Usually I'm up for a good political fight, and I thought I was thoroughly prepared for one at the opening of the annual Art Festival in Mount Dora. It is a huge outdoor show situated in Central Florida's most scenic lakeside community. Artists from all over the country come each February, bringing with them works fashioned of every imaginable medium from ceramic to cement. I had looked forward to attending the event all winter.
So what put me in a fighting mood? A couple of days before festival weekend an area newspaper reported that the Mount Dora Arts Center would be collecting a suggested one-dollar admission fee to offset expenses. No, I'm not so cheap as to balk at the charge. It was the way the sponsor pledged to share its windfall from an anticipated 200,000 attendees that got to me. The Arts Center would keep 90 per cent, donating 10 cents on every dollar raised to the Boy Scouts.
By now, one might suppose that pretty much everyone who follows the newsor appreciates artis aware that the Boy Scouts of America are the focus of a most unpleasant controversy. Why, the matter has traveled all the way to the U.S. Supremist Court, where the same straight-and-narrow majority who subsequently anointed Dubya as President-Select decided that it is straight-A-okay for the Scouts to deny participation by homosexuals. Something to do with the Boy Scout creed to stay "morally straight."
Suddenly, the Arts Festival was in cahoots with the Boy Scouts. Had there been more advance notice that the money was to be divvied up in such a manner, gay organizations throughout the region might have launched a formal protest or set up a meeting with Arts Center officials to challenge their decision. But, the announcement came too close to the event, so it was up to each of us individually to take a stand.
A Boy Scout should always "Be Prepared" and I was. My plan was to stride proudly up to the turnstile, take out a dollar bill and rip away 10 percent of it before placing it in the donation plate. I would scold the representative of the Arts Center who accepted my tattered buck for choosing an anti-gay organization to support. "Look at all the gay men and women here today," I would say. "Who do you think is buying all the pink-flamingo paintings and who do you suppose is responsible for crafting those deco-style sculptures of naked men? For that matter, who do you think is posing for them?"
I would then tear off one-tenth of my entry sticker, which read, "I Support the Arts Center." I would ask to borrow a marking pen to alter the message to "I Support Bigotry." I had so many great ideas for one-man protests. Until I got there.
As I approached the first entry gate, I was stricken speechless. There stood two little boys no more than six or seven years old. Both wore neatly pressed Cub Scout uniforms, neckerchiefs and hats. They were selling admission stickers.
I had not come prepared to argue gay rights or related issues of sexual orientation with small children. So I decided to make a hasty retreat, go around the block and enter through a different gateone with adults presiding. You guessed it. At every entrance, there were more Cub Scouts.
A Scout must "Be Brave" so I decided to back off again and sneak into the show through one of the many artists' tents that lined the hilly streets. I wasn't about to pay my gay dollar without having it out with someone older than the age of eight. When I finally found an organizer, she told me that the reason the Scouts were offered money was because local dens had volunteered to help collect the money. The festival representative admitted she had read about the anti-gay controversy but said she never associated it with helping local kids. "These boys don't make the rules. This is about our own children earning a little extra money for their field trips, not about adult policymaking."
I thought back (way back) to my own days as a Cub Scouthow much the experience helped a shy little boy make friends and influenced him to get involved in community events. I still remember our field trip to the Airport Control Tower and the exhibit we set up one summer at the County Fair. We demonstrated how we could make very strong rope out of smelly Kentucky hemp. I was astonished when some older boys told me that hemp was the same kind of plant used for an illegal drug called marijuana. I said they would have to speak to our troop leader about that.
Now, several decades (and plenty of hemp) later, I wondered how I might have reacted if a visitor to our booth at the County Fair had warned me the Boy Scouts officially discriminate against an entire group of people. I knew that my Scouting handbook was the equivalent of a catechism filled with lofty ideals I pledged to uphold, so I probably would have argued that the accusation was in error.
Scouting is for everybody, I would have said, even my pal Mikey who is confined to an iron lung by polio.
As I moved through the throng at the Art Festival, I was unable to focus on the paintings or photographs. Rather, my mind kept returning to my childhood. By the time I was seven, I already had an inkling that I was attracted to certain boysnot that I had any clue as to what it was all about. In the Fifties, sex was not even a subject for playground gossip until we were a little olderroughly the age when Cub Scouts graduated into "Webelos" status. (That's when I dropped out from boredom; it seemed like all we did was tie knots). How upset might I have become and what would I have done if someone at the County Fair back then had persuaded me that official Scout policy excluded people like me from the ranks?
The woman from the Arts Center had a point in her assertion that she wouldn't want to ruin the kids' enjoyment of Scouting by involving them prematurely in concerns caused by grown-up leadership. On the other hand, shouldn't youngsters be made aware if a club they join has a policy of bigotry? Shouldn't someone alert junior Ku Klux Klan members that the group their parents have enrolled them in stands for something more than big bon fires and cool cloaks with masked hoods? The Boy Scout handbook in particular teaches members the importance of holding to high standards in life. Shouldn't the membership get in on the debate over policies of exclusion?
While struggling with these questions at the Art Festival, I apparently had stopped in my tracks. That's when they caught up with me. "Hey, mister," called a squeaky voice to my side. Two Cub Scouts, eyes wide open with enthusiasm, began their barrage. "You don't have a badge," one said. "Don't you want to help the arts?" "It's only a dollar," said the other, looking as if he might cry if I denied him the money. That's probably how I would have looked begging for bucks.
I took in a deep breath and sighed, "Sure, of course." I reached into my pocket for the dollar bill I had planned to deface. "Here you go, guys."
"Thank you," the boys said in unison, smiling as one handed me my sticker. As soon as they walked away, I tore a corner off the badge and pasted the remainder on my shirt. Then I exited the festival grounds, went home and took a long nap.
A long time Rehoboth resident, Bill Sievert is living in self-exile in Florida.
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 2, Mar. 9, 2001