Take My Eagle Badge, BSA. You Made It Shameful.
Boy Scouts of America Executives:
I return and renounce my Eagle Badge and certificates with a broken heart at your and the entirety of the Boy Scouts of America unwillingness to put a single tenet of the Scout Oath or Law into practice since the inauguration of Donald Trump. Dispatching scouts to march in the January 20 parade in Washington, DC, cemented your willingness to cheerfully obey a man with no public record of thrift, kindness, courtesy, moral straightness, or mental awakeness. The events at the National Jamboree proved you would never return to your core values.

Leading up to the election and swearing in, did no one in leadership see the exposés and denunciations of Trump’s character and ideas (used as loosely as possible) published even in newspapers like the Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram? Or, as seems likely, did no one care?
Recounting the myriad failings of Trump as a leader, businessman, statesman, and person goes well beyond the scope of this letter, but I prepared a brief catalog in an earlier open letter you should read here. Had you heeded that howl into the void, I would not need to erase what had stood as one of my proudest accomplishments.
Six months of White House occupancy have only deepened even the most casual and nonpolitical observer’s knowledge of Trump’s inability to act in a trustworthy manner on the most minor matters of fact or policy, to display loyalty to his oldest and staunchest allies, or to help those Americans most in need.
The BSA leadership’s refusal to show the smallest degree of bravery in denying Trump a platform you all knew he would use as fascistic youth rally put the lie to all claim the Boy Scouts, as an organization, can make to doing its duty to country or obeying the Scout Law. Look no further than the interview your president, Randall Stephenson, gave to the Associated Press two days after Trump’s unhinged harangue.
Stephenson admitted to knowing Trump would violate every norm and ignore each nicety. He stressed how Jamboree attendees received “stringent guidelines” on meekly drinking in the bilge spewed from that West Virginia stage. He denied the existence of any effort to guide or constrain Trump from ruining things as he always does. He concluded with a condemnation not of Trump but the audience: “There were some areas where perhaps [the scouts and adult leaders] were not in compliance with what we instructed. There’s probably criticism that could be leveled.”
Stephenson blamed the Trump’s victims for getting victimized by order of the victimizer’s ready and willing abettors. Have none of you shame?
No, as proven by the nonapology Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh posted to Scoutingwire. Readers slog through three paragraphs of pablum to reach a “if you were offended” equivocation. Bravely standing up for all scouting purports to stand for would have required denying Trump an invitation. Friendliness to all views and people would have compelled cutting Trump’s microphone once he went off the rails BSA never bothered to secure in the first place.
Instead, the world witnessed reverence paid to a man who considers himself a god and received a mealy-mouthed statement intended to keep his accomplices’ consciences clear. You cannot shirk liability by invoking “longstanding traditions” of nonpartisanship and having presidents appear at quadrennial gatherings. Nor can you pretend the young people you intend to serve, teach, and shape could glean anything positive about respect, active citizenship, honor, fairness, character, or fighting for individual rights from a man who delights in misogyny, gleefully confessed to committing sexual assault, knows nothing of how the federal system he heads operates, serially bankrupts casinos despite holding literal licenses to print money, and consistently sues contractors instead of paying bills and wages.
By empowering Trump to debase the Boy Scouts and it members, you have chosen a side. The wrong side. The side of a man dedicated to destroying every good and true thing. For that reason, accept my Eagle credentials and remove my name from your rolls. Know, too, that I will strive to live the Law and Oath, sad in my understanding that the organization which inculcated those laudable values in me abandoned them wholesale.
Edward Lamb
Ex-Eagle Scout, 1988–2017
Tidewater Council of Virginia