Under increasing pressure and bad PR, and the loss of some corporate partners due to their outdated anti-gay stance, all of a sudden the Boy Scouts are considering dropping their anti-gay ban.
According to NBC News and the New York Times yesterday, the Boy Scouts powers that be are considering a resolution to drop their official anti-gay ban on membership, and will allow local troops to set their own policy on this.
This follows backlash and loss of funding from corporate donors such as UPS and Merck, and then a nasty public fight with one of their own Maryland chapters, who posted a message of tolerance and inclusion for gays on their website and almost lost their Scout status as they were pressured to remove it (they did); with a lot of publicity over this one, and the bad media over a recent case when they kicked out a lesbian mom from being den leader to her son’s scout pack, the Scouts won the anti-gay battle but may have lost the big gay war.
While the Supreme Court upheld the ban in 2000, the world has changed since then, and corporate sponsors, human rights groups, and President OBama have loudly challenged the Scouts to change their policy. Hate is not a family value, Scout people.
Hey Boy Scouts… welcome to the new millennium! About time you caught the fuck up…
The Six-Fingered Monkey
01/29/2013
Hear! Hear! As a scout leader, a father, and a human being who respects the rights of others to live as they choose, I couldn’t be happier. I just wish the decision had come out of compassion and love… not as a result of pressure from others.
brahm (alfred lives here)
02/01/2013
Agree, however I will take the decision under pressure any day… that is how marriage equality is coming about, that is how women got the vote, and so on… social change isnt calm. I just wish it was faster.
Jessie
01/30/2013
The plans sounded so fucking wishy washy, though. It didn’t have any teeth in it, and I would like to see them require every fucking pack to consider everybody equally. Baby steps.
brahm (alfred lives here)
02/01/2013
Agreed, it is wishy washy — they are not mandating acceptance, they are taking away the ban on acceptance and letting local troops decide. Sort of like the Obama stance on marriage equality (though he has publicly stated is in favour). However is progress for sure.
Lance
01/30/2013
I’ve never understood why you would want to have an organization and not make it 100 percent open. If you believe in your Boy Scout stuff so much, wouldn;t bestwoing on people of all sexual orientations be awesome?
dumb
brahm (alfred lives here)
02/01/2013
Ditto…. what you said.
Sarah
01/30/2013
I’ve refused to allow either of my sons to participate in the Scouts because of their anti-gay stance. Yet again, they should have followed the Girl Scouts’ direction a LONG time ago.
brahm (alfred lives here)
02/01/2013
Wow, impressed you did that…. good for you and for your boys!
I have always thought was so hypocritical of the Scouts to be in favour of so many things to teach kids values and to be this way. Sometimes pressure works.
Andrea
01/31/2013
some people have said it’s not good enough since they’re only caving to pressure and aren’t really changing their beliefs. I say let’s take it! good enough for me! if we shame them into changing a little, maybe they’ll change more later. that’s how integration happened; we had to force it on people.
brahm (alfred lives here)
02/01/2013
Agreed — most social change and civil rights movements came about because of pressure, and then as we go thru and past it people come on side…. bring it on!