Boy Scouts’ president says ban on gay adults not sustainable

The president of the Boy Scouts of America, Robert Gates, said Thursday the organization’s longstanding ban on participation by openly gay adults is no longer sustainable and called for change in order to prevent “the end of us as a national movement.”

In a speech in Atlanta to the Scouts’ national annual meeting, Gates referred to recent moves by Scout councils in New York City and elsewhere to defy the ban.

“The status quo in our movement’s membership standards cannot be sustained,” he said.

Gates said no change in the policy would be made at the national meeting. But he raised the possibility of revising the policy at some point soon so that local Scout organizations could decide on their own whether to allow gays as adult volunteers and paid staff.

In 2013, after bitter internal debate, the BSA decided to allow openly gay youth as Scouts, but not gay adults as leaders. The change took effect in January 2014.

Petaluma real estate agent Steven Cozza, who found himself in the national spotlight as a 12-year-old champion of diversity and equality in the Boy Scouts back in 1997, said the theme of Gates’ speech came as welcome news, and none too soon.

“They are losing membership because of their discriminatory ban, and it’s sad, because it is a great organization besides their ban,” Cozza said.

Two local officers in attendance from the Boy Scouts’ Redwood Empire Council, which represents Sonoma and Mendocino counties and about 2,000 Scouts, said Gates’ remarks were widely applauded and earned a partial standing ovation.

But while any new policy might enhance the organization’s reputation, they said a new policy would have no practical effect on the North Coast organization, which already has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to adult Scouts.

“The policy of our council is already one of nondiscrimination,” President John Carriger said. “We don’t ask if a person is gay when they sign up, so we don’t know and we don’t want to know because we don’t feel that’s our business.”

Carriger conceded that if an openly gay Scout leader or staffer “made a big deal about” his or her sexual orientation it would likely provoke unwelcome intervention by the national organization, however.

He also noted that it was a hard-fought decision two years ago to allow Scouts under 18 who are openly gay to remain in the organization.

He and Council Vice President Marty Webb also underscored that no draft policy even has been proposed yet, and that it would take some time for a consensus to form.

“I think most people,” Webb said, “when you first hear something, you want to look at the ramifications over a period of time. I don’t think there was anybody ready to vote on it at this time.”

“Personally, I think it’s a positive step, but there might be others who might have some issues with it,” he said.

Said Carriger: “If they can serve in the military, they certainly should allow them to be serving as Scouts.”

Gates, former secretary of defense and onetime director of the CIA, became the BSA’s president in May 2014. He said at the time that he personally would have favored ending the ban on gay adults, but he opposed any further debate after the Scouts’ policymaking body upheld the ban.

On Thursday, however, he said recent events “have confronted us with urgent challenges I did not foresee and which we cannot ignore.”

He cited the recent defiant announcement by the BSA’s New York City chapter in early April that it had hired the nation’s first openly gay Eagle Scout as a summer camp leader. He also cited broader developments related to gay rights.

“I remind you of the recent debates we have seen in places like Indiana and Arkansas over discrimination based on sexual orientation, not to mention the impending U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer on gay marriage,” he said. “We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.”

Gates said the BSA technically had the power to revoke the charters of councils that defied the ban on gay adults, but said this would be harmful to boys in those regions. He also noted that many states have passed laws prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, raising the possibility of extensive legal battles.

“Thus, between internal challenges and potential legal conflicts, the BSA finds itself in an unsustainable position, a position that makes us vulnerable to the possibility the courts simply will order us at some point to change our membership policy,” Gates said.

Webb said Gates is widely respected for his government service and decadeslong devotion to Scouting, and said it’s clear he is making good on his pledge to be a transparent leader.

“I gotta tell you, the man is forthright and told it like it is, the way he believes, so I think a lot of people were impressed with his honesty and his transparency,” he said.

Cozza said he still remembers being in the car with his dad on Highway 101 traveling over East Washington Street one day when his father asked if he was aware the Boy Scouts prohibited gay people from serving as leaders. Shocked that the openly gay church leader at the camp near Santa Cruz he attended each summer and others like him would be turned away by the BSA, Cozza started a public awareness and petition-signing campaign aimed at overturning the ban.

“I was trying to make the Boy Scouts a better organization with what I was doing,” Cozza said. “Now there are a lot more people against it, and people don’t want discrimination.”

The Utah-based Mormon church is the nation’s largest sponsor of Boy Scout units, and in the past has supported the ban on participation by openly gay adults.

In a brief statement Thursday, the church said it would examine any policy changes “very carefully to assess how they might impact our own century-long association with the BSA.”

Zach Wahls of Scouts for Equality, a group that has campaigned against the ban, welcomed Gates’

“Dr. Gates has built his reputation on straight talk and tough decisions,” Wahls said. “It seems like the Boy Scouts will continue an internal dialogue about the subject and that a change within the next year or two is imminent.”

The Human Rights Campaign, the largest U.S. gay-rights group, called Gates’ speech “a step in the right direction.”

“But, as we have said many times previously, half measures are unacceptable, especially at one of America’s most storied institutions,” said the campaign’s president, Chad Griffin. “It’s time for BSA leaders to show true leadership and embrace a full national policy of inclusion.”

Until Thursday, there had been no indication how the BSA would respond to the New York Councils, which on April 2 announced the hiring of Pascal Tessier, an 18-year-old Eagle Scout. Tessier, currently finishing his freshman year of college, has been a vocal advocate of opening the 105-year-old organization to gay Scouts and leaders.

After the 2013 decision to admit gay youth, some conservatives split from the BSA to form a new group, Trail Life USA, which has created its own ranks, badges and uniforms. The group claims a membership of 23,000 youths and adults.

Trail Life’s chairman, John Stemberger, said his organization was “saddened” by Gates’ speech.

“It is tragic that the BSA is willing to risk the safety and security of its boys because of peer pressure from activists groups,” he said. “Trail Life USA remains committed to timeless Christian values.”

Press Democrat Staff Writer Mary Callahan contributed to this report.