Boy Scouts approve plan to accept openly gay boys
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John Stemberger, an Eagle Scout and Orlando, Fla. based attorney speaks out during a news conference against the Boy Scouts of American decision allowing openly gay scouts to participate in scouting Thursday, May 23, 2013, in Grapevine, Texas. Local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America voted Thursday to ease a divisive ban and allow openly gay boys to be accepted into the nation's leading youth organization — one of the most dramatic moves the organization has made in a century.
By DAVID CRARY and NOMAAN MERCHANT
GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) — After lengthy and wrenching debate, local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have voted to open their ranks to openly gay boys for the first time, but heated reactions from the left and right made clear that the BSA's controversies are far from over.
The Scouts' longstanding ban on gay adults remains in force, and many liberal Scout leaders — as well as gay-rights groups — plan to continue pressing for an end to that exclusion even though the BSA's top officials aren't ready for that step.
Meanwhile, many conservatives within the Scouts are distraught at the outcome of the vote and some are threatening to defect. A meeting is planned for next month to discuss the formation of a new organization for boys.
The vote was conducted by secret ballot Thursday during the National Council's annual meeting at conference center not far from Boy Scout headquarters in suburban Dallas. Of the roughly 1,400 voting members of the council who cast ballots, 61 percent supported the proposal drafted by the governing Executive Committee. The policy change takes effect Jan. 1.
"This has been a challenging chapter in our history," the BSA chief executive, Wayne Brock, said after the vote. "While people have differing opinions on this policy, kids are better off when they're in Scouting."
However, the outcome will not end the membership policy debate, as was evident in the reactions of leaders of some of the conservative religious denominations that sponsor Scout units.
"We are deeply saddened," said Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee. "Homosexual behavior is incompatible with the principles enshrined in the Scout oath and Scout law."
The Assemblies of God said the policy change "will lead to a mass exodus from the Boy Scout program." It also warned that the change would make the BSA vulnerable to lawsuits seeking to end the ban on gay adults.
John Stembeger, a conservative activist and former Scout from Florida, founded a group called OnMyHonor.net to oppose the policy change. He assailed the BSA executive committee for its role in gaining a "Yes" vote.
"What kind of a message are we sending to young people about being brave when its top adult leaders don't even have the courage to stand up to the pressure of a militant lobby when the bullies in Washington D.C., Hollywood or even some of their own renegade councils start pressuring and harassing them?" he asked.
He said OnMyHonor.Net and other like-minded organizations and individuals would meet in Louisville, Ky., next month to discuss the creation of "a new character development organization for boys."
Texas Gov. Rick Perry also expressed dismay.
"While I will always cherish my time as a Scout and the life lessons I learned, I am greatly disappointed with this decision," he said.
The result was welcomed by many liberal members of the Scouting community and by gay-rights activists, though most of the praise was coupled with calls for ending the ban on gay adults.
"I'm so proud of how far we've come, but until there's a place for everyone in Scouting, my work will continue," said Jennifer Tyrrell, whose ouster as a Cub Scout den leader in Ohio because she is lesbian launched a national protest movement.
Tyrrell recalled having to tell her son she had been forced out as den mother.
"He doesn't deserve to be told that we're not good enough," she said. "We're not going to stop until this is over."
Pascal Tessier, an openly gay 16-year-old Boy Scout from Maryland, had mixed emotions after the vote.
"I was thinking that today could be my last day as a Boy Scout," he said. "Obviously, for gay Scouts like me, this vote is life-changing."
Tessier is on track to receive his Eagle Scout award — he only needs to complete his final project — but said he is troubled that on his 18th birthday he could transform from someone holding Scouting's highest rank to someone unfit to be a part of the organization.
"That one couple hours (between 17 and 18) will make me not a good person," he said.
James Dale, 42, who was the first person to challenge the Boy Scouts gay ban in court, agreed, calling the decision "a bit of a step backward" for gay youth.
"It sends a very convoluted, mixed message to gay kids. It says that being gay is a youthful indiscretion, and that there's no future for you," Dale, of New Jersey, told The Star-Ledger.
Dale sued the Boy Scouts in 1990 after he was removed as an assistant scoutmaster because of his sexual orientation. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the organization was within its rights to ban gays.
Tessier has indeed been an exception — an openly gay Scout whose presence was quietly accepted by local Scout leaders. In general, the Scouts' policy has been to avoid any questioning of would-be Scouts as to their sexual orientation, but to dismiss boys who did speak openly about being gay.
For example, Scout officials refused to grant the Eagle Scout rank to Ryan Andresen, an 18-year-old Californian, after he came out as gay last year.
The vote followed what the BSA described as "the most comprehensive listening exercise in Scouting's history" to gauge opinions, including a survey sent out starting in February to members of the Scouting community.
Of the more than 200,000 leaders, parents and youth members who responded, 61 percent supported the current policy of excluding gays, while 34 percent opposed it. Most parents of young Scouts, as well as youth members themselves, opposed the ban.
The proposal approved Thursday was seen as a compromise, and the Scouts stressed that they would not condone sexual conduct by any Scout — gay or straight.
"The Boy Scouts of America will not sacrifice its mission, or the youth served by the movement, by allowing the organization to be consumed by a single, divisive and unresolved societal issue," the BSA said in a statement.
Among those voting for the proposal to accept openly gay youth was Thomas Roberts, of Dawsonville, Ga., who serves on the board of a Scout council in northeast Georgia.
"It was a very hard decision for this organization," he said. "I think ultimately it will be viewed as the right thing."
The BSA's overall "traditional youth membership" — Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Venturers — is now about 2.6 million, compared with more than 4 million in peak years of the past. It also has about 1 million adult leaders and volunteers.
Of the more than 100,000 Scouting units in the U.S., 70 percent are chartered by religious institutions.
Those include liberal churches opposed to any ban on gays, but some of the largest sponsors are relatively conservative denominations that have previously supported the broad ban — notably the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Southern Baptist churches.
While the Southern Baptists were clearly upset by the vote to accept openly gay youth, the Utah-based Mormon church — which has more Scouting troops than any other religious denomination — reacted positively.
"We trust that BSA will implement and administer the approved policy in an appropriate and effective manner," an LDS statement said.
Utah's largest Boy Scout councils supported the change.
"This is a win for youth and a win for the community," said John Gailey, spokesman for the Utah National Parks Council, which covers central and southern Utah. "It gives all youth the opportunity to take advantage of the values instilled by Scouting."
The National Catholic Committee on Scouting responded cautiously, saying it would assess the possible impact of the change on Catholic-sponsored Scout units.
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After vote on gay youth, Scouts face more turmoil
The Boy Scouts of America will get no reprieve from controversy after a contentious vote to accept openly gay boys as Scouts.
Dismayed conservatives are already looking at alternative youth groups as they predict a mass exodus from the BSA. Gay-rights supporters vowed Friday to maintain pressure on the Scouts to end the still-in-place ban on gay adults serving as leaders.
"They're not on our good list yet," said Paul Guequierre of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group. He said the HRC, in its annual rankings of corporate policies on workplace fairness, would deduct points from companies that donate to the Boy Scouts until the ban on gay adults is lifted.
In California, gay-rights leaders said they would continue urging passage of a bill pending in the Legislature that would make the BSA ineligible for nonprofit tax breaks because of the remaining ban.
The Boy Scouts' chief executive, Wayne Brock, pleaded for the Scouting community to reunite after the divisive debate that led to Thursday's vote by the BSA's National Council. The proposal to lift the ban on openly gay youth — while keeping the ban on gay adults — was supported by about 60 percent of the council's 1,400 voting members.
However, Brock's plea failed to sway some conservative religious leaders whose denominations sponsor many Scout units and who consider same-sex relationships immoral.
"Frankly, I can't imagine a Southern Baptist pastor who would continue to allow his church to sponsor a Boy Scout troop under these new rules," Richard Land, a senior Southern Baptist Conference official, told the SBC's news agency, Baptist Press.
Land advised Southern Baptist churches to withdraw their support of Scout troops and consider affiliating instead with the Royal Ambassadors, an existing SBC youth program for boys that combines religious ministry with Scouting-style activities.
Baptist churches sponsor Scout units serving more than 100,000 of the BSA's 2.6 million youth members.
The Assemblies of God, which oversees units serving more than 2,000 Scouts, said it could no longer support such units and suggested its own Royal Rangers youth group as a "positive alternative."
John Stemberger, a conservative activist and former Scout from Florida who led a group opposing the policy change, said he and his allies would convene a meeting next month in Louisville, Ky., to discuss creation of a "new character development organization for boys."
"We grieve today, not because we are faced with leaving Scouting, but because the Boy Scouts of America has left us," Stemberger said. "Its leadership has turned its back on 103 years of abiding by a mission to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices."
There is a template for forming a conservative alternative to a major national youth organization. American Heritage Girls was formed in 1995 as a Christian-oriented option to the Girl Scouts of the USA, and it now claims more than 20,000 members.
From the left, gay-rights supporters — including President Barack Obama — generally welcomed the move to accept openly gay Scouts, but urged the BSA to take the further step of welcoming gay adults as leaders.
White House spokesman Shin Inouye said Obama "continues to believe that leadership positions in the Scouts should be open to all, regardless of sexual orientation."
Rich Ferraro of GLAAD, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said his group would continue a campaign to discourage corporate giving to the Boy Scouts until the ban on gay adults is lifted.
He also predicted that the presence of openly gay boys in Scout ranks would undermine the viability of the adult ban as those youth turn 18 and seek leadership posts.
"The BSA now will have to look gay teens in the eye, boys who've been involved in Scouting for years, and tell them they're not going to be able to grow into adult leaders," Ferraro said. "Those conversations will be difficult and shouldn't be had."
Eagle Scout Zach Wahls, a 21-year-old activist raised by lesbian mothers in Iowa, has been a leader of the campaign to end the BSA's no-gays policy. He said his group, Scouts for Equality, would continue to press for lifting the ban on gay adults, while also monitoring how the BSA implements its new policy for gay youth.
"We'll act as a watchdog," he said. "If any gay youth feel they're experiencing harassment or discrimination, we want to be there for them."
For some parents of Scouts, the entire membership debate has been emotionally draining, and the decision to accept openly gay youth left them disenchanted or confused.
Wes Comer, whose family attends an Apostolic Pentecostal church near Knoxville, Tenn., that considers homosexuality sinful, had been wrestling with whether to pull his eldest son out of the Scouts if the no-gays policy was abandoned.
"To be honest, I'm torn at this point," Comer said Friday in an email. "I'm not sure exactly what our decision will be."
"If I place this situation in the context of my religious beliefs, I'm forced to ask myself, 'Would I turn a homosexual child away from Sunday school? From a church function? Would I forbid my children to be friends with a gay child?' I can't imagine a situation where I would answer 'yes' to any of those questions. So how can I in this one?" he wrote.
Yet he said was "extremely disappointed" in the entire debate, and suggested that the BSA "has dealt itself a mortal blow."
Another Scouting father, Don Mack, of Waconia, Minn., said he and his 10-year-old son will be leaving Cub Scouts after the current year is done and his son gets his Arrow of Light Award.
Mack, a Scout himself as a boy and a self-described conservative Christian, has been a Cub Scout leader for about five years. Now, because of the vote to admit gay youth, he and his son both want out. And they'll be looking for an alternative program that offers similar character-building benefits as the Scouts.
"We home-school, and my wife and I teach our son you need to stand up for what's right, even if that means sacrifice or getting hurt in the process," Mack said. "It was not an easy choice for us to make because our family believed in the mission Scouting has to offer. I kind of feel like my best friend died."
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Some Churches Say They'll Cut Ties to Boy Scouts Following Its Lifting Ban on Gay Scouts
By CHRISTINA NG
A number of churches that previously sponsored Boy Scout troops have said they plan to sever ties to the organization following its decision to lift a longtime national ban on admitting openly gay Scouts. Openly gay adults will still be barred from leadership roles in the organization.
"I think I can say with pretty strong accuracy that the vast majority of Southern Baptists are very disappointed in the latest change in policy … deeply disappointed," Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee, told ABCNews.com.
Page said that the Southern Baptist Convention -- the largest Protestant denomination in the United States -- would be holding its national meeting in two weeks, after which it would likely recommend that its 47,000 U.S. churches pull away from the Boy Scouts of America. From there, it is up to each individual church to decide what to do, said Page.
About 70 percent of all local Boy Scout troops are supported by religious groups, according to the Boy Scouts of America, and the Southern Baptist Convention currently sponsors "hundreds of troops, probably thousands," Page said.
"We don't hate people," said Page. "We don't hate anybody, but we just felt like there's got to be some objective standard, and we felt they were maintaining that until recently."
The Mormon church, which sponsors most of the troops, has endorsed allowing gay Scouts. The Roman Catholic Church, the second-largest troop sponsor, has said it was going to use the time before the new policy takes effect on Jan. 1 to think about how and if it would affect the church.
The National Jewish Committee on Scouting, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Metropolitan Community Church all urged full repeal of the longtime ban.
But many other Christian groups continue to protest, citing religious freedom and the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave the Boy Scouts the constitutional right to keep out gay members.
The Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., which has about 300 families who participate in Scouting, also announced its plan to break its Boy Scout ties.
"Truly, for us it's a logical decision," Tim Hester, the church's executive pastor, told the Courier-Journal newspaper. "We cannot be distracted from the mission God has called us to."
Last week's decision to lift the ban was a "catalyst" in breaking away from the Boy Scouts but was not the church's only reason for doing so, Hester said, citing directional differences between the organization and the church.
"We want everyone, including ourselves, to live by biblical standards," Hester told the newspaper.
Hester did not immediately respond to ABCNews.com's request for comment.
One of the first religious organizations to denounce the Boy Scout's new policy on allowing gay members was the Assemblies of God, the world's largest Pentecostal group, saying in a statement, "We believe that the BSA policy change will lead to a mass exodus from the Boy Scout program, as Assemblies of God and many other churches can no longer support groups that are part of an organization allowing members who are openly homosexual."
Page, of the Southern Baptist Convention, echoed that sentiment. "I warned Scouting executives that this would happen, and they supposedly realized it would happen, but they thought they would gain more," Page said. "I assured them that if your goal is to minister to the largest number of youth, those were their words, then changing this is going to be a detriment to your goal."
The Boy Scouts said in a statement that it respected the "deeply held" religious beliefs of its members but encouraged them to read the resolution about the new policy. "We believe this policy is reflective of the beliefs of most of Scouting's major religious chartered organizations and are unaware of any that believe a youth member simply stating he or she is attracted to the same sex, but not engaging in sexual activity, should make him or her unwelcome in their congregation. While people have different opinions about this policy, we can all agree that kids are better off when they are in Scouting."
Gay rights advocates believe the Boy Scouts' new policy may actually attract new organizations and members who may have been put off by its former practices.
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"Assemblies of God and many other churches can no longer support groups that are part of an organization allowing members who are openly homosexual."
Well, thank God, churches don't like hypocrisy. So it would be OK to be gay and closeted according to them :sigh:
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I think the pic above speacks for itself, a macho ballerina being a phobe, and all this is so depressing… eyerolls.
