posted July 22, 2005
I grew up in Maryville at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Every Monday night, all year long, as soon as I was 11 years old, we went down to the new Providence Presbyterian Church at 7 p.m. for a meeting of Troop 88 of the Boy Scouts of America. There wasn't a lot of nonsense at those meetings. It started at 7 and was over at 8 p.m. Our primary goal was to get organized for outdoor activities. At least once a month we were away from the church and were very active. Most often, we went into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Sometimes we went down the road to the Cherokee National Forest.
I can remember on several occasions when we went to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was a source of great wonderment to us that close to the end of World War II. Sometimes we went to Knoxville to the Tennessee Valley Authority, another government agency known worldwide. We also went to the Air Force base several times, another federal installation. We learned a lot from those experiences.
There are a lot of state and local government places we would go in Troop 88. Sometimes we met at West Side Elementary School or Maryville High School. Sometimes we went to the courthouse. I remember seeing a great attorney, Ray Jenkins, waving a bloody wrench in his hand trying to convict a murderer as a special prosecutor in a family dispute. I was cowering behind the jury box watching this great lawyer carry on. We were there in a public building. Sometimes we camped in the city parks. Sometimes we went to the state parks.
My point is that all of these places we went in Troop 88, whether it was the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, or any of the others I mentioned, those are public places. Ever since the Supreme Court made its decision in the Boy Scouts of America v. Dale case, the relationship of the Boy Scouts of America with government at all levels has been the target of multiple lawsuits.
That is why I am proud to support a bill that Senator Bill Frist introduced called the Save Our Scouts Act of 2005.
It makes no sense whatsoever to restrict, in any way, the Boy Scouts from using national parks, national forests, the Oak Ridge Laboratory, Air Force bases, state parks and city parks.
What do the Boy Scouts do? I tell you what it did for me. It tried to build some character. I can still say the words: Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind...There are 12 of them. I did not always live up to them, but they were taught to me.
The Boy Scouts taught me about my country. I earned my God and Country award before I got my Eagle Scout. It taught me about this country and what it means to be an American. It taught me to love the great American outdoors, which I have always kept and imparted to my children because we spent almost every weekend in the Great Smoky National Park or Cherokee National Forest.
I don't want the young men of the day and their volunteer leaders to be kept out of the Great Smokies, and the TVA, and the schools, and the city parks.
This is a very important piece of legislation. In this country today, most people would say, when looking at our children, there is nothing they need more than mentors, and the Boy Scouts, just like the Girl Scouts, provide that. Look at our schools today. Our worst score of high school seniors is in U.S. history. At least in the Boy Scouts you learn something about the principles that unite us as Americans.
Our outdoors are under constant threat. In the Boy Scouts of America, we are constantly building tens of thousands of young men who love the outdoors, know how to take care of it, have an environmental ethic and use that for the rest of their lives.
I am glad we have a majority leader who is a Boy Scout. I am glad we have more than half the Senate who are cosponsors of this legislation. I hope the result of this legislation will remove any doubt that federal agencies may welcome Boy Scouts to hold meetings and go camping on federal property, just as we did. And it says to state and local governments that in denying equal access to the public venues to scouts, they will risk some of their federal funds if they continue to do that.
The Boy Scouts of America is one of the preeminent valuable organizations in this country, and I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the Support Our Scouts Act of 2005.
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