WWASD?

Again, the convergence of two seemingly unrelated stories has resulted in my banter:

Monday morning, I read a story about a Boy Scout troop being reported as lost after not returning from a weekend hiking trip in the Pisgah National Forest. When I first read the story, I didn't assume the worst even though I automatically thought of the Richard Salinas story as it, too, took place in Pisgah. However, I felt confident that these boys and their leaders would emerge a day or so later certainly tired, but safe. Because they are Boy Scouts.

Obviously, membership in the BSA is not an immunization from danger or harm. Quite the contrary. In part, I believe it to be an educational experience about our earth's natural wonders with training about how to overcome danger and harm while learning about those wonders.

It wasn't until Thursday morning that I read the scouts had returned safely to civilization.

Upon finding themselves lost, they did the first thing vital to rescue - they remained calm. More importantly, they had already performed one of the most important steps in case rescue became necessary - they carried sufficient food, water, and shelter. Simple lesson but one often overlooked.

Wednesday evening, the same day these kids emerged from the woods, I watched part of the Democratic debate in Des Moines. Tim Russert asked Governor Richardson if elected president, whether he would resign his ex officio seat as Honorary Chairman of the BSA out of protest. The governor was adamant that as president, he would not belong to any organization that discriminates for any reason. Even though as governor, he doesn't support same-sex marriage. Instead, he would choose to discriminate against those he accuses of discrimination.

I'll admit to only hearing half his answer. For the second half, I reminded his image on my television set that anybody who doesn't like the Boy Scouts won't get my vote. I also reminded him that this issue had already been settled seven years ago by our nation's highest authority. BSA is a private organization that, by virtue of the First Amendment and in the absence of any statute to the contrary, is allowed to mandate the standards of its membership. New Jersey was sufficiently ineffectual in its argument that the BSA is a public accommodator in submission to a lab-like public experiment Justice Brandeis wrote of in 1932.

To use the words of my favorite president, Andrew Shepherd, - Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free".

I do know this much. Were I lost and had my choice of hiking companion, I'd choose the Boy Scout over the politically correct do-gooder every time.