"Does the Boy Scouts of America really believe that he'll go from a member in good standing to some kind of a child-molesting monster when he turns 18?"

Yes.

Boy Scouts are fine to me as an adult, but when I was a kid, it was like, "Fuck joining those dweebs in their stupid uniforms."

Thank god no one practicing scouting actually listens to anything the centralized BSA board says, or whatever the hell the organization calls itself.

Funny thing is, I was in scouts from ages 5-18, and I never even knew there was a central rule-making group which is making all these proclamations. Whatever they said and did had zero bearing on my scouting troop, or any scout I ever met.

Troops operate completely independently from each other, and their politics will be whatever the politics are of the people that make up the troop. Which is a good thing, because it truly means that anyone can find an accepting troop for themselves.

Scouting is great, the BSA National Council (looked it up) are intolerant old assholes. Luckily they have little to no actual power to influence adult leaders or troops.

No. It's a compromise rule and, like the 3/5ths black man of our founding fathers, it'll be amended later on, once the scouts recognize one's sexual preferences have little to do with their mission, or once gay families realize the scouts have little to offer.

This is why the compromise was so important. It highlights how stupid the original stance was.

Insulting, ignorant, and hypocritical.
That pretty much sums up most religious groups.

I think it's also that the scout leadership, like a lot of homophobic types, wrongly associate gay with pedophilia, they don't want these gay child predators around the kids.

@3- " Luckily they have little to no actual power to influence adult leaders or troops."

Except of course the power to ban any individual or group from the Scouts if they choose to notice their divergence from central policy.

@2 I was in Boy Scouts in the late 1970's just to go camping. Even back then in Seattle it wasn't cool to be seen in uniform. I remember putting jeans and a jacket over it if I had to ride my bike to a meeting.

In my troop we had 2 guys who seemed to spend a lot of time in their tent. People speculated as to why, but they stayed in the troop until they lost interest. In scouting, that is.

The under 18/18-21/21+ divisions in the Boy Scouts have always been aggressively arbitrary. Various parts of the organization consider "adult" to be 18, others 21.

When I was 19 at a conference, they couldn't decide when to let the 18-21 year olds use the communal showers. On the one hand, because we were over 18 we were obviously vicious predators waiting to accost the youth. On the other hand, being under 21, we were at-risk victims for everyone over 22 and couldn't be left alone with them.

Eventually they just gave us our own block of time for 18-21.

The ban on gay adults in Scouting won't last. The current generation of scouts don't care, and the change to the youth policy already chased the worst of the bigots out of the organization, including some national-level professionals. (I'm looking at you, Trail Life).