The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizenship without recognizing an obligation to God. ...the member declares, "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law." The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members.
In our house, the largest part of the education of our kids is to teach them how to think for themselves. This includes making their own decisions about religion. My kid choose to be agnostic/atheistic in spite of close family members who aren't (meaning that no one has inculcated them one way or another). They looked at the question from different perspectives and made up their own minds. IMO, teaching kids to weigh evidence before making any decision --- including whether or not to join the Boy Scouts --- is an essential part of any education, and it plays to the strengths of the gifted mind.
The Boy Scouts and their policy are blatantly discriminatory. Their official policy is that my kids can't join and be honest about their beliefs. If they had joined and hidden their beliefs, they would have been subjected to a message telling them they they weren't worthy. My kids understand this fact.
I'm deeply disturbed by an organization that tells children that they can't be "the best kind of citizens" if they don't believe in a god. I've talked to my kids about this kind of idea and the message it sends. We used it as a basis for talking about discrimination, and how people couch their prejudices in terms that describe the disfavored group as the one that's doing wrong, and is therefore deserving of discrimination or of being excluded ("he's a second-rate citizen because [insert random trait]"). We also discussed (still discuss) how this kind of thinking can lead people to justify all manner of harmful acts, from the mundane to the extreme ("can you think of other groups who were or are classified as not being the right kind of citizens, and what happened to them?"). Understanding how prejudice can drive behavior helps my kids understand the world they live in.
Personally, my feeling is that the scouting brand of prejudice inculcation is far from "wholesome," though it is a banal sort of thing. But that is my opinion.
