This past year, as a culmination of a 12 year commitment, I became an Eagle Scout-the highest rank achievable within the Boy Scouts of America. Most of my years with the Boy Scouts of America were sponsored by Reformed synagogues, which were progressive and tolerant towards all scouts and parents, regardless of their sexual orientation. However, something that always marred my experience was that the national organization was-and still is-openly bigoted against the homosexual community.

When I was a young scout, my family and I were involved in a troop that was unofficially sponsored by a progressive Episcopal school. One year, the troop wanted to actively recruit membership from the school, and the school responded that they were not comfortable engaging with an organization which discriminates. In reality, all the troop leadership needed to assuage these fears was to admit that the national policy is nonsensical, and in turn assure the school that the discriminatory policy was not being actively enforced. Instead, the conservative troop leadership, sticking to its  guns, sent back a condescending letter to the school elucidating on the difference between "morals" and "principles". Burning the last bridge towards gaining new members, and alienating many current members as well, the old troop slowly withered and died. I hope the same will not be said of the national organization for similar reasons.

This past week, the national executive board of the Boy Scouts of America announced that it was reviewing their discriminatory policy, which currently excludes any gay people from being members or leaders. This even applies to children who had joined the organization at a very young age. According to the national board, if these boys come out at a later point, they are immediately dismissed from the program.

The policy is wrong for two distinct reasons. First, the rationale used for the exclusion of gay scouts is that lesbian gay bisexual and queer leaders, or gay scouts, may not be "appropriate role models," according to the BSA's website. Essentially, the age old clich?(c) is that there is something wrong with being a homosexual, and thus, we must save our children from being exposed to it. Such a frame of thinking is dangerously reactionary, seemingly still stuck in a 1980s era of homophobia. Second, the exclusion is possibly illegal. Though the Supreme Court affirmed in the right of the BSA to openly discriminate in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale in 2000, when a gay Eagle Scout sued the organization after being dismissed following his coming out, the court also forced to recognize how the Scouts are subsidized by tax dollars from the government.

The BSA regularly holds meetings at public schools and other government buildings, hosts conventions on military bases for little-to-no rent. This means that our tax money is indirectly being used to fund this discriminatory organization, and with it, its discriminatory policies.
I maintain great respect for the Boy Scouts, both for its members and as an institution, just how I have always maintained great respect for this country's armed forces, even in spite of a similar prejudice held against homosexuals until 2010. Scouting provides  myriad benefits for young boys, teaching them valuable leadership skills. Unfortunately, that message has been hijacked by the religious right in favor of conservative-style family values.

This would not be the first time the BSA has updated its membership qualifications behind the rest of the country. It was not until 1974 that the last segregated scout troop was integrated.

Further, women were not allowed in leadership roles until 1988. In both of these instances, societal pressure finally overcame discriminatory policies, which the organization insisted was absolutely necessary to the survival of Scouting. Black scouts and white scouts can now attend meeting side-by-side, and women may now become leaders; homosexuals should be able to follow suit.

The original scouting organization, in the United Kingdom, has no similar ban on homosexuals. Neither do the Boy Scouts of Canada, Australia or Germany, to name a few. Additionally, the Girl Scouts of America maintain no such policy. However, the Boy Scouts of America, in perhaps one of the sadder examples of American exceptionalism, still sticks to the delusional idea that homosexuals are not "morally straight" or clean. For the record, the term "morally straight," with regard to scouting, is not in any way related to sexual orientation. It is with great hope that the Boy Scouts of America executive board votes to end this discriminatory policy once and for all.
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