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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Mon Jun 11, 2012, 06:57 AM Jun 2012

Bring on the Gay Boy Scouts

http://www.alternet.org/activism/155822/bring_on_the_gay_boy_scouts/

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So you’re an organization that “builds character and trains [young people] in the responsibilities of participating citizenship.” Naturally, that means you practice institutionalized discrimination. Maybe it’s time to rethink a few things, Boy Scouts of America.

That the Boy Scouts refuse to offer membership to LGBT individuals is nothing new – they’ve been expressly prohibited from participating in the Scouts for over 20 years, on the grounds that “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with those values” the group wishes to instill. Since then, the right of the Scouts to be exclusionary has been thrashed about, tested and challenged, always unsuccessfully.

But though there are still miles to go before we attain anything like true equal rights, this business of shutting gay and lesbian people out of the stream of American life just isn’t as popular as it once was. So last year when Iowa resident (and Salon’s 2011 sexiest man) Zach Wahls spoke proudly about his two moms before his state’s legislative hearings to ban same-sex marriage — and about his status as an Eagle Scout — it struck a deep chord and renewed the debate. Wahls went on to form Scouts for Equality to “lead a respectful, honest dialogue with current and former Scouts and Scout Leaders about ending this outdated policy.”

And then Jennifer Tyrrell, “a devoted partner, mother, friend and community leader in Bridgeport, Ohio,” was dismissed as a Tiger Cub den leader for her son’s Cub Scout troop on the grounds of her orientation, or, as the Scouts told her, because she did “not meet the high standards of membership that the BSA seeks.” The high standards of being, you know, not so gay. A Change.org petition was born, and a resolution was placed before the Scouts to reappraise its standards.
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