Boy Scouts Should Allow Gay Leaders, BSA President Says

The Boy Scouts of America should end its ban on gay adult leaders, BSA President Robert Gates said today (May 21), lending credence to the concern expressed in a 2013 Southern Baptist Convention resolution that opening the group's membership to homosexual youth was "merely the first step toward future approval of homosexual adult leaders in the Scouts."

A policy allowing gay Scout leaders "was a matter of time," said Ernest Easley, who was chairman of the SBC Executive Committee in 2013. "Back when they changed their thinking regarding the boys themselves, I knew that within a year or so they would reverse their stand with the leadership. And frankly, I think it was the plan to begin with: Start with the kids. We get that done. Then we come back later with the adults."

Gates, a former C.I.A. director and U.S. secretary of defense, told attendees of the BSA annual meeting in Atlanta he is not asking the national board to change the leadership policy immediately. But he said the Scouts must voluntarily accept gay leaders before a court forces them to do so. Keep reading

Also see
Boy Scouts President Calls for Lifting of the Ban on Gay Troop Leaders
Boy Scout President Robert Gates Stresses Urgency in Lifting Ban on Openly Gay Leaders

Photo credit: Pixabay, public domain