[Thor]

Originally Posted by troutman

I made an inquiry with Scouts Canada, and they told me the following:

We are not a secular organization. Scouting has always been a spiritually-based organization – since its inception one hundred years ago. To be eligible for membership, one need not necessarily belong to a particular religious denomination – in fact, one may be agnostic as long as there is some sort of sort of spiritual feeling present. Atheists would not be permitted to join.

Its really sad the scouts still gets away with this, could you imagine if it was Jews who couldn't join, or Quakers, etc..

Members, both youth and adults, are required to take the Promise in good faith. It is one of our founding traditions. That said, “God” may mean many things to many different people – and as I’ve said, what is required is a basic spiritual belief (not necessarily from an organized religion).

This drives me crazy, they are basically saying unless your children have basic spiritual belief they are not worthy.

Now I would not say my children are "atheists". In fact I think it is obscene to label any child before they are mature enough to decide for themselves.

That sentence makes me all giddy inside

Is it right for Scouts Canada to have this policy? Is it discrimimation? Are they a private organization that can do whatever they want? Are they shutting out many children from their excellent programs?

I expect we will proceed with membership, and it could be there is not much emphasis on religion in this group. We are not a religious family, and I would not want my boys to be confused or feel left out. Maybe it would be good for them to learn about spirituality.

I think its discrimination, its sad that in this day and age its acceptable to ban a child because it doesn't profess worship in an imaginary being.

Maybe the lawyer in you wants to go sue them, certainly would find lots of groups in Canada that would jump on board, not sure how likely the success is since I'm not quite sure on the legal issue here in Canada, but here's the supreme court case which struck down a New Jersey ruling that scouts had to allow gay scoutmasters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Sco...merica_v._Dale