Mark Hanock, the CEO of the Boy Scouts of America alternative group known as Trail Life USA, said he is saddened to see what has become of the competitor.
The Boy Scouts of America recently announced that it was changing its name to Scouting America to be more inclusive.
The decision garnered a ton of responses of those who were furious with the decision, including Hanock.
“We are saddened by the Scouts’ continued challenge to the truth that boys and girls are different and deserve different programs,” he said in a press release. “Trail Life USA remains committed to recognizing the unique design of boys through our proven process that is growing them into godly men.”
“Organizations like the Boy Scouts that previously upheld the uniqueness and wonder of boyhood have abandoned the male-centric environment that for centuries was the key to awakening the hearts of boys and men as, together, they experienced adventure, nurtured faith, and grew to become the men God called them to be,” the CEO said.
“Boys and girls deserve unique programs created with their specific needs in mind,” he said.
“Trail Life isn’t just a Christian alternative to the Boy Scouts; it’s an answer to the deep crisis affecting boys in America,” the CEO said.
“While the Boy Scouts abandon their traditional boy-centered roots, we are dedicated to providing boys and their families a space that is geared towards boys,” he said.
Ainsley Earhardt, co-host of Fox & Friends, invited fellow Fox hosts Will Cain and Pete Hegseth to discuss recent changes made by a 114-year-old institution to become more inclusive. Both hosts expressed disappointment over the institution’s policy changes.
“Well, the Boy Scouts has been cratering itself for quite some time. You see this, this is an institution the left didn’t control. They didn’t want to improve it. They wanted to destroy it or dilute it into something that stood for nothing. So five years ago, the Boy Scouts let in girls, which was basically the end of Boy Scouts. And Boy Scouts has had a problem anyway, there was a sexual assault scandal, abuse scandal, which was a real problem that it had never really dealt with very well,” Hegseth said.
“That contributed to it as well. But ultimately, this was what you call a, what do they call it, ‘involuntary association’ or ‘intermediate institution.’ These are things in Middle America, in between us and the government, like churches, like Boy Scouts, like youth groups, like the Lions Club, that are really the richness of the community. And a lot of them have lost what they stand for. And as a result, the government gets more powerful to fill the void. This is a tragedy. Young kids won’t have the opportunity to learn these skills, but more importantly, the values. And they did it to themselves,” Hegseth added.
Cain then offered a similar perspective.
“Yeah, so, they’re dead. The Boy Scouts are dead. It no longer exists. It’s now just “scouting.” And it’s pretty, asymmetrical, I think. You know, quick research shows that Girl Scouts don’t allow boys. So if the Girl Scouts don’t allow the boys, but the Boy Scouts are in pursuit of inclusion, am I to be, the takeaway is that the Girl Scouts is not a welcoming environment,” Cain began.
“It’s maybe even bigoted because the Girl Scouts won’t let in boys. And maybe they’ll follow my path here and actually drop ‘girls’” from the name and they’ll just be scouts too. And they’ll be Scouting and Scouts, and you won’t know which is which. And that’s kind of the goal in the end. We won’t know which is which, because we can’t differentiate between the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts,” Cain added.
He concluded: “And maybe some Scout will come sell you cookies and you won’t know, ‘Hey, [are] these Girl Scout cookies?’ I don’t know, we can’t call them Girl Scout cookies. They’re just cookies. And it’s like, ‘Oh, we already have cookies. But I thought these were Girl Scout cookies?’ And everything just becomes the same, Ainsley: Blah, in pursuit of inclusion. It’s sad. It’s really sad. It is the death of the Boy Scouts. Hey, we do need spaces. It’s not bigoted to say some spaces are for boys, some spaces are for girls. We do need our spaces.”
