After threatening to sever ties with Scouting America and kick the youth group off military bases worldwide, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday gave a six-month reprieve to the organization formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America.
Hegseth made the announcement in a video posted to X, framing it as an ultimatum to Scouting to conform to the Trump administration’s anti-DEI agenda. He detailed his many criticisms of the group, saying Scouts had “lost their way” by changing the organization’s name and “watering down” what he called “the focus on God as the ruler of the universe.”
He accused the Scouts of promoting “an insidious, radical, woke ideology that is anti-America and anti-American.”
From reading other articles and pieces from people associated with Scouts, while they don’t get any money from the government, that isn’t to say they don’t get perks.
$1/yr leases for public land, access to property/equipment, logistical support/medical staffing for the Jamboree, jet flyovers, etc that help them stretch their funds or provide things they would t be able to access without the government’s support.
The Jamboree is a 10 day event this July, so all that staffing provided by the gov is probably a huge expense, and if Hegseth pulled all that now or in the future, they’d be screwed. So essentially, this is coercion to get what they want.
I think Scouting America should reverse any kind of concessions they made immediately after the Jamboree, and tell these monsters that they’ll just wait them out, thank you very much, because the next Jamboree is in 2030.
I’d say anyone not planning to get screwed by this administration is doing their people a disservice.
I am happy to see the Scouts give some push back. It frankly seems more than some leaders/countries are willing to do.