People who want to diss Scouting often times have a caricature vision of what its about. "Scouting, that's for child molesters, right?" Well, no. There are bad people. Scouting is a source of childen. The organization must absolutely prove it works in the best interests of the innocence of youth.

As far as that goes, the question of sexuality in the program is laughable at best. At the ages Scouting serves nobody is very truthful about their sexuality and the sex pros certainly weren't Scouting it up, at least not in my troop.

A girlfriend? Notworthy material.

As a young man I worked in the innocence-friendly environment in the employ of the Boy Scouts of America with three confirmed male homosexuals and one fun-for-all freak and never once did I feel my hetersexuality do anything but flourish.

Now they say Scouting is nerdy, and it is.

Then again, all the good bad things I ever got in life, I first got through a relationship in Scouting.

Drugs? Check.

Copious alcohol-fueled weekends? Check.

First Cigarettes? Check.

First Porn? Check -- though to be fair it was on a Jamboree.

First experience with field-rigging drug paraphernalia out of easily obtainable materials: while employed with the Boy Scouts of America.

I like to throw the dirty water out to let you know that I had a real life experience, one above and beyond what Scouting provided. Scouting provides opportunity.

The number of camping days I acquired as a young man -- 78 -- is hard to touch by the life standards of my contemporaries today twenty years later, many of them no strangers to the out-of-doors.

Living. Seat-of-your-pants living for modern living I feel I obtained through the Scouts.

I know today a modicum of knots and hitches likely to cover 80% of payloads. I know that a bowline would cover many of my other sins but I can never remember which way the rabbit goes around the tree.

I had an above-average tenure with the Scouts. Plenty check in four or five times a month or less and are just sort of there and fade away.

I was fortunate to have fallen in with a great group of guys. Our leader was nothing special, just a guy who liked Scouting. Meeting place was well-appointed but only an elementary school multi-purpose room. It did offer opportunities for both a formal space as well as an activity space. We were well served.

I've met others who have had horrible times. Some were dragged into the program as wards of their church youth program and from experience those poor souls make the absolute worst Scouts and drag otherwise good souls with them.

For all the gritty crap I experienced through Scouts -- urban Washington DC 1985 -- it had its angelicly great moments.

Standing on Pioneer Point at sunrise, feeling all the other souls who had come before you and now stood on the promnitory as the suns rays first touched the valley upon us: good times. Hiking through wasteland on the island of Hawaii: Scouts. Trip to Australia: Scouts. Trip to Washington DC: Scouts. First hurricane: Scouts.

Epic moments: Drinking beer above an expedition of 100 as they settle in to sleep. The morning after some damnable ordeal to prove one's mettle to a service organization: cold, hungry, dirty, tired, tougher for the experience.

This is what we are denying youth in America.

Meals when all you have is M&Ms, pancake mix and good energy fighting the bad vibes of a hungry trip home. The encroachment of wild animals. Slogging through the rain several hours after dark to ensure everyone was as dry and happy as posible. Putting the best face on a bad situation. Working hard. Getting dirty. Leadership by example. Leadership by merit. Democracy. Moral values.

This is what we are denying modern youth in America.

"Oh, who is the savior of our ever-fattening youth, our ever-violent youth, our ever-televisioned youth? Who will defend our planet? Who will lead us from this morass?"

I hate to conflate Scouting to mystic status but the power for the program to make positive change is being lost out of fear, confusion, a lack of understanding a lack of tolerance. Like military units, the troops should be and are to a lesser extent are able to determine who and who are not members of their organization. At some point a conservative Scout might have to go to a Camporee or summer camp and be in proximity to someone they consider less than fully human, but so will they in the real world.

Which is what I believe BP was preparing us for. Secretly. So don't tell anybody.