Frustrated by an unsuccessful campaign to achieve religious
recognition from the Boy Scouts of America, a Seattle-based Wicca church has
launched its own youth program, which is based on tolerance for different
beliefs, including differences in sexual orientation.
SpiralScouts founder Pete 'Pathfinder' Davis believes that many of the things
the Boy Scouts are doing are "socially inappropriate." He said he
created to the SpiralScouts to "fill the void left by prejudicial
treatment of other established children's programs."
Davis, who serves as the Archpriest of the Wiccan Aquarian Tabernacle Church,
said his main argument with the BSA is that the group has refused to recognize
Wicca as an acceptable form of worship, but at the same time, the BSA
incorporates the symbols of myriad Christian denominations into its Religious
Emblems program.
He said the Scouts rejected a Wicca badge that was designed and submitted by a
well-known Wiccan priestess.
In 1999, Davis created the SpiralScouts as the Aquarian Tabernacle Church's
"answer" to the Boy Scouts and other youth organizations that
subscribe only to "traditional" faiths. Today, the SpiralScouts
welcomes children of all ages (four and up) and backgrounds, including Wiccans,
pagans, atheists and homosexuals.
Davis said practicing Wicca is not a mandatory activity for the 50 SpiralScout
units currently operating across the U.S., Canada and Switzerland. Beyond
fostering a respect for nature, it is up to each SpiralScout unit leader to
decide whether they will teach children the principles and philosophy of the
Wiccan religion.
The vast majority of the SpiralScout units are operated by Wiccan groups and
churches, he said.
"When we started to formalize the program, we designed it in a fashion
that it's oriented towards earth religion, but so is Scouting, whether they
realize it or not," Davis said. Unlike the "pervasive" use of
Christianity contained within the BSA, the SpiralScouts was created to
accommodate the spiritual beliefs of any minority religious group, he said.
SpiralScouts describes itself as a work in progress. It says it offers children
the opportunity to develop interpersonal and life skills and a pagan world
view, in addition to learning "the usual handicrafts of scouting and
woodland lore."
Boy Scouts dismiss rejection
According to BSA spokesman Gregg Shields, religious emblems are the property of
approved religious scouting organizations and are awarded at their own
discretion. For example, he said the National Catholic Council on Scouting and
the National Jewish Committee on Scouting each have their own unique religious
emblem.
"There is no national Wiccan organization," Shields said. "So,
that's why there is no religious award for Wiccans."
He encouraged any Wiccan group that would like to charter a troop in their
community to submit an application to their local BSA council for
consideration.
Focus on tolerance
According to the SpiralScouts membership requirements, it is imperative that
parents and leaders promote religious and cultural tolerance so their children
may learn to co-exist with society as a whole. Specifically, the group
encourages children to accept the "differing roles of male and female
throughout nature and culture."
Contrary to the Boy Scout policy of excluding homosexuals - a policy upheld by
the U.S. Supreme Court - the SpiralScouts welcomes homosexuals within its
ranks. Davis explained that the Wiccan religion accommodates homosexuals
because its philosophy is focused on the "balance of polarities" of
that exist in nature.
For example, Davis said the SpiralScouts mandates that leaders of individual
units should include both a male and a female. However, he said the rules are
flexible because some adults, such as homosexuals, "believe themselves to
be embodying masculine or feminine characteristics."
Davis believes that such a male/female balance of leadership ensures a
SpiralScout's positive integration into the real world. "Children are not
born with prejudices," he noted. "They have to learn prejudice and
intolerance from others."
Defiance of 'extreme right'
According to the group's handbook, "SpiralScouts is something new,
something perhaps of historic proportions for modern Paganism. It certainly
will have an unmistakable impact on Pagan children growing up in this era of
Christian extreme-right domination of our culture."
According to the SpiralScouts' interpretation of the pagan philosophy, children
participating in the program will learn to honor "both the maleness and
femaleness we all harbor within us," as the handbook put it.
"Perhaps, if we are lucky, even a few parents who may need some brushing
up on these same skills may reap benefits just from being there with the
children while the kids learn these things."