Boy Scouts Delay Decison on Gay Ban

Jim Burroway

February 6th, 2013

According to the Boy Scout Law, which every Boy Scout recites regularly, a Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. You can now add indecisive to that list. The Boy Scouts of America’s Governing Board announced today that they will put off their decision on whether to life their ban on gay scouts and scout leaders until the BSA’s national meeting in May. According to a statement released this morning:

For 103 years, the Boy Scouts of America has been a part of the fabric of this nation, providing it’s youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. In the past two weeks, Scouting has received an outpouring of feedback from the American public. It reinforces how deeply people care about Scouting and how passionate they are about the organization.

After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy.

To that end, the executive board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards. The approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on the resolution at the national meeting in May 2013.

MattNYC

February 6th, 2013

Models of “leadership” aren’t they?

BSA has never been run as a total Democracy and NOW, they want to put a decision like this to a national vote???

This will definitely give the edge to the Antis who probably have the numbers in the Red States to overwhelm the Blue State reps and the rational minds in the Reds…

Raybob

February 6th, 2013

“complexity of the issue”?

Hunter

February 6th, 2013

@Raybob:

Exactly.

Canada Calling

February 6th, 2013

Pure NIMBY-ism. Canada has no such ban in its Boy Scouts. It’s like Equal Marriage. Somehow these idiots think that so long as it doesn’t happen HERE (as opposed to THERE) it has been controlled. Amazing how ideas observe borders, eh?

Timothy Kincaid

February 6th, 2013

I can’t help but think that progress was torpedoed by those who said, “it’s not enough that troops decide for themselves. No we insist that you tell those church groups who sponsor troops (70%) that they have to teach their children my values, not their values.”

MattNYC

February 6th, 2013

Timothy,

I heard no loud voices pushing that. The only people I heard talking about that were the Right Wingers who were saying that’s what “the gays” wanted.

Kithpine

February 6th, 2013

So here is my take.

Boys Scout leadership reaps in good PR by “Considering this.” They then delay the decision and push it onto the general council. 6 months go by, the general council barely holds onto the old rule. Boy Scouts leadership who’s had a huge PR boost, followed by a huge lull, then goes “Welp we where 100% for it, but the “people” have spoken and our hands our tied” resulting in a less pressure on the Boy Scout leadership to do anything, while looking like they are “progressive”.

Ben in Oakland

February 6th, 2013

Lithopone– exactly what I thought. They’re hoping for a dues ex machina to make its appearance so that they don’t have to make any decision.

Matt

February 6th, 2013

May as well strike “brave” off the list after today’s cowardly decision.

gsingjane

February 6th, 2013

@MattNYC – I see we aren’t on the same email lists! In point of fact, HRC, PFLAG and NGLTF, to name just a few, adopted the “my way or the highway” stance. I wish that a lot of the pro-equality groups had taken the time to consider a perhaps more nuanced position, and maybe in the three (not six) months until the larger Board votes on the issue, they will.

FWIW, my take is not that this is some Machiavellian ploy. It’s an organization that is really struggling with some very strong, and strong-willed, and passionate constituencies, and trying to do the best thing for the largest number. Usually people do hate you for that, though.

MattNYC

February 6th, 2013

@gsingjane – then I stand correct. Sorry. I am on the MLs for PFLAG and the Task Force, and either deleted them or haven’t seen them yet. Anything with “HRC” in it goes immediately to my Trash folder. ;)

MattNYC

February 6th, 2013

That was supposed to say “corrected”. However, I just looked in my inbox and there’s not a single thing from PFLAG or the Task Force that even mentions the BSA. So I don’t know what you’re seeing.

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