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.
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