America can destroy the Boy Scouts of America, but the spirit of Scouting will survive.

It will survive in the organizations that now sponsor the Scouts. It will survive in the hearts of millions of now grown men who gained their first appreciation for nature, conservation and all of God's creations on some camping trip in some wilderness with some Scout leader with a son or two on the trip; some Scout leader who was seen at his worst --cooking his own breakfast, without a shower, with a 30-year-old backpack, and K-rations from World War II he still eats.The U.S. Supreme Court can seek to destroy this if it likes. But Scouting will go on -- without America. The Catholic Church is entirely capable of copying Scouting for its own purposes. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints probably already has contingency plans drawn up. Both of these global organizations do not need the United States of America to sponsor their activities nearly as much as the United States of America needs the Boy Scouts of America. The same can be said for each of the other sponsoring religions.

As a fairly recent Eagle Scout, I attended the 1985 National Jamboree in the nation's capital and at an Army Base in Virginia. The capital was filled with boys in uniform.

At one point, the boys in my patrol from southern Colorado got scared when some of the local youths mocked us. "Look at the Cub Scouts," they taunted. These Colorado boys had no so much as seen an African American as been taunted by one. They wanted to leave the restaurant. I told them to just ignore the taunts. We all learned a valuable lesson there, hopefully the locals included.

If only those local boys had been in uniform with us. I have reflected on that day many times, noticing the stark contrast of lives. How many of these gangs could have been Scout units instead? How many of these angry young men without hope in their lives could have become men instead of cowards with guns in their hands and vengeance on their minds?

How many of them could have learned how to properly handle a firearm as me and my compadres did at various Scout camps -- learning of the true lethality of the weapon in our hands?

But, it seems that it is not to be. These boys without any male role models of true manliness in their lives are yet left to find their own way toward manliness -- defining it downward daily.

I had hoped that one day the Boy Scouts of America could make some incursions into the void of life in the inner cities of America. But, it is not to be. The United States seems bent on taking the Boy Scouts man-making influence even further out of American life.

View Comments

But the spirit of Scouting will survive. It will be hidden and protected in the churches and synagogues which have been enriched and refined in delivering their messages of morality through scouting's assistance. It will live on in the successor scouting organizations created by each church and synagogue.

It is a shame, however, that in modern American life, we should even have to consider harboring young men in churches and synagogues to protect them from the all-seeing-eye of the U.S. government. Scouts will associate. Whether the American government chooses to declare war on our right to do so is up to them.

As for me and my house, we will always be Scouts. All for one, and one for all!

Chris Laurence of Salt Lake City is an attorney. He earned the rank of Eagle Scout at age 13.

Join the Conversation
Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.