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I have to say that I was not surprised at this news at all. The media maelstrom about this topic rendered the decision by the Boy Scouts of America National Executive Board so hot — the here-come-the-pedophiles/America-values-are-being-destroyed camp versus the camp reflecting the increasing acceptance of LGBTs in contemporary American culture — left the Boy Scouts with a no-win situation, if you’re going strictly by PR. So they punted. (Dallas Voice):
The decision came early in the third day of the board’s three-day meeting at the DFW Airport Marriott. A possible vote was expected today, but the board has decided to discus the issue more at its national board meeting in May where 1,400 members will vote on a resolution. That meeting will take place May 22 at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine.
“After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy,” BSA spokesman Deron Smith said in a statement. “To that end, the National Executive Board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards.”
Yeah, the BSA will need a lot of careful consideration about what the fallout may or may not be. Personally, I think of the Girl Scouts don’t have a problem with non-heterosexual membership, the Boy Scouts need to get with the times. But in the “real world” of media wall-to-wall coverage, I doubt the org is prepared when both sides were at the ready with reactions to the delay in action. Take hate group head Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council:
“The leaders of the Boy Scouts were wise not to abandon their longstanding national membership standards, as they were reportedly on the brink of doing. We thank the Scout parents and members of the public who responded to these reports with an overwhelming outpouring of support for maintaining the Scouts’ timeless values that have served the Scouts and the nation well for 103 years.
“However, it is not enough that they postpone a decision. Instead, the BSA board should publicly re-affirm their current standards, as they did just last July. We look forward to continuing to work with scouting parents, leaders of the faith-based organizations that charter over two-thirds of the packs and the troops. We will also continue to communicate with the Scout leadership about the grave consequences that would result if they were to compromise their moral standards in the face of threats from corporate elites and homosexual activists.”
BTW, Perkins made an @ss out of himself on CNN earlier today, going on and on about the “safety” of the boys around other boys or scout leaders who might be gay (despite the org’s massive scandal of scout abuse with its gay ban in place); Soledad O’Brien reminded him that one of those affected by the ban who followed him on the air to discuss the issue was a lesbian den mother booted from her troop.
That lesbian mom is Jennifer Tyrrell from Bridgeport, Ohio. She was the leader of her son’s Cub Scout Pack in April 2012. Tyrrell, with the support of GLAAD, started a petition on Change.org that rallied hundreds of thousands urging the Boy Scouts to welcome gay Scouts and leaders.
Right, courtesy of GLAAD: On February 4, 2013, ousted Boy Scout mom Jennifer Tyrrell, gay Eagle Scout Will Oliver, gay former Scoutmaster Greg Bourke, and Eric Andresen, father of a gay Scout denied his Eagle Award convened on the Boy Scouts of America’s headquarters and brought the voices of more than a million Americans who want the BSA to end its ban on gay scouts and volunteers.
Tyrell’s reaction to today’s statement by the BSA:
GLAAD President Herndon Graddick:
”An organization that serves youth and chooses to intentionally hurt dedicated young people and hardworking parents not only flies in the face of American principles, but the principles of being a Boy Scout,” said . “The Boy Scouts of America is choosing to ignore the cries of millions, including religious institutions, current scouting families, and corporate sponsors, but these cries will not be silenced. We’re living in a culture where hurting young gay people because of who they are is unpopular and discriminatory. They had the chance to end the pain this ban has caused to young people and parents, they chose to extend the pain.”
Closer to home, here’s the reaction from my friend Matt Comer, editor of Charlotte LGBT community newspaper QNotes and a former Scout dismissed at age 14 after starting a gay-straight alliance at his Winston-Salem, NC through The Inclusive Scouting Network, which he co-founded:
While it is disappointing the Boy Scouts of America decided not to take any action on their national anti-gay membership and leadership policy today, we are encouraged knowing that this discussion, the first and only time national BSA leaders have openly indicated they are ready to accept gay Scouts, will continue.
Today’s action by the BSA’s National Executive Board is not a “no;” instead, it is an opportunity for Scouts and Scouters across the country, from the local level to the national level, to continue to press for positive change. We are hopeful that this process will include Scouts and Scouters who have already been subjected to discrimination by the Boy Scouts of America, and we will work diligently to highlight voices of inclusion from local units and chartering organizations across the country in the lead up to May’s national council vote.
In their first edition of the Boy Scouts Handbook in 1911, the Boy Scouts promised that “every American boy shall have the opportunity of becoming a good scout.” It is time for the Boy Scouts of America to live up to the great American ideals and principles they have embodied for more than a century by saying, “We don’t discriminate and discrimination is not okay — period.”
Based on recent polls — including this one from Quinnipiac University — there is public support for lifting the ban.
Strongest support for ending the ban comes from women and Roman Catholics, but a plurality of men and mainline Protestants also support ending the ban. African American and Hispanic people polled showed strong support for ending the ban.
* White Catholics support gay scouts 63 – 25 percent.
* 57 percent of Black and Hispanic people support gay scouts.
* 62 percent of 18-29 year-olds and 61 percent of 30-44 year-olds support gay scouts.
The poll also pointed to the decline in membership numbers. One troubling finding for Scouting in America is that 54 percent of voters say they were Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, while only 36 percent of voters, including 55 percent of former scouts, say they have children in Scouting.
The dilemma for the BSA is that to partially or fully remove its ban is that it believes it will undermine the Supreme Court ruling that allowed its ban to remain in place to date — a private organization determining its membership. Be that as it may (I don’t think it actually does), this move to remove the ban is from the result of growing cultural change, not fiat.
It has to decide whether all of the financial donations and support it has lost from corporate America because of its gay ban is worth holding onto its discriminatory policies. One of the arguments represented by Tony Perkins is that there will be a mass exodus from Scouting if the ban is lifted, led by “Christians” who oppose the idea of gay scouts and scout leaders existing in its ranks openly (because obviously they’ve already been there, albeit closeted). That may or may not occur, but the BSA is going to slowly bleed no matter what its decision is. It has just decided to wring their hands over this and let the PR on both sides continue, perhaps in the (futile) hope it will blow over. Not. Going. To. Happen. This particular issue is one of the cultural flashpoints for the social/religious conservative movement as well as the full equality advocates.
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I’m sure both sides will let down their guard by May.
Nope.
Actually, I recall they are getting a new president, the CEO of one of the companies threatening to withhold funds unless they change. Let’s hope the entire BSA decides to remove the ban, nationally, instead of the crabbed “local option” thing they had going this time.
And as for the Supreme Court? No, BSA: you can’t overturn a SCOTUS decision or render it moot. All those manumitted slaves while Dred Scott was the law of the land will tell you from their graves that you can still act morally even if the Court’s given you permission to be immoral.
Duh.
Looks like the Scouts national organization is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into even this halfway measure.
Of course, if the Catholic and/or Mormon Church agree to make up the lost funding, there will be no change in the policy. Somehow, I’m not holding my breath for that to happen — the Catholics, at least, tend to rely more on sticks than carrots.
“….to keep myself physically fit, mentally alert, and morally straight.” It’s in the oath. Is that the origin of the term “straight”? Are there any less Christian acting groups in America than the Catholics and the Mormons? Have they read the parables of Jesus? They can be found in this book I have Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth or BIBLE for short.
When I was a Scout, our troop was sponsored by our town’s Jaycees. The troops sponsored by the Catholic and Baptist churches were small, and weird: there was no diversity (we had Jewish kids and all kinds of protestants, some Catholics too) and they hung out with the same people they went to church with on Sundays.
Anyway, things must have changed in those 45 years: church-sponsorship seems to be the rule rather than the exception, so I suppose the BSA will have to go with local option. I’d like to see more Scout troops investigate Scouting Canada, or the Girl Scouts, both of which are fully inclusive.
Local option is just another way of perpetuating discrimination.
It’s nice to see HRC actually advertising on gay blogs. I’m getting their anti-gay bigotry Scouting ad in the header and the top right; is anyone else also seeing that? Go HRC!
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I was a Scout many years ago and my troup was sponsored by the Scouts. We paid dues and had fundraisers and worked hard to go to Scouting events around the country. I learned a lot about being a good, productive person and I have to say, nobody EVER asked if I was gay. And nobody cared. And I am gay now and certainly was then.
“…the Girl Scouts don’t have a problem with non-heterosexual membership, the Boy Scouts need to get with the times…”
From an organizational structure perspective, the only thing GSA and BSA have in common is the word scouts.
GSA essentially owns all of their individual units. BSA grants franchises to “Charter Organizations” most of which are churches with LDS and the Roman Catholics being the largest. Leaders are chosen by the CO’s and they are permitted to impose qualifications in addition to those imposed by BSA.
Placing the sexual orientation question with the Chartered Organizations is the only viable compromise available to them at this time. Anything more is organizational suicide.
I think there’s a lot of feckless drivel going on here about the Boy Scouts.
What it is about them, really? An obsession with the Boy Scouts’ imprimatur? Perhaps, since it has been around a long time, but. . . Otherwise I have no idea why anyone is exercised about this.
It is possible, after all, to simply moot out the Boy Scouts if they are being obnoxiously discriminatory. That mooting effort would be to promote alternative non-discriminatory groups which compete doing good deeds and advancing sundry causes. They, too, could choose the trappings of uniforms, badges, whatever, to show off their wares — yet that part really isn’t necessary, is it?.
In the meantime the BS aren’t worth the bother — they’re throwbacks to a bygone era. It’s all a waste of time, I think.
I’m pretty sure that the person who originally wrote the Boy Scout oath was not thinking about sexual orientation when he wrote “morally straight.” He more likely meant “honest, forthright, trustworthy, honorable, etc.”
Yeah — all the things that the national council and its allies aren’t.