“And so it would be a statement that “it’s okay” and be saying to the kids, to the boys that ‘that’s okay.’ And so for me personally, I hope they don’t do that”, said Bates.
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After years of acrimonious debate, in 2013 the Boy Scouts allowed openly gay Scouts to participate in the organization, overturning a precedent that had existed since the group’s inception.
Roger S. Oldham, the SBC Executive Committee’s vice president for Convention Communications and Relations, said the BSA Executive Board “telegraphed its goal of changing the standards for membership and leadership 30 months ago, exchanging principled courage for cultural accommodation”. “It’s best to avoid the temptation”.
But the BSA also said the change in policy would permit religiously chartered organizations to continue not doing so.
The BSA “rejects any interference with or condemnation of the diverse beliefs of chartering organizations on matters of marriage, family, and sexuality”, the memo said. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, was the first partner to sponsor Scouting in the United States. The resolution approved July 10 by the committee protects the rights of religious organizations, however, to bar gays from serving as adult leaders.
The Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign applauds the move, calling it “a welcome step toward erasing a stain on one of our nation’s most storied organizations”.
“Half measures are unacceptable and discriminatory exemptions have no place in the Boy Scouts”, Griffin said in a statement. “It’s long overdue that BSA leaders demonstrate true leadership and embrace a full national policy of inclusion that does not discriminate against anyone because of who they are”.
Prospective employees of the national organization could no longer be denied a staff position on the basis of sexual orientation. He and other Boy Scouts of America leaders said the ban was likely to be the target of lawsuits that the organization was apt to lose.
Earlier this year, for example, Walker suggested that his time in the Boy Scouts prepared him to serve as president. Speaking at the BSA’s annual meeting in May, Gates, formerly Central Intelligence Agency director and secretary of Defense, said he was not asking for immediate change. There are no representatives from Western New York on the board.
“We lead the campaign to end the Boy Scouts of America on gay youth”.
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The Scouts’ resolution was hailed by Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout raised by two lesbian moms who now heads the advocacy group Scouts for Equality.
