It also kept me more in the closet with regards to my belief in no god when I heard that it could block me from getting Eagle (which I did get).
I had similar reservations in my troop. But during my Eagle Scout Master Conference, I told him flatly that I was an atheist and also talked about my philosophy – such as it can be for a teenager – around ethics and morals and community. I still got my Eagle Scout rank. This was back in 2007 and, if I recall correctly, there was already some rumbling about how the BSA might start loosening its rigid religiosity. So perhaps at that point it wasn’t a big deal anymore. Or perhaps he just stayed mum on the matter and/or filed whatever paperwork he needed to with the “right” boxes checked.
Nice to see that your Scout Master was understanding of the “spirit” of the whole thing and not just a “by the book” kind of person. I think that the fact that you came with thought-out reasons and everything showed that you weren’t just being an angsty teen rebelling. They also may have still done the whole “this may be a phase and shouldn’t block the one shot at getting this” in their head. Which even if that were the case, would still be a much better situation than forcing shit on you. I got mine in 2002 which was a very different time from any version of “loosening up”. Just thinking of some of the open homophobia that was just “normal” makes me ashamed of just going along with it (I am a cis white male, but I really never hated the LGBTQIA+ community and just did the kid/teenager thing of not wanting to be the one being picked on). The worst people about it were the uber religious kids or otherwise ones that made fun of things they never interact with (like how lots of former racists talk about when they learned everyone is people regardless of skin).
I had similar reservations in my troop. But during my Eagle Scout Master Conference, I told him flatly that I was an atheist and also talked about my philosophy – such as it can be for a teenager – around ethics and morals and community. I still got my Eagle Scout rank. This was back in 2007 and, if I recall correctly, there was already some rumbling about how the BSA might start loosening its rigid religiosity. So perhaps at that point it wasn’t a big deal anymore. Or perhaps he just stayed mum on the matter and/or filed whatever paperwork he needed to with the “right” boxes checked.
Nice to see that your Scout Master was understanding of the “spirit” of the whole thing and not just a “by the book” kind of person. I think that the fact that you came with thought-out reasons and everything showed that you weren’t just being an angsty teen rebelling. They also may have still done the whole “this may be a phase and shouldn’t block the one shot at getting this” in their head. Which even if that were the case, would still be a much better situation than forcing shit on you. I got mine in 2002 which was a very different time from any version of “loosening up”. Just thinking of some of the open homophobia that was just “normal” makes me ashamed of just going along with it (I am a cis white male, but I really never hated the LGBTQIA+ community and just did the kid/teenager thing of not wanting to be the one being picked on). The worst people about it were the uber religious kids or otherwise ones that made fun of things they never interact with (like how lots of former racists talk about when they learned everyone is people regardless of skin).