Boy Scouts Reconfirm No Gays Allowed Policy – NAMBLA Freaks Out
Jul 23, 2012 No Comments ›› iResist
Height of hypocrisy? Gay rights groups want tolerance, but can’t tolerate opposition views… OK.
Excerpted from Yahoo News:
The Boy Scouts of America today reaffirmed its policy to excluding gays from joining or being leaders, disappointing gay rights groups.
A special committee of Scout executive and adult volunteers formed in 2010 concluded unanimously that the anti-gay policy was the “absolute best” for the 100-year-old organization, national spokesman Deron Smith, told The Associated Press.
He said it represented “a diversity of perspectives and opinions,” but did not name the members of that committee. The Scouts is one of the largest youth organizations in the country with 2.7 million members and more than 1 million adult volunteers.
Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout and son of Iowa lesbians who has been outspoken in the issue, today accused the organization of basing their decision on a committee of “11 unelected, unnamed bureaucrats.”
“Why not put out a call and make it a democratic process?” he said to ABCNews.com. “Why have a secretive committee make the decision?”
“I believe the fast majority of Scout families do not support their policy on excluding gays and if that is the case, they picked an awfully interesting way of affirming that in their report,” said Wahls.
“It’s disappointing,” he said. “The first value of the Scout’s law, is a scout is trustworthy and this process does not sound trustworthy. We don’t know who the people are — they are not named and they are not willing to accept responsibility for their actions.”
But the Scouts’ chief executive, Bob Mazzuca, told the Associated Press that both leaders and Scouts overwhelmingly support the policy.
“The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers and at the appropriate time and in the right setting,” Mazzuca said. “We fully understand that no single policy will accommodate the many diverse views among our membership or society.”
Just this week AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, executive board member of the Boy Scouts of America, said he was committed to ending the ban. He takes over as president in 2012, according to Wahls.
“Things are changing,” said Wahls. “He will be one of the three most powerful men in the organization.”
The exclusion policy was challenged in 2000, but the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Boy Scouts of America, ruling 5-4 that the organization was exempt from state laws that bar anti-gay discrimination.
