leader would have some idea of what to do about this.
So, I walked up to him and said "Dylan has completed the necessary steps for the religious emblem, however I noticed that our religion, Paganism, isn't represented."
To which he replied: "Really? Well can't you just pick a different one?"
.........uhm...pick another what? Another religion perhaps...or the symbol.
Either way...hell no!
Why should my son have to pick a different symbol? This is 2012, why is this still an issue? If I had been Christian and told him there were no crosses to represent my Christianity would he have told me to pick the star of David and just pretend it's a cross?
Needless to say when I got home I was FUMING. I went back to the website with religious emblems and I wrote an email to the owner of the site. They responded the very next day with the following email:
"First, our apologies for not responding to you earlier, even if it was to acknowledge that we have received your email and that an answer would be coming soon. We're all volunteers here at the U.S. Scouting Service Project, Inc. (USSSP) -- NOT BSA employees or professionals. We do the massive work we do basically on our "free time" (I'm taking an early coffee break from my work here in order to respond to your posting) and sometimes emails kinda get "stuck" for a day or so.
Second, as I stated -- we here at the USSSP are NOT officially "anything" but a support, cheerleading and "kick in the seat of the pants" organization to the BSA. We are not funded, supported nor endorsed by the BSA (they would love to see us "go out of business" eventually but they've also agreed that without us, they would still be in the 80s as far as technology awareness and usage of the Internet is concerned). Our goal when we started almost 20 years ago and remains today is to "pull, push and prod" the BSA into usage of electronic mediums and electronic methods to bring their programs and program support to parents like yourself and indirectly to youth like your son. It has been a long process -- and we still have a long way to go in several areas. The information I present here is based upon the BSA's historical and current policies. As one of my daughters would say, "we're just the messengers -- just sayin' ".
My personal congrats to Dylan for his personal accomphishment. There's a LOT of Pagan and Wiccan youth in our programs -- I don't have any accounting of numbers, but it's a fair representation. Here's what the BSA's Religious Relationships people have been saying (Religious Relationships have been "rolled up" into the BSA's Program Group two years ago, with the director of Religious Relationships along with two other Relationships (Labor and ScoutReach) directors reassigned to more "broader roles" in the Program Group).
The religious emblem program is NOT a BSA program. Each religious group can develop a medal, medallion or patch which they make available to youth and/or adults to earn or receive. You cannot purchase them from the BSA Supply Group. The BSA doesn't have any say in the design or development of the award(s). They DO however, have say on the *wearing* of the various religious emblems on their official uniforms.
The Wiccan "Hart and Crescent" and a Cub Scout award (which I cannot recall the name right off) are valid awards which Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts may earn -- just like any other faiths' awards. However, the BSA doesn't recognize the Wiccan/Pagan faith as a "national partner", and that's where the issue with promotion and awareness comes into play. For a set of reasons -- some valid, many not so valid -- the BSA has refused to approve Wiccan leaders as "national partner organizations" to the BSA. Most of the "mainline religious organizations" are BSA partner organizations -- and as a block, they have made recommendations over the years (the last time I'm aware of it was in 2005 before the National Jamboree that year) not to approve the Wiccan national partner organization application.
Religious politics aside, the BSA DID do something back in 2003 which I've stated on my personal website and which should be a comfort to Wiccans and Pagans whom are a part of the BSA. Until that time, the wearing of the religious emblems on the BSA's various field uniforms was not allowed; in 2003, the BSA's National Executive Board permitted "all faith's religious emblems to be worn formally with any of the official uniforms; and at times which the emblem is not appropriate for wear, to be represented by the appropriate youth and/or adult religious emblem square knot patch without additional devices or pins denoting specific religious rites or observances."
In other words, the "Hart and Crescent" youth religious emblem could indeed be worn during Scout Sunday and during Blue and Gold banquets and Courts of Honor; and otherwise the small purple and silver (grey) square knot emblem is worn on the uniform to signify that the Scout or Scouter has earned or received *his or her faith's religious emblem* without something else saying "I've earned the .... " award from a particular religion.
We at the USSSP have been providing religious emblem information as part of our site in line with what the BSA has also provided on their official sites. We have done so for consistancy -- not because we agree or do not agree with their stance. When people come to our site to seek information (as you have done), we do provide the official information as well as the unofficial but "makes sense" responses because we want you and others to be fully aware of our unofficial but supportive nature to you and other families."
The BSA does not recognise Paganism or Wicca as a religion. Say WHAT? Yet, they don't mind taking my Pagan money to pay the $30 fee for the yearly membership. Also, note that the writer of the above email states that I can find and/or make an emblem of our religion and present it to my son....PRIVATELY. One has to wonder if by "privately" he means "behind closed doors in shame". Why should my son have to accept an award in private while all the other boys in his den get to stand up in front of all of the parents and his peers and proudly receive their pins? This is just plain WRONG! And *I*, as a parent refuse to let this happen to anyone else's son.
Which brings me to why I am writing this blog:
It's time for ALL of us to stand up for the equal treatment of ALL religions who are not considered "mainstream". I don't know about you, but I refuse to sit down and take this. Who's with me?!
Thank You for your time & Blessed Be,
Jai
