GWEN IFILL: So that means that conversations will continue between you and people who agree with you and with these church organizations? “I so cherished the program”.
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Zach Wahls is the executive director of Scouts for Equality. “Gay fathers wanting to participate in their sons” Boy Scouts experience will still be told “no’ throughout the U.S”. “At camp. At the church, in his vehicle”.
Only about 15 children a year are eligible to donate hands, so doctors weren’t sure when one would become available. If otherwise qualified, a gay adult would be eligible to serve as a Scoutmaster or unit leader.
The Boy Scouts’ National Executive Board voted Monday to remove the restriction on LBGT adults from serving as leaders.
“Several conservative states have retreated from religious freedom legislation – most recently Indiana and Arkansas – due to the business community wanting to avoid appearing anti-gay”, the Boy Scouts’ memo noted.
Williams, a Westerleigh resident, said he believes the change took so long because of “the dynamics of Scouting throughout the country, and while New York is progressive other parts of the country are not so progressive”. Southern Baptist leaders are in discussions about establishing a denomination-wide relationship with Trail Life USA, he said. She says discrimination of any kind is never OK and that the Boy Scouts lifting the ban is truly a stand for justice.
A lot of scout troops are sponsored by churches. “It’s the best youth program that’s ever been invented”.
The Boy Scout’s president said the move to lift the ban was inevitable. He gauged the mentalities of officials on the inside and waited until they were ready to implement change.
Our belief has always been that Scouting is stronger when it has a more diverse representation in its members.
At Boy Scout headquarters in Texas, reaction to the Mormons’ declaration was muted.
The Mormon Church, which sponsors more scout units than any other organization, released a statement saying it was “deeply troubled” by the decision.
Mormon church leaders said Tuesday that they wouldn’t expect any comment until August, when their full leadership regroups. “So if in selecting adult leaders, their faith says that they do not want openly gay leaders, that’s their choice”. But it praised the assurances of Scout leaders that despite the new policy on openly gay leaders, local church-based units will remain free to select volunteer leaders who share their religious principles. “No church will be required to accept any volunteer as a Scout leader simply because of the new policy”.
Until we get further direction from the church, all the hypothesis in the world is just that. “My concern is whether that right will be upheld”.
“It happened many times”, McDonough said.
Eric Hetland, a 25-year-old Eagle Scout from Aurora, Illinois, had no interest in waiting. He created the League of Woodcraft Indians, one of the recognized ancestors of the Boy Scouts of America, and co-wrote the first Boy Scouts of America handbook.
The Boy Scouts should be a “big tent”, he said. He also received a kidney transplant.
In May, Gates said recent events “have confronted us with urgent challenges I did not foresee and which we cannot ignore” and warned that maintaining the ban “will be the end of us as a national movement”.
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“This decision strengthens Scouting and strengthens America”.
