Aaronic Priesthood or Scouting?

At a Little Philmont training I attended last Saturday, a Brother Allen from the LDS church department of risk management said that one of the most troubling things he hears is "well, we don't want to have to do all that paperwork (or training, or whatever) so we'll just call this an Aaronic Priesthood activity and not a Scouting activity."

I'm sure we've all heard that before. That same approach is used to justify activities that are prohibited by the Guide to Safe Scouting. My answer to that has always been that you cannot separate Scouting and the Priesthood. If it is an Aaronic Priesthood activity, it is a Scouting activity. I've also always tried to follow the rule of thumb that you follow whichever rules are more strict.

Brother Allen's answer to this issue was a little different. His answer is, "Why would you want to do that? Why would you not want to take advantage of all the resources and training and help the BSA makes available to you? Why would you want to expose yourself and the church to that liability? Why would you want to?"

I thought that was a pretty good answer.