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

Re: Tolerance?

[doniago.livejournal.com]

But they were speaking out of fear and ignorance, and you were speaking with full awareness of what you were saying.
There's also the difference between a personal attack such as 'asshole!' and a dispute of facts/opinions.