Reply #50: Sure we could have -- in fact, we did

[htuttle]

Hell, I was an atheist. Didn't know anyone gay back then except one of my high school teachers, but that had more to do with being in a small town than being in the Scouts.

The Scouts seemed a LOT different back then. It used to be mostly about camping, and scoutmasters were often hard-drinking, cussing, regular guys who's kids happened to have been in the Scouts at some point. Non-camping meetings were short, perfunctory, and generally just used to plan the camping (with the usual handing out of merit badges, etc...but nobody in my troop was that into that part of it).

Nowdays, it sounds like a lot more indoctrination (and pomp and
circumstance) is going on -- and I hear they hardly go camping anymore. I think it changed in the Eighties at some point.

I would not urge my sons into the scouts nowdays -- I just took them camping myself (course, it wasn't as much fun for them as it would have been with all their friends -- and the booze...).