Individuals frustrated by the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to lift its long-standing ban on allowing openly gay members into the organization have decided they no longer want anything to do with the nation’s oldest scouting organization.
OnMyHonor.net, a Texas-based organization that fought against the BSA’s decision, announced Tuesday that it plans to start its own scouting organization that promotes “a new national youth character development organization for young men.” Its founder, John Stemberger, said in a press release that the new organization – which is also co-sponsored by the organizations Faith Based Boys, TrailHead USA and Frontier Head Service Corps – will launch on January 1.
“I’m excited about being on the ground floor of a brand new youth organization that focuses on outdoor adventure and service to others, developing character and life skills,” the organization’s interim Executive Director, Rob Green, said in a video Tuesday. “We will build a program that parents can trust to be morally consistent, based on Christian values. We owe nothing less to our nation’s future leaders.”
Besides Christian values, members of the scouting organization must abide by the philosophy that “the proper context for sexual relations is only between a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage.”
The new organization doesn’t intend to compete with the Boy Scouts for membership, however.
“Our mission now is to work with like-minded groups and individuals to provide the thousands of families who are leaving the BSA with an alternative program for boys,” according to a blog entry on the site.
The new organization will be holding its first national conference in Nashville, Tenn. this September, where they will reveal their name, logo and branding information. The group will also begin registering new scouting troops and allow current Boy Scouts to transfer into the organization in November.
Naturally, those who are supportive of the Boy Scouts’ new policies are dismayed by OnMyHonor.net’s announcement Tuesday and question whether the new organization can make it in the long run.
“Obviously we’re disappointed that people left the Boy Scouts of America at all,” Zach Wahls, the co-founder of the organization Scouts for Equality, told Red Alert Politics. “From day one we said that we wanted scouting to be a home to people with a diversity of opinion, and it’s unfortunate that people are leaving the program.”
“The reality of course, is that the Boy Scouts of America is a century-old organization. They’ve already navigated some of the challenges that come with starting a new organization, and that’s just a really hard thing to do, and to replicate on a national level,” he added.
