I needed to tie a rope to the fancy new anchor I bought for my dented, old 12-foot aluminum rowboat. Turns out my search for the right knot led me to pondering sexual politics and religious freedom. I wanted to fashion a blow-line knot - a good, strong knot - so I pulled from the bookshelf my knot-tying source: Boy Scout Handbook, Seventh Edition, First Printing, Sept. 1965.

There it was, pages 78 and 79, step-by-step instructions and illustrations of both the knot and a Boy Scout being lowered down a cliff.

The book is in good condition, mostly because I wasn't much of a book Scout. In fact I never made it past Second Class because I struggled with the book-learning parts. But 40-plus years later I was still drawn to the sections on camping. Map reading, games of tracking and stalking, tools of a woodsman ("Your Knife, Your Ax."): These were skills I'd loved and learned, and even today they come in handy at deer camp.

I paged further through the book, recalling the calls to Scout camaraderie and still puzzling the intricacies of Morse code signaling. Then I came across the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, both of which I can still recite by heart. Here's where things got knotty.

Scouting and The Three G's

The issues have been summarized as "The Three G's: Girls, Gays and Godless." The group has allowed women to be leaders since 1988 but still restricts Scouting membership to boys. "Openly, avowed" gays are not welcomed in the Boy Scouts. And atheists and agnostics need not apply.

I have the least problem with the "boys-only" policy. A good friend long ago convinced me there's room in the world for single-sex education and other gender-specific programming. Perhaps this is one of those cases.

The gay ban is more troublesome. As the Scouts' legal Web site put it, "Boy Scouts regards homosexual conduct as not morally straight as required in the Scout Oath."

Frankly, I've had some gay friends who were morally straighter than a lot of straights who, on the surface, would be acceptable to the Scouts.

But I have the biggest problem with excluding boys who can't in good conscience pledge an allegiance to a God.

I'm impressed with the Scouts' embrace of religious diversity. Even the 1965 handbook's essay "A Scout Is Reverent" includes this passage:

"All your life you will be associated with people of different faiths. In America we believe in religious freedom. That is why we respect others whose religion is different than ours, although for reasons of conscience we do not agree with them. Their customs may be different than ours, but their hearts are just as true, their faith as sincere."

That's a noble statement, as far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough. If I've discovered anything at all about our spiritual nature, it's that spirituality is a living, growing thing.

For example, in my father I saw a man who went from a child pumping the pipe organ in a tiny church to a man who - confused and wounded by dogmatic practices - stepped away from all things denominational, only to find in his later years great comfort in the sounds and presence of that same organ.

And I have my own journey from altar boy to expelled Catholic school student to adult still working to define the path of a life lived well and good. Yet the Boy Scouts exclude those who may still be on similar paths.

The Girls Scouts have tried to resolve this conflict. They still pledge "To serve God and my country," but then offer that "the word 'God' can be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on one's spiritual beliefs. When reciting the Girl Scout Promise, it is OK to replace the word 'God' with whatever word your spiritual beliefs dictate."

Of course they're still called alternately "godless" or "bigoted" by extremists on both sides, but at least they're trying. I wish I could say the same for the Boy Scouts.

Source: Leader Telegram