{"id":3261,"date":"2013-02-06T15:21:05","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T23:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=3261"},"modified":"2013-02-06T15:21:39","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T23:21:39","slug":"mens-leader-affirms-scout-decision-delay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/mens-leader-affirms-scout-decision-delay\/","title":{"rendered":"Men\u2019s leader affirms Scout decision delay"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boy Scouts of America said Feb. 6 that it needed more time for a “deliberate review” of its policy banning gay Scouts and leaders. A UMNS file photo by Mike DuBose.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

A UMNS Report by Heather Hahn*<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A United Methodist Men leader welcomed news that Boy Scouts of America will delay making a decision on whether to have gay members and leaders until after \u201ca more deliberate review.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what we were hoping for, an opportunity to have further dialogue and meaningful discussions,\u201d said Larry Coppock, United Methodist Men\u2019s national director of Scouting ministries. \u201cThis is the correct decision, and we applaud BSA\u2019s leadership for taking this step in dealing with such a complex and passionate issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Commission on United Methodist Men<\/a>\u00a0is responsible for promoting the use of Scouting ministries and civic youth-serving agencies across the denomination.<\/p>\n

The Boy Scouts of America\u2019s national board, meeting at the group\u2019s headquarters in Irving, Texas, decided Feb. 6 to \u201cfurther engage representatives of Scouting\u2019s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s statement<\/a>\u00a0said these discussions \u201cwill assist the officers\u2019 work on a resolution on membership standards.\u201d The 1,400 members of the voting council plan to vote on the resolution in May.<\/p>\n

Coppock told United Methodist News Service that he has heard from a Boy Scouts representative who said leaders would listen to United Methodists across the United States before the May meeting.<\/p>\n

[toggle title=”The Boy Scouts of America statement”]For 103 years, the Boy Scouts of America has been a part of the fabric of this nation, providing its youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. In the past two weeks, Scouting has received an outpouring of feedback from the American public. It reinforces how deeply people care about Scouting and how passionate they are about the organization.<\/p>\n

After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America\u2019s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy.<\/p>\n

To that end, the National Executive Board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting\u2019s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers\u2019 work on a resolution on membership standards. The approximately 1,400 voting members of the National Council will take action on the resolution at the National Annual Meeting in May 2013.[\/toggle]<\/p>\n

He encourages United Methodists and other people of faith to\u00a0contact Boy Scouts of America directly<\/a>\u00a0to share their views.<\/p>\n

Boy Scouts of America announced Jan. 28<\/a>\u00a0that the group was considering ending its decades-long ban on gay Scouts and gay leaders and leaving that particular question up to charter organizations.<\/p>\n

Gil Hanke, United Methodist Men\u2019s top leader, released\u00a0a statement Jan. 29<\/a>\u00a0affirming how the changes would be implemented.<\/p>\n

After hearing criticism and questions,\u00a0Hanke elaborated in a statement Jan. 31<\/a>\u00a0that what he endorsed was moving the responsibility for selecting leaders and members to the local church level.<\/p>\n

Boy Scout leaders<\/a>\u00a0report that 69.4 percent of Boy Scout units are chartered to religiously affiliated groups.<\/p>\n

The United Methodist Church is second only to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the number of congregations that host Boy Scouts of America groups. As of 2012, 6,700 United Methodist congregations served 363,876 young people through 10,868 Cub Scout packs, Boy Scout troops and Venturing crews.\u00a0Venturing crews<\/a>\u00a0are open to both young men and women, ages 14 to 20. The United Methodist Church hosts more Cub Scout packs than any other religious group.<\/p>\n

Since 1972, the\u00a0Book of Discipline<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the denomination\u2019s law book \u2014 has identified the practice of homosexuality as \u201cincompatible with Christian teaching.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

It also affirms that all people are \u201cindividuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God<\/a>,\u201d and proclaims a commitment to be in ministry for and with all people.<\/p>\n

Church law prohibits \u201cself-avowed practicing\u201d gays and lesbians from serving as clergy, but the book is silent about whether they can serve as lay leaders in other church roles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The United Methodist Church\u2019s Book of Resolutions, which contains the denomination\u2019s policy statements on social issues, also calls on the denomination to\u00a0\u201cdedicate itself to a ministry of Christ-like hospitality and compassion to persons of all sexual orientation \u2026welcoming sexual minorities, their friends, and families into our churches.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The Book of Discipline additionally supports \u201cthe rights and liberties for all persons, regardless of sexual orientation<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

*Hahn is a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News Service.<\/p>\n

News media contact: Heather Hahn, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or\u00a0newsdesk@umcom.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boy Scouts of America said Feb. 6 that it needed more time for a “deliberate review” of its policy banning gay Scouts and leaders. A UMNS file photo by Mike DuBose. A UMNS Report by Heather Hahn* A United Methodist Men leader welcomed news that Boy Scouts of America will delay making a decision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":3262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[181,178,14,31],"class_list":{"0":"post-3261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-boy-scouts","9":"tag-scouting","10":"tag-sexuality","11":"tag-umns"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Unknown.jpeg?fit=720%2C480&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-QB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3261"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3265,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3261\/revisions\/3265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}