Philly Boy Scouts tell National org to get bent over anti-gay policies

[giza]

For those of you who aren't too familiar with the Boy Scouts of America, they have had a long standing policy of discriminating against gay people. If you're gay, you're not allowed to be a scout or a leader. Their justification for doing this is that part of the Scout Oath has the phrase "morally straight" in it. That's right, the Old White Men who run the BSA say that being gay is immoral.

I am an Eagle Scout and I find this policy repugnant. Imagine my joy when I just read today that Philadelphia's Cradle of Liberty Council pretty much told the national organization to get bent with regards to that policy by voting to end discrimination against gays:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/5972758.htm (Philadelphia Inquirer article)

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/5981415.htm (Editorial)

The best part of the first article is where Gregg Shields from the National Council said, "We recognize that not everybody agrees with our policy, and we respect their opinions, but we ask their tolerance of the values that we hold." Ah, so I guess his definition of "tolerance" means "excluding people whose sexual orientation we don't like". Asshole.

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out, but I'll be sending a note to the Cradle of Liberty Council shortly telling them that I support their actions and hope that more councils follow suit.

Comments

[sympolarbear.livejournal.com]

*smiles* YES, bout time on that its been way too long in coming. As a former scout I fully support ya on this one. I am proud of the time I had in the BSA and was an Eagle Scout as well. But due to their policy I am not allowed any involvement in their activities. Yet the BSA policy is in no way a reflection of the overall world scouting movement as in several other countries such discrimination does not exist. Hopefully this will be the start of ending or changing the BSA rules as it does a great disrespect with its ignorance.