The Boy Scouts of America today voted to lift the ban on gay scouts, but left in place the ban on gay adult leaders. After years of losing corporate and government support for their discriminatory policies, not to mention the support of an ever increasing percentage of the general population, the Scouts took a half-step out of the increasingly unpopular past of anti-gay bias.
It remains to be seen if large corporate donors will return as long as the ban on adult leaders remains in place, or if some will return to the Scouting fold.
It’s a half-step forward, but it leaves the organization in the odd position of telling young men that it’s OK to be a gay scout, but they’re unsuited to be an adult leader. The intransigent old guard of the BSA national organization still has a long way to go, and I bet it will be their accountants that will eventually convince them that to survive in the 21at century, they must leave their bias and homophobia and ignorance behind. We’ll wait and see how long it takes them to figure this all out.
The BSA announcement after the jump.
