The Boy Scouts of America’s executive committee just voted unanimously to drop its rule against gay leaders. The decision has to be ratified by a larger group, but it probably will be. I would just like to note that I predicted that this would happen in “a couple of years” back in May of 2013 when they dropped the restriction for youth members. (See #11 in http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1508478-boy-scouts-change-policy-on-gay-youth-p1.html.) Since the earth hasn’t swallowed them up in the interim, they are ready to take the next step.
It appears that they will let the “chartering organizations” set standards for leaders, but that BSA operations won’t discriminate. Some people may think that doesn’t go far enough, but it’s consistent with the structure of BSA, in which the individual units are “owned” by chartering organizations, many of which are churches. I predict there will be many, many units in which gay adult leaders will be welcomed.
I think this result sheds some light on the always difficult question of whether to seek change in an organization from the inside or not. In this case, change did come from within–in response to social changes, obviously, but not as a result of any specific outside pressure.
It’s a shame it took this long, and I predict some groups will leave over this decision, but glad it happened. There is a local troop with some members who go to the church where I work that was led by a gay man. He was kicked out, the troop opted to leave scouting rather than accept a “proper” leader. They work with some other organization now. The former leader has said they’d all look into coming back to the BS. Now if only they’d address the atheist issue.
I stopped buying any fundraiser items from the BSA long ago. While I felt bad that those cute little scouts selling popcorn were the ones to suffer, I just couldn’t support the organization with their existing rules regarding homosexuality. Now if they can just do something about the religion aspect…
I pulled my son from scouts when he was just in first grade because of their policies against gays (and atheists.)
I remember having to explain it to him and used our hairdresser as an example - how he couldn’t be in scouts because he was gay and I didn’t think that was right.
I totally ticked off our church youth group leader a few years ago. Our church group doubled as a venture crew ( leader heavily into scouting) and I chose not to join scouts. On the other hand a local Catholic congregation tossed their troop out of the building when BSA began to allow gay scouts…
I struggled with whether to keep S in scouts, but I figured we had more of a voice in demanding change from inside rather than outside. Also, our troop/council has always been reasonable about this - we’ve had many gay boys and I suspect some gay leaders. Only sexual problems I’ve ever heard of were some camp counselors getting in trouble for having (heterosexual) make-out sessions.
I’m waiting for all the cries of “But a gay man tenting with a boy - oh the humanity”. I point those people to the Youth Protection Policy. Any troop allowing ANY adult to tent with youth should immediately lose its charter. There are strict protection policies in place primarily to protect the boys, but also to protect leaders from false accusations.
I hope the religious exemption eventually goes away as well - it’s been a gradual process. Although (and I’m a Catholic) I find it amusing that the Catholic Church is concerned about protecting youth from Boy Scout leaders.
I think many units were “don’t ask, don’t tell” about this for years. People within the organization were polled about it a few years ago–I suspect the results showed that younger members (both youth and leaders) wanted the change.
The religion issue is harder. BSA was conceived as a non-sectarian, but religious organization. The fact that it recognizes all religions makes it hard for people to grasp why it doesn’t recognize no religion. Since it stopped having public entities (like schools) as chartering organizations, there really won’t be much legal pressure for it to make that additional change. It’s certainly true, though, that religion plays a very minor role in many units, so the arguments for keeping the restriction aren’t very strong. They may eventually figure out a way to say a scout is “reverent” without believing in a higher power per se.
The last of the Gs is girls (the three Gs were the three big issues facing BSA: gays, God, and girls). That’s the hardest item of all, because of the existence of the Girl Scouts, which are quite different and would probably not want to merge with BSA.
Unfortunately, this ongoing bigotry tarnishes the achievements of participants. Do you want to show Eagle Scout on your resume? Some people might be see you as achieving a high level in a bigoted organization. Would you show achievement of a high level in an anti-Semitic, or anti-African American organization? Would you represent yourself as a member of a Whites-only organization?
Hopefully, the BSA will finally do the right thing and admit gay and atheist members.
Well, I think the discrimination against gay people is about to end, at least with respect to the national organization. With respect to atheists, I’ve pointed out before that nobody would criticize a Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or Muslim organization that excluded people who didn’t follow the faith of that organization. I don’t think that would be called bigotry. I also don’t think it’s bigotry to start a non-sectarian but religious organization. People assume that Boy Scouts is all about camping and hiking, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Whether religion is central is debatable, of course.
Just to update that BSA did indeed follow the lead of its executive committee and dropped the prohibition of gay leaders. The next big question is whether the Mormon church will now pull out of BSA as a result.