Be prepared?

The Scout Law calls on boys and young men (and now girls and young women) to be, among other things, brave. Many scouts choose bravery as a career once they become adults—signing up to serve in the United States military. Eagle Scouts in particular are a ready source of recruits to the nation’s service academies.

That’s why a recent multi-month dispute between the Pentagon and scouting has been such a big deal for both organizations. The Department of War and Scouting America announced a new agreement that will force major changes in scouting as a condition of keeping its privileged access to America’s military resources. It comes after a public statement from the Pentagon’s top spokesman disclosing that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was readying to cut Scouting off from its longstanding relationship with the U.S. armed forces.

According to previously leaked documents, a draft memorandum to Congress explained the secretary’s view that Scouting America no longer “cultivate[s] masculine values” or protects “boy-friendly spaces.” “Scouting America has undergone a significant transformation. It is no longer a meritocracy which holds its members accountable to meet high standards,” the draft memo said.

Those concerns remain real, but they might be ameliorated in the new deal between the Department and Scouting America. Most importantly, Scouting America will no longer offer the “Citizenship in Society” merit badge, which was required to become an Eagle Scout and was basically an indoctrination in the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Scouting will also launch a new merit badge, Military Service, designed in conjunction with the Pentagon. And Scouting will recognize only two genders—male and female—and treat scouts based on the gender designated on their birth certificate.

The fact that we’ve reached this point is sad. Twenty-five years ago, scouting itself chose to be brave. At a time of intense cultural pressure, the Boy Scouts of America went all the way to the United States Supreme Court to protect the organization’s right to define its leadership standards for itself. In BSA v. Dale, the Supreme Court agreed, saying the First Amendment protected the group’s right to express its own message, including through the selection of its leaders.

In more recent years, the national Boy Scouts organization has been, well, less countercultural. First, the organization allowed homosexual leaders. Then, it decided to allow girls who identified as boys to enroll as boys, and then it allowed girls in general into membership. Once girls came in, the name had to go, and so the Boy Scouts of America rebranded as Scouting America. These changes came with a cost: the Latter-Day Saints exited Scouting en masse, and many conservatives, Catholics, and evangelicals did as well, either individually or as churches and schools.

As an Eagle Scout myself, I truly enjoyed my experience in scouting. My two sons are now in a scout troop, where they find fellowship, camaraderie, adventure, and positive adult role models. There are many good troops and packs still operating at the local level.

At the same time, I’m sympathetic to Secretary Hegseth’s critique. We live in an era of widespread gender confusion, and the national organization’s decision to change in a fundamental way cost us one of the few remaining institutions that was a dedicated space for boys. Every boy needs a path to manhood, complete with male role models, companions, increasing levels of responsibility, and affirmation and encouragement through difficult teenage years. Boy Scouts provided that for millions of boys over the years.

I know there are girls out there who feel let down by Girl Scouts and left out of Boy Scouts. They want to hike, camp, shoot guns, and mountain bike, and the Girl Scouts program feels too much like a 1950s course in home economics. I feel for them, but I wish the solution would have been to see Girl Scouts evolve to include more options for different interests, or to see a whole new style of scouting sprout up that served these students.

Instead, the Boy Scouts are gone, and I’m doubtful a single deal with the Pentagon will fix the problem. We often say, “Go woke and go broke” to Fortune 500 companies that choose to join Bud Lite, Target, and Cracker Barrel by taking sides in the culture wars. Scouting has been dealing with the consequences of its choices. These changes are a step back in the right direction, but there is a long way to go.