Scouting for All’s annual fundraising drive

Scouting for All, the Petaluma, CA-based organization fighting discrimination against gays and atheists in the Boy Scouts of America, has started its annual fundraising drive.

Below is a letter from one of Scouting for All’s co-founders, 21 year old, straight, Eagle Scout Steven Cozza:

To Our Scouting for All Supporters / Members

We are asking for your financial support to help our organization continue its educational and advocacy outreach, reaching out to gay (GLBT & Q) youth in our attempt to get the Boy Scouts of America to rescind its harmful and discriminatory policy against gay and atheist youth and adults. Please read Steven’s letter below and make a contribution. Scouting for All is a 501(C)(3)Charitable Nonprofit, so all donations are tax deductible. You can also go to http://www.scoutingforall.org/ and off our temporary homepage you can donate through paypal. If you could pledge a regular donation through paypal it would be most appreciated. All of our staff are grassroots volunteers. So all donations go to direct service.

Scouting for All’s 2006 Annual Fundraiser

Dear Supporter of Scouting for All,
My name is Steven Cozza, Eagle Scout. What I said last year remains true this year. I am now 21 years old. In 1997, when I was 12, I took a stand against the Boy Scouts of America because of its discrimination against gays and atheists. My advocacy inspired the creation of Scouting for All. Donations from supporters like you have helped us in our efforts to convince the Boy Scouts of America to end its discrimination. Each year, Scouting for All conducts an annual fund-raiser. It is that time of year again, and Scouting for All needs your financial support. I am writing to ask you to stand with us again by making a contribution to Scouting for All’s annual fund-raising campaign for 2006. This is Scouting for All’s only fund-raising event of the year.

We have come a long way over these last nine years. In fact, we have had a number of gay youth and several gay adults who have told us that Scouting for All saved their lives by letting them know that there is an organization which advocates for their civil rights and conveys a message that being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered is normal. I am not giving up on my efforts to stand against the discrimination by the Boy Scouts of America, and I’m also asking you not to give up! We should all continue to maintain the vision of social justice for everyone and strive to reach that vision’s goals of liberty and justice for all. The BSA discriminates against my gay and atheist friends. Its policy of discrimination hurts people and teaches my fellow Scouts to discriminate. As an Eagle Scout, I’m actually ashamed of the current national leaders of the Boy Scouts of America. They are ruining a good program that was meant to include all youth, not just some youth. It is also important to understand that when we stand up against the bigotry of the BSA we are also standing up against the bigotry of other institutions in our society. When we say homophobia, sexism and discrimination against one’s belief within the BSA is wrong, we are saying these “isms” are wrong for all of our public institutions including the military. The BSA is not a religious institution. It’s by-laws say it is nonsectarian. We support the right of two people of the same sex who love each other to marry, adopt and should have the same rights that are afforded to all in our society. Our race, religion / nontheist, gender, sexual orientation are differences we should embrace. They make up the beautiful rainbow of the human family.

When Lord Robert Baden-Powell founded the Scouting movement in 1907, and I am sure that he would never have supported discrimination against gay or atheist youth or adults. He wanted Scouting to accept all kids. Most scouting organizations in the world do not discriminate against gays, girls or atheists. Why does the BSA? The Boy Scouts of America should represent the very best in us as a nation, but its current national leaders choose to embrace the very worst: bigotry, discrimination, sexism and homophobia. The BSA’s policy of discrimination really hurts kids, both gay and heterosexual.

The leading cause of death for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth is suicide because they experience rejection from society. As an Eagle Scout I hold organizations like the Boy Scouts of America and individuals like President Bush who is the Honorary President of the BSA and who condones the BSA’s bigotry by remaining silent accountable for the high LGBT & Q youth suicide rate. A college student, Matthew Shepard was murdered a few years ago by an Eagle Scout and a Mormon, because he was gay. Homophobic institutions do play a role in causing hate crimes. Scouting for All works every day to challenge the BSA’s policy of discrimination and by doing so we challenge all institutions in America that discriminate including President Bush, who says “No child left behind”, but he leaves gay and atheist youth behind. Scouting for All continues to be very successful in lobbying the United Way and other funding organizations around the country to end their funding of the BSA. Nearly one-third of the funding that formerly went to the BSA through the United Way has been diverted to other nondiscriminatory organizations. Yet, we still have much more work to do.

Scouting for All has many educational activities and outreach programs. These include maintaining our Internet web site, http://www.scoutingforall.org/; providing consultations to BSA members, religious groups, governmental bodies, schools, businesses and the United Way; providing support to Gay-Straight Alliance Clubs in high schools; organizing protests at BSA events, including its annual BSA National Council meeting; participating in gay-pride events; providing support to gay and atheist or nontheistic scouts and leaders; creating and distributing literature from Scouting for All; speaking at national and regional conferences, including PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and the NGLTF (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force); organizing our Annual National Recognition of GLBT Youth and Gay and Atheist Scout Month in October, which includes rallies, fund-raisers and celebrations for GLBT youth and a global essay contest for ages 11 - 18; and coordinating Scouting for All’s Alliance for Human Rights. We are reaching out to our current President of the United States asking him to take a stand against the intolerance of the Boy Scouts of America by stepping down as the Honorary President of the BSA. We will also work to get Congress to revoke the BSA’s congressional charter. We are currently working with Gus Van Sant , film director to create a movie about my advocacy and Scouting for All that will give an affirming and empowering message to LGBT and Q youth and provide a normalizing message to the general public about what it means to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or atheist including other nontheists.

As the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Please support Scouting for All with a generous, tax-deductible donation. We are a 501©) (3), charitable, nonprofit organization.

On behalf of my family and the entire Scouting for All organization, I want to thank you in advance for helping us to make the world a better place for all people. In this time of darkness in America, let us all become lights of hope for fostering healing social change, peace and justice. Strength and compassion lie within our own hearts not to turn and walk away, but to step forth and be counted.

Sincerely,
Steven Cozza, Eagle Scout
Cofounder of Scouting for All
SCOUTING FOR ALL’S
2006 ANNUAL FUND-RAISER
Thank you for your support!

I hope you all will consider giving to Scouting for All. When I was 14 and when I was dismissed from the Scouting program for being gay I thought that I was the only one. If it had not have been for Scouting for All, Steven Cozza and his father Scott, I would have never become as active publicly as young as I did. Scouting for All was definitely one of the organizations which helped me to know that I was not alone and that I could do something to help change what had happened to me, so that no other young boy would have to experience it again.

Help them out: www.scoutingforall.org

Posted in Boy Scouts, LGBT, LGBT Youth, Politics, Religion, Sexuality, United States |