WASHINGTON, April 19 (UPI) — The Boy Scouts of America said Friday its national council will consider a proposal to admit gay scouts but keep in place a ban on gay men as scout leaders.
The council is to vote in May on a proposal that states, “No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.” If approved, the new policy would take effect Jan. 1, 2014, the organization said on its website.
The organization has been under pressure on the issue — both from those demanding it change the policy and those who demand it maintain the ban on gay scouts.
The proposed change followed hundreds of town-hall meetings and polling of more than 1 million members, BSA President Wayne Perry said Friday in the statement announcing the proposal to drop the ban on gay scouts.
“Scouting’s review confirmed that this issue remains among the most complex and challenging issues facing the BSA and society today,” BSA President Wayne Perry said in a statement announcing the proposed change. “Even with the wide range of input, it is extremely difficult to accurately quantify the potential impact of maintaining or changing the current policy.”
Perry said parents, adults involved in scouting and teens “tend to agree that youth should not be denied the benefits of scouting.”
“We believe the BSA can no longer sacrifice its mission, or the youth served by the movement, by allowing the organization to be consumed by a single, controversial and unresolved societal issue,” Perry said.
Lobbying on the issue included pressure on the United Way, The Washington Post reported Friday.
Letters to the United Way from parents supporting an end to the ban argued since the District of Columbia United Way, which has given more than $1 million to the scouts in the past five years, does not discriminate against gay people, neither should the recipients of its funding, the Post reported.
In a meeting with concerned parents, William Hanbury, president of the United Way of the National Capital Area, told parents he has a gay son who left scouting when he was 13, sensing “he wasn’t going to be accepted,” Hanbury said.
Nearly half the scout leaders in the Salt Lake City area said they would leave the organization if the ban is lifted, but legislators in California are considering stripping the BSA of its non-profit tax status if the ban is not lifted, the newspaper noted.
BSA will retain of conditions of membership, including accepting one’s “duty to God,” and the resolution to be voted on in May “reinforces that Scouting is a youth program, and any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting.”
Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
Why do guys who call themselves Pee Wee always measure up to be the most homophobic?
Pee Wee is just feeling the squeeze. It used to be that white trash rednecks like him ruled the world and now he just wants to go back to the glory days.
This here is what you call slippry slope once them fags is in theres no going back. Them gay Scouts and Preists ect is the problem, yes its time for normal folks to fight back hit them hard and thats that yes.
Seriously…LVS & Sickastupd…JUST GET A ROOM AND GET IT OVER WITH!!!
Even worse than that we could have sick and stupd with a bunch of girls.
Hey! LVS! This is good news for you! They’ll let you back in the scouts! I always felt so bad for you that they kicked you out.
And even better yet – it looks like you can stay in even after you have one set of genitalia removed! Now all you have to do is decide which sex you want to be…
sick……that last comment was really below the belt, and yes no pun intended.
Pretty good, wasn’t it?
@common sense-she is really sick “Deranged”
Whatever you say, hermaphrodite.
I’d have more confidence in a group of young men on a BSA activity with a gay scout leader than trusting in a boys choir field trip with a celebate priest.