Boy Scouts Panel Adopts Resolution To Allow Gay Scout Leaders

[Not a Tailor 1,370]

The executive committee of the Boy Scouts of America has unanimously adopted a resolution that would allow gay adults to serve as Scout leaders, ending a longstanding ban on gay leaders in the organization.

"This resolution will allow chartered organizations to select adult leaders without regard to sexual orientation, continuing Scouting's longstanding policy of chartered organizations selecting their leaders," the Boy Scouts of America said in a statement. The vote was held last Friday, and the organization announced the results Monday.

The organization's National Executive Board will meet July 27 to ratify the resolution. The Boy Scouts attributed the resolution to "rapid changes in society and increasing legal challenges at the federal, state, and local levels."

The move comes months after Robert Gates, the president of the Boy Scouts of America, called on the organization to reassess its ban on gay adults, saying, "We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be."

The former CIA director, who previously served as defense secretary, warned officials in the organization in May that failure to make changes quickly could spell "the end of us as a national movement." He also told NPR "gays would be permitted in units that want to have them," but churches that sponsor Scout units would be allowed to exercise their religious freedom and ensure leaders in troops they sponsor, or units that they sponsor, reflect the faith of the sponsoring institution.

Some 70 percent of Scout units are sponsored by churches.

The BSA voted in 2013 to allow gay members, but not scoutmasters.

Source

This is about as good as I could have hoped. The churches who host (and it's worth noting that not all hosts/sponsors are churches) have, worldwide, long been able to make certain rules as they need/want. For example, the Seventh Day Adventists in the city that I went to Scouts in had a rule that camps had to end Saturday night so that the Scouts could be at church proper on Sunday morning. The church who sponsored my troop required every youth to attend one church service per year (we took care of this requirement by having a special service for Baden-Powell Day that usually focussed on teachings on friendship, peace and caring about your neighbour/helping your neighbour and was honestly, pretty areligious for a church service--we had children of many religions and parents were welcome to attend and supervise the message their child was receiving).

Good job, BSA. You might not be the Brothers we're all ashamed of someday.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

I really hope they do this. Being gay does not equal pedophilia, no matter how much they want it to...

[JohnR! 5,495]

Well done BSA.