The once proud organization known as the Boy Scouts is declaring bankruptcy after severely flagging numbers due to a myriad of problems, including implementing social justice measures to make it more inclusive.
According to the Daily Caller, the Boy Scouts changed its name to Scouts BSA and began to allow girls into their ranks. Before that, the Boy Scouts ruled that openly gay scouts and scout leaders could also join the program. This lead to a serious decline in membership and now the organization is filing Chapter 11:
The Wednesday report comes in the wake of sinking membership and multiple controversies surrounding the 108-year-old organization, including sex abuse allegationsand its controversial decision to change its program name from Boy Scouts to Scouts BSA and allow girls into that program.
Chicago law firm Sidley Austin has reportedly been hired to assist in what would be a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
As the organization has made decisions deemed to be more inclusive, such as allowing openly gay scouts in 2013 and scoutmasters in 2015 as well as the 2018 decision to allow girls, membership has continued to decline sharply, from over 4 million members at its peakto a claimed 2.3 million members at present.
It’s only going to get worse as well. The Mormon Church has announced that it’s discontinuing its partnership with the Boy Scouts and will be starting up its own boy’s program in 2020, according to the Daily Caller. When that happens, the Scouts will lose a third of its membership.
Combined with the fact that it kept sexual abuse allegations secret for decades, the Scouts seems to have rotted from the inside.
Whether the Scouts would have survived in this modern age without any of these events happening is still up for debate, but it definitely didn’t help it. Boys clubs are becoming few and far between with each of them coming under attack for not being inclusive to girls or members of the LGBT community.
Boys are increasingly encouraged to be safer and more accepting of things that run against their nature. This is more dangerous than our society as a whole can realize yet, as boys need to be able to be boys. However, in this day and age, the very nature of boys is often the subject of ridicule and even labeled as a societal evil.
It’s my honest hope that the Scouts survive, but I can only see it doing so by making itself return to its original principles. The chances of that happening, however, are slim to none.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member