I was an Eagle Scout. I use the past tense because I don't like to associate myself with the Boy Scouts these days. For a while, I did what all the scoutmasters said and stuck "Eagle Scout" on my resume. Mostly as a joke, as my work experience and personal appearance don't quite fit the mold of what most folks think of in an Eagle Scout.

I put up with the jokes. Particularly the ones about "eager" scoutmasters on long camping trips. I had a goal. I achieved that goal. I moved on. Well, almost. I also won a National Eagle Scout Scholarship. $3,500 toward a year of school. Not bad.

Scouting has a lot of good things to offer boys. On its website, the Boy Scouts of America says it has programs to offer boys who live in suburbs, on farms and in cities. That order is telling. It helps to explain how the organization has evolved away from its roots and into the periphery of American life.

My troop in Kansas City dates back to the first years of Scouting. We had a strange mix of boys, some from the area near the church in the city, a few from the suburbs and some who had been sent there on juvie probation. Our scoutmasters were less concerned with literal interpretation of the Scout Law and Oath and more with simply providing an outdoor outlet for boys who had very little chance to experience camping and the like.

By the way, this is one of the reasons Robert Baden-Powell started Scouting in England. At least, the "bringing the city boys to the country" was what I was told and what I read in the Boy Scout Handbook some 20 years ago. Interestingly, this angle is downplayed in the current BSA literature, which now says that boys were reading Baden-Powell's military survivalist manual and he created Scouting as a civilian alternative. He's dead, so we can't ask him which (if not both) was true.

I learned a lot during my four-year stint as a Boy Scout. I had my first extended camping experiences, learned that I could shoot a gun pretty damned well and also cultivated my love of running water. One merit badge required that I sit in one place and write down what I observed. I filled an entire bluebook while sitting at the confluence of two minor creeks.

I also learned things about people. One of my Scoutmasters was a Catholic who had gotten divorced. He wasn't allowed to take communion, but still he remained a Catholic. In fact, he thought his divorce was a pretty good idea, necessary even, but still he submitted to the will of his church. That didn't make much sense to me then, but more and more I see the wisdom in his persistence. If you believe in the overall goals of a group, it is better to stay within and work than simply quit.

That's why I hadn't severed my ties to the Boy Scouts. For quite some time, I've felt that I wouldn't want any son of mine in that organization, but I kept hoping the national office would foster some move back to the mainstream of the nation. At least, back to a stream where I could comfortably board.

Instead, they've fought this stupid battle over allowing "avowed" homosexuals to be Boy Scouts.

The BSA likes to make much of its Congressional charter, of having Presidents serve as honorary leaders, etc. One its largest streams of cash comes from the United Way, which is as close to a public charity as this country knows. But it argued to the courts that it is a private organization and thus has the right to exclude whoever it wants. The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, agreed.

And so the Boy Scouts join the ranks of groups like country clubs that refuse to admit Blacks or Jews. Using words eerily similar to those issued by the directors of the Augusta National Golf Club before finally allowing a Black member a few years back, the BSA crows that "our standards of membership have been sustained."

The rationale for barring "avowed" homosexuals (a rather weird term) comes from a strange reading of the Scout Law and Oath. Specifically, the BSA referred to the "morally straight" clause of the Oath. The law, which is merely "A Scout is" followed by 12 words, is even more vague. My guess is that the BSA is talking about the "clean" part of the law, which we were always taught meant you don't have sex before marriage.

Morally straight. They can't be so silly as to think that "straight" means heterosexual. But maybe they are. At this point, I just don't care any more.

I've held off cutting my ties to the organization, mostly because of the example of my Kansas City scoutmaters. But I've written letters (all unanswered, even when I pointed out that I am an Eagle Scout and all) and I simply cannot countenance this brazen bigotry any more. I'm tired of it. I can no longer claim my Eagle Scout rank with pride or even affection. Now it just makes me angry.

I am an Eagle Scout no longer.

Jon Worley wished he had an actual badge to cut up and send to the national headquarters in Dallas, but in its absence he just sent a letter. He would also like to echo every single one of Michael Maiello's thoughts. Hell hath no fury like a former Scout scorned.