The Boy Scouts of America today announced it was reaffirming its policy of banning openly gay scouts and leaders, calling it”absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts.”
After a petition with more than 250,000 signatures was delivered by Eagle Scout Zach Wahls in May, the BSA had promised to consider lifting the ban. But the Associated Press an 11-member committee “was unanimous in its conclusion.”
In a statement, Scout leaders explained:
“Scouting believes that good people can personally disagree on this topic and still work together to achieve the life-changing benefits to youth through Scouting. While not all board members may personally agree with this policy, and may choose a different direction for their own organizations, BSA leadership agrees this is the best policy for the organization.”
Advocates of changing the policy were angered by the secretive nature of the committee. “The very first value of the Scout Law is that a Scout is trustworthy,” Wahls told BuzzFeed’s Chris Geidner. “There is absolutely nothing trustworthy about unelected and unnamed committee members who are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions.”
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Despite the disappointing news, Wahls isn’t deterred: “We’ve heard this line before, and we’ll hear it again before this is all said and done,” he said. “I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: this will be the official BSA policy up until the day it finally ends.”
And that’s a day that can’t come soon enough.
LittIe,Kiwi
they’re wrong. good people cannot be prejudiced bigots. sorry.
Michael Bedwell
I have great admiration for Mr. Wahls, but more PETITIONS when gays have been fighting these bigots for nearly a quarter century, seriously? Out of the clouds and into the streets! WHAT IF “the vast majority of the parents of youth [they] serve value” didn’t want black Scouts, or Jewish Scouts, or fill-in-the-blank? What would the public, mainstream media, and the courts say THEN?
Too few in our community remember/know about the late William Boyce Mueller. He was a former Cub Scout and the gay grandson of the founder of the Boy Scouts of America. In 1991, he was one of the founders of “Forgotten Scouts”—along with gay authors and former Eagle Scouts Armistead Maupin and the late Randy Shilts, and Tim Curran, another Eagle Scout who unsuccessfully sued for being kicked out after a photo of him and his male high school prom date appeared in his local paper, et al.—one of the first groups formed to try to change the hate-poisoned policies of the modern oligarchs of his grandfather’s organization. At the time, he said, “I don’t think my grandfather would have wanted me excluded from Scouting just because of my sexual orientation. My grandfather would not have tolerated discrimination. He founded the Boy Scouts for all boys, not just for some. One of the reasons I decided to stand up and be counted was that I realized that if people like me don’t take a stand, the world isn’t going to change.” He’s buried near Leonard Matlovich in DC’s Congressional Cemetery. His tombstone, referencing Forgotten Scouts, can be seen at:
http://leonardmatlovich.com/images/500_William_Boyce_Mueller_tombstone.jpg
Alexi3
And I reaffirm my ban on finacially supporting an organization that would otherwise be on my donate to list.
skeloric
I think its time we started really finding ways to end any and all government support for this irrelevant dinosaur of an organization.
Then find ways to locate all other donors and hit them with as boycotts as it takes to finally destroy the Boy Scouts of America forever.
B
Well…. There is a point about protecting young impressionable minds that was made in the very cute film “Love in the Afternoon”. You can see the start of an attempt to report a jealous husband with a gun to the police at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akBH2pVSjkI
and the dialog following this clip at http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/love-in-the-afternoon?before=1295062815 where the boy scouts are finally dragged into the discussion:
Ariane: No that’s not the point! At 10:00 he’s going to break into the room and shoot!
Police Commissioner: Please madame, do not excite yourself. It is not 10:00 yet. Now, at 10:00 if he does break into the room and he does shoot and he does not miss, then you call us again.
Ariane: But that’ll be too late! You’ve got to stop him! You must send somebody up there immediately.
Police Commissioner: Madame, there are 7,000 hotels in Paris, 220,000 hotel rooms, and on a night like this there is in approximately 40,000 of those rooms a similar situation. Now, really, madame, if we were to assign the police to every one of these situations – no, no, madame, it just staggers the imagination! It would take more than the entire police force, it would take the fire department, the sanitation department, and perhaps even the Boy Scouts. And certainly, madame, we do not want young boys in short pants involved in situations like this.
Who ever suspected that the American boy scouts could end up sounding like a French police commissioner in a funny movie!
Steve
The Boy Scouts of America reaffirms that BSA has become the youth ministry of the Latter Day Saints (aka, Mormon) church. No one else is welcome.
This, too, shall pass. I would prefer that it could pass with the BSA continuing to provide an outdoor program, where young men could develop both skills and their confidence to help them make their way in the world. Unfortunately, that is not to be the case.
In a few decades time, BSA will be nothing more than a footnote in some history books. They signed their own warrant, this week.
B
Queerty’s article missed a key point – from the link Queerty provided: “Smith said the committee, comprised of professional scout executives and adult volunteers, was unanimous in its conclusion — preserving a long-standing policy that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 and has remained controversial.
“The Scouts did not identify the members of the special committee but said in a statement that they represented ‘a diversity of perspectives and opinions.'”
What was missed: if you have a diversity of perspectives and opinions, it is very unlikely that you will end up with a unanimous conclusion! I would not send a kid to the boy scouts: with that sort of statement coming from them, they are obviously run by liars and that’s not what you want to encourage young, impressionable children to emulate.
Dirty Ole Man
Now that the LDS church has the BSA in its clutches, nothing will ever change. The BSA is going down.
Pam
@Alexi3:
I totally agree…I was a leader in BSA for many years…and opted to remove myself and my money because of this unreasonable stance…
Robert in NYC
Meanwhile, the Chief Commissioner for the Boy Scouts in the UK, the birth place of the Boy Scouts, supports gay members and endorses the “It Gets Better” campaign. Ironic isn’t it?
KARUADAM
The Boy scout, been found in the ( RSA) Republic of South Africa. It is not for the bloody USA to do what ever you like with it! fuck the USA!! ( Cape Town, RSA) .
Yoshizomi
Thomas Jefferson said: “Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.” Come on Boy Scouts, on your honor do your duty to God and your country! Stop discrminating, stop professing bigotry…and embrace change and values accepted by society today. Allow our young gay youth to learn the strong values the Scouts stand for and allow them in your intitution.
Adonis007
Heartbreaking.. I remember wanting to be a boy scout when I was younger. This bigotry really just sends my head spinning! Really? Still, in 2012?! SMH!
KARUADAM
@Robert in NYC: No!! the birth place is Mafekin, Shout Africa. Only later it moved to England, and then the USA…Sorry that`s the story.
Robert in NYC
@KARUADAM: Organized Scouting spread to South Africa only a few months after its birth in Britain in 1907 under the leadership of Robert Baden Powell. In 1908, several troops formed in Cape Town, Natal, and Johannesburg and the following year saw the first official registration of South African troops.
Scouting in South Africa grew rapidly, and in 1912 Robert Baden-Powell visited South African Scouts. Due to the rapid spread of Scouting it became necessary to provide some form of local coordination. Provincial Councils were formed in South Africa between 1912 and 1916. These councils had no direct contact with each other and reported directly to Imperial Scout Headquarters in London