Scouts?
Date: 21 May 1999

There are no specific restrictions on Unitarian Universalists becoming
Scouts in the BSA.   Unitarian congregations can still sponsor
units if they feel their aims and purposes are compatible with ours, and
Unitarian boys are welcome to join troops.

There is a controversy surrounding the wearing of the UUA religious
emblem
with the BSA uniform.   Although it has been reported by the UUA and =
BSA
representatives that this controversy had been resolved there seems to
be
a disagreement about the terms of the resolution.   The UUA feels that
both
sides agreed to removing the offending material from the handbook and
including
a separate set documents with different wording.   A letter was sent to
the
UUA
from the BSA Religious Relationship   Committee (and published by the =
UUA
at
their web site) as follows:"

May 7, 1999
Dear Dr. Buehrens:

It has come to our attention that you have posted on the UUA web site a
letter of
April 28, 1999, in which you state that the UUA has revised its
"Religion in
Life" manual to the satisfaction of the Boy Scouts of America,
referring to a letter of April 23 from Thomas Deimler of the BSA.

Your letter goes on to say the following: "The new edition of Religion
in
Life
will be available from the UUA Bookstore this summer. Along with each
copy ,
the Association will separately provide a letter from me, along
with resources appropriate to dealing with issues of homophobia and
religious discrimination." Unfortunately, this
simply reopens the entire issue of using boys as a venue to air your
differences with the policies of the Boy Scouts of America.

These circumstances were not contemplated when Mr. Deimler wrote his
letter.
Therefore, Boy Scouts of America is not in a position to authorize the
awarding of the Religion in Life emblem to Scouts and the wearing of
that emblem on a Scout uniform.

Sincerely yours,
Lawrence Ray Smith, Chairman
Religious Relationships Committee


The 1999 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association
adopted a resolution encouraging UUs to join Scouting, supporting
UUs who remain in Scouting, and supporting UU churches which sponsor
Scout units.   See http://www.uua.org/ga/ga99/aiws.html#aiw4   The
resolution
also calls on Unitarian Universalists to work for changes in BSA
policies.

More information and the UUA response may be found at:
http://www.uua.org

The BSA web site is: http://bsa.scouting.org