Will Defense Defend The Boy Scouts?
By Hans Zeiger (11/16/04)
Since the American Civil Liberties Union declared war on the Boy Scouts of America, it has become increasingly necessary for America’s institutions to take sides. Fearing lawsuits, cowardly cities and school districts have severed longstanding ties with Boy Scout troops. Many churches, civic organizations, and United Way chapters have withdrawn support from the “discriminatory” Scouts in the name of tolerance. But the latest group to join the ACLU in assaulting the Boy Scouts is the United States Department of Defense.
By a settlement reached Monday with the ACLU, the Department of Defense will send notice to all American military bases around the world that they are not to sponsor the Boy Scouts of America in any way. The ACLU alleged that such sponsorships violated the separation of church and state, for the Boy Scout Oath says, “On 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.”
The Scout Oath expresses the highest ideals of the nation that our military is charged to defend. From Washington at prayer in Valley Forge to the modern-day military chaplaincy, our nation’s armed forces have sought God in the hour of battle. Our military bases have chapels, and upon being sworn in to the military, our soldiers invocate, “So help me God.” The Boy Scouts complement this purpose well with their call to character, faith, and preparedness. The military is better equipped, smarter, and more committed to basic American ideals under the leadership of former Boy Scouts, and Eagle Scouts.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld may have assigned the task of settling the five-year old ACLU lawsuit to subordinates, but once Rumsfeld hears from citizens who support the Boy Scouts, he won’t be able to ignore Monday’s decision. Particularly as Secretary Rumsfeld is sworn to uphold the very oath that was at issue in the lawsuit; Rumsfeld himself is an Eagle Scout.
Thousands of men now serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are also Eagle Scouts, and thousands more held lower ranks in the Boy Scouts of America. An assistant Scoutmaster of my boyhood troop once told me that his service in the United States Marines was made possible because he was first a Boy Scout. This Assistant Scoutmaster was 16 years old when he lost his father; it was our Scoutmaster who inspired him to continue in school and life. He joined the Marine Corps and spent some years on duty for the first President Bush at Camp David. He later became a Sheriff’s Deputy before rejoining the Marines to fight the War on Terror. Today my Assistant Scoutmaster is on the ground in Iraq.
For millions of men in uniform in all of our wars since World War I, the Boy Scouts uniform was the first they ever wore. Donald Rumsfeld and my assistant Scoutmaster are only two examples.
But Secretary Rumsfeld has apparently broken wartime policy to enter into an agreement with terrorists. Terrorism is any ideologically grounded effort to force a people to follow some path contrary to their most basic way of life. The ACLU is not a terrorist organization like al Qaeda or the PLO, but it is the foremost instrument of cultural terrorism in America. In some ways, the ACLU is more threatening to our national survival than Islamofascists in the Middle East. The ACLU seeks nothing less than the demolition of our Constitution and the defeat of ordered liberty, and ACLU lawyers work tirelessly to monopolize our courtrooms to that effect.
Why the Department of Defense chose to capitulate to the ACLU is unknown, and probably inexplicable. There is absolutely no reason that could justify what has been done to the Boy Scouts.
It is a national security issue. The Department of Defense has conceded to a false and atheistic notion about military conduct. A military that must avoid God upon hearing the wimpy threats of the ACLU is hardly suited to deal with those who would destroy us in the name of Allah.
It isn’t as though the military is associating with a particular church when it sponsors Scout troops on base; in fact, the Boy Scouts are as ecumenical as community organizations get. The Scouts remain a voluntary, private organization when they are sponsored on a military base. The Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Scouts have the right to keep it that way.
Americans must contact Secretary Rumsfeld immediately via the Defense Department website at http://www.defenselink.mil/faq/comment.html. Tell him that the Boy Scouts are vital to America’s national security, for they prepare the character and basic skills for many of our nation’s finest soldiers.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Hans Zeiger
