Your 2015 Boy Scouts of America: "Individual troops will be allowed to decide whether to discriminate"

It isn't always Catholics vs. Mormons. When it comes to homo-hating, their hierarchies are as one, and they'll be the largest religious groups benefitting from the Boy Scouts' new policy leaving them free to insist on scout leaders who "reflect their teachings." (Their teachings, of course, are: (1) Hate them homos! (2) Hate them homos! (3) Hate them homos!)

by Ken

Is that American or what? "Individual troops will be allowed to decide whether to discriminate."

The head on this 7:23pm washingtonpost.com tease was: "Boy Scouts vote to end ban on gay leaders." But I like the blurb better: "Individual troops will be allowed to decide whether to discriminate."

Now I know defenders of the right to homo-hating will chime in that we Americans should always be allowed to decide whether to discriminate. Isn't that what we mean when we say, "It's a free country."

Well, you homo-haters know better than that. You're not that stupid. You know perfectly well that that isn't what we mean when we use the verb "discriminate." We mean discriminating, in matters that have been legally defined as "public," on grounds that we've decided that no, you don't have the right to discriminate. I find it kind of shocking that the Boy Scouts don't qualify as "public" enough to fall under any existing anti-discrimination statutes -- so far as the people who participate are concerned, scouting is sure as hell a public activity.

But even as the Scouts have begun to notice that the world around them has smartened up in some important respects (and as we'll see in a moment, it was hardly a matter of suddenly seeing the light; they're facing the double whammy of growing litigation and shrinking membership, and it may have occurred to the geniuses that there could be a connection), overturning the ban on, first, openly gay scouts and now on openly gay scout leaders, the great minds of the BSA have decided on this halfway step: to allow gay scout leaders, but to respect the right of troops controlled by organized homo-haters to exercise their right to, you know, hate them homos.

In the matter of litigation, for example, the Scouts are hardly standing up for the principle of fairness and equality.

[C]hurch-state legal experts said the decision will likely just shift the controversy and legal battles from the national group to local troops and councils as volunteers barred from participating file suit.

“It’s changing the target [of litigation] because now it will be all about the local, not the national,” said Douglas Laycock, a prominent religious liberty scholar at the University of Virginia. “It changes the dynamic a lot. It makes it more informal, less visible.”

Well, there you go: litigation that has to be undertaken all over the damned place and at the same time becomes "less visible." In this day and age, it's smart to make your public homo-hating less visible.

As former CIA Director and SecDef Bob Gates, now president of the BSA (as well as chancellor of the College of William and Mary), who spearheaded this policy adjustment, put it: "“For far too long, this issue has divided and distracted us. Now it’s time to unite behind our shared belief in the extraordinary power of scouting to be a force for good in a community and in the lives of its youth members.”

Boy Scouts of America votes to end controversial ban on openly-gay scout leaders

By Michelle Boorstein | July 27 at 7:25 PM


A Boy Scout wears an Eagle Scout neckerchief during the annual Boy Scouts Parade and Report to State in the House Chambers.

The Boy Scouts of America, facing litigation, shrinking membership and sweeping acceptance of gay rights, voted Monday to lift its ban on openly gay troop leaders and employees.

The national organization will no longer allow discrimination against its paid workers or at BSA-owned facilities. But local troops and councils will be permitted to decide for themselves whether they will allow openly gay volunteer leaders.

The executive board’s vote was taken at the suggestion of the group’s president, former defense secretary Robert Gates, who noted that the Scouts are facing potential lawsuits by gay adults who were shut out of positions. But church-state legal experts said the decision will likely just shift the controversy and legal battles from the national group to local troops and councils as volunteers barred from participating file suit.

[Monday’s vote comes after another top Boy Scout body unanimously recommended it]

“It’s changing the target [of litigation] because now it will be all about the local, not the national,” said Douglas Laycock, a prominent religious liberty scholar at the University of Virginia. “It changes the dynamic a lot. It makes it more informal, less visible.”

Gay equality advocates praised the measure as a start.

“This was a very important and difficult change for such an organization,” said Josh Schiller, an attorney representing Yasmin Cassini, a lesbian in Colorado who was hired to run a Scout center but then lost the job when she came out. Schiller is working pro bono with other high-profile lawyers to fight the Scout ban. “I definitely think it’s the beginning of building inclusive programs…It’s halfway where we want to be.”

The vote comes two years after the BSA lifted its ban on openly gay youth, a dramatic step for an organization whose leaders went to the Supreme Court to fight accepting openly gay members. Some 70 percent of Boy Scout troops are run by faith-based groups, many from orthodox communities including Mormons, Catholics, Southern Baptists and Muslims who do not accept gay equality.

But the march toward full equality for gay and lesbian Americans has unfolded with unusual speed, with 25 states accepting gay marriage in 2013 and 2014 before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. Polls have shown acceptance of gay equality rising sharply among the young. Meanwhile, the Boy Scouts experienced a 7 percent drop in membership since lifting its ban on openly gay youth.

The Scouts’ smaller executive committee, whose members serve on the larger executive board, voted unanimously earlier this month to permit openly gay adults to serve as leaders.

The new rules approved Monday allow troops chartered by a religious organization — including churches, mosques and synagogues — to “continue to choose adult leaders whose beliefs are consistent with their own.”

“For far too long, this issue has divided and distracted us,” said president Robert Gates in a statement. “Now it’s time to unite behind our shared belief in the extraordinary power of scouting to be a force for good in a community and in the lives of its youth members.”

According to the Boy Scouts’ statement, 79 percent of board members voted in favor of the resolution. Equality activist Zach Wahls, son of lesbian parents, cited someone on the board as saying 45 people were in favor, 12 were opposed.

Laycock said it’s not clear what will happen over the long-term in court. No states, he said, have bans on discriminating against gay people for volunteers. And about half the states do not have employment discrimination bans.

It’s also unclear how these changes will play out in the years to come, as some conservative leaders say like-minded troops are moving away from the Scouts. Roger Oldham, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, said traditional groups are braced for the possibility that soon, even church-based groups will be required to fully accept gay leaders.

“The next step, which may be a year or two down the road, seems obvious to us,” Oldham wrote. Traditional groups “are being put into a situation where they have to either compromise their conviction or choose to leave. And for those for whom Biblical sexual morality is a conviction they have no alternative,” he said.

The Mormon Church, the largest group in scouting, and the Catholic Church have issued statements since 2013 affirming their desire to stay in Scouting — so long as they can continue to select leaders who reflect their teachings.

[Read more onsite.]

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