[15339] in APO-L
APO, Scouting, etc.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Oz, the Great and Terrible,)
Thu Nov 7 18:36:02 1996
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 18:34:41 -0500
Reply-To: "Oz, the Great and Terrible," <gt6978b@PRISM.GATECH.EDU>
From: "Oz, the Great and Terrible," <gt6978b@PRISM.GATECH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
Bravely and without thought to personal injury, Glen Barnhill said:
> I'm about to stated a very unpopural opinion: APO is not for everybody.
> (I think I will add my disclaimer here and now. What I write is my opinion
> and it does not reflex the opinion of my Chapter or anyone else.) If you
> are not committed to Service, Leardership and Friendship the this in not
> the place for you *period*. If you don't like the "Princlpes of the Boy
> Scouts of America as embobied in the Scout Oath and Law" then this is not
> the place for you.
I pledged APO, not the Boy Scouts (Okay, so I did join the Boy Scouts when
I was in 8th grade, but that didn't last). I hold a deep, personal
objection to the Boy Scouts requirement of Reverence. Many people now
interpret this as being synonamous with Respect, which I would support.
However, it seems apparent to me that the BSA do not hold to that
particular definition, and instead require a belif in a diety. If you
wish to believe in a god, that's your decision, I'll respect that. But
when I seem (hopefully mistakenly) to hear that this is a requirement for
being a good brother in APO, I become worried. I experience more than my
share of prejudice already without having to fear that it will come from
my brothers.
> As an American I have the right to hold any set of biefs and opinions.
> Furthermore, I have the right to form groups that refect my opinions. My
> point, what gives you (in the most general case) the right to join my
> organization and change it. If you didn't like what the organization
> stands for start your own organization that refects YOUR opinions and
> values and don't change my group because I like it the way it was in the
> past and the way it is now (for the most part but I want get into that
> here) and I want it to stay that way in the future.
Since when did APO become your sole province. As a brother, APO is just
as much mine as it is yours.
> Please understand I respect all Brothers regardless of there opinions. A
> hope nobody takes what I have state personally because it what not ment to
> offened anyone.
Yours in Leadership, Friendship, and Service,
Charlie Smith
Pledge Trainer and Parlimentarian
Gamma Zeta
Georgia Institute of Technology.
--
"[The] whole struggle in this country to give equal rights and equal
privileges to all citizens of the United States has been an unpopular one;
that we have been forced to struggle against passions and prejudices
engendered by generations of wrong and oppression."
Sen. Henry Wilson (R) c.1868
