Should the boyscouts be able to

[actsnoblemartin]

Determine their members, or is excluding Atheists and gays the wrong thing to do.

What is your opinion, and why do you believe it.

[Hobbit]

You use both the words 'allow' and 'should,' which are different areas of discussion, so I'll cover all three layers of philosophical permissiveness.

Legal - The Boy Scouts is privately owned and funded. Thus, the government should have no power to dictate who they may or may not include in their group. They should be allowed to exclude anybody they want to from girls to gays to black people or gingers. Of course, the government has had a nasty habit recently of dictating what people can and cannot do with their own property (inane smoking bans, anyone?), so I don't know if that will stop them.

Ethical - Unless the Boy Scouts places up front that it is a religious organization, it probably shouldn't make a habit of excluding people due to their beliefs. However, though it goes against political correctness, it is very much ethical to exclude both females and homosexuals. The current scout/leader ration required for Scouting activities is 10:1. If homosexuals and females were allowed into standard Scout troops, that ratio would have to lowered in order to keep the kids from having sex. Although it is not their ethical obligation to prevent the kids from having sex, it is very much their ethical obligation to ensure the kids do not have sex while in their charge.

Moral - The Boy Scouts take a moral stand in their belief in God (though they don't take a stance on which God they're referring to, the vast majority of the membership is Christian) and the wrongness of homosexuality. As they are fairly up front about this, they have a moral obligation to their members to keep those beliefs intact not by expelling those who have differing beliefs, but rather those who directly challenge these core values of scouting. Being too strict may, indeed, lead to some bad blood, but being too loose would compromise the core values of the organization and possibly alienate many existing members.