It was disappointing Wednesday when the executive board of the Boy Scouts of America delayed a decision to let local troops make their own decisions on whether to allow openly gay participants. Religious conservatives, who hold significant sway in the organization, unleashed a firestorm of protest when it became clear last week that the board might lift its national ban on gay Scouts. Still, the delay also came with a commitment to hold a definitive vote on the policy at the BSA’s national meeting in May. So the 103-year-old organization has forced a choice upon itself: Either it will emerge from this debate with a commitment to advancing a sense of community in an increasingly diverse America, or behave like an intolerant relic of the past.
The next three and a half months will be important. The BSA must find a way to temper the intolerance of the religious right, which claims, against all evidence, that allowing a gay member of a troop in Arlington, Mass., would somehow damage troop cohesion in Arlington, Texas, or Arlington, Va. But the stance of gay-rights advocates, some of whom rejected last week’s move and say they will not be satisfied with anything except a nationally binding nondiscrimination policy, also complicates efforts by BSA leaders to steer the organization toward a more welcoming posture.
Comments
leave the boys scout alone, it's their choice, if people don't like it then don't join. everything in this county gets shoved down people's throats, and if you oppose you're condemed.
Like military-grade assault weapons, hi-cap mags, and no background checks? Those are being shoved down our collective throats, and more people will be condemned to death because of them, but I don't suspect that you meant them when you wrote "everything". You meant "everything" like tolerance and enlightened thinking, right?
This comment has been removed.
Certain things in life need to be condemned. Humanity advances through the expansion of compassion and a wider and wider range of acceptance of human differences. We advance when we recognize the "person" before us and not the "object" before us. That viewpoint is not a "liberal" viewpoint or a "conservative" one, it is grounded in the founding of most of our relgious philosophies. In religion it is viewed as the "spirit" of the person for the secular it is purely the right of being an individual.
It is one thing to hold a personal view and another to deny the "different" access to those things that are in the public sphere. Surely the Boy Scouts can retain their current position, but they are considering the chage because membership is dwindling and people in general no longer share their view. That is an advancement in societal thinking. The Boy Scouts as "migh" holds should and are allowed to stay with their choice, but they will be left behind and condemned for they will no longer represent the advancement that society itself has attainted regarding its viewpoints towards other human beings.