Tag: Boy Scouts

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Bryan Fischer at American Family Assoc. losing his mind that Boy Scouts may drop gay discrimination policy

American Family Association hate group leader Bryan Fischer is going ballistic over the news that the Boy Scouts of America might drop its policy against gay scouts and scout leaders, claiming that “male homosexuals offend against children at roughly 10 times the rate at which heterosexuals offend” and warns that it’s an open invitation to pedophiles.

According to Fischer, should the policy be dropped, the Boy Scouts “are done, they’re toast, they’re history. From this day forward, there is not one loving father in America that ever, ever, EVER oughta entrust his son to the Boy Scouts of America.”

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Boy Scouts of America close to ending ban on gay members

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MSNBC is reporting that the Boy Scouts of America are close to ending their ban on gay members and leaders. This would be a big shift in policy for BSA.

The policy change is now before the organization’s national board of directors.

The decision would be left to each individual chapter whether or not to accept gay scouts and leaders.

MSNBC reports that this changes comes from communications from the grass roots level of the Boy Scouts. Local chapters have apparently urged the national organization to reconsider the discriminatory policy.

Zach Wahls, Eagle Scout and founder of Scouts for Equality, had this to say: “This would be an incredible step forward in the right direction. We look forward to working with BSA Councils and chartering organizations across the country to end the exclusion of our gay brothers in Scouting, as well as the gay and lesbian leaders who serve the organizations so well.”

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UPS drops support of Boy Scouts over LGBT discrimination

GLAAD is reporting that the Boy Scouts  will no longer be getting grants from shipping giant UPS due to their anti-gay policies. 

UPS has posted this statement on their website:

The UPS Foundation seeks to support organizations that are in alignment with our focus areas, guidelines, and non-discrimination policy. UPS and The UPS Foundation do not discriminate against any person or organization with regard to categories protected by applicable law, as well as other categories protected by UPS and The UPS Foundation in our own policies. These include, but are not limited to race, gender, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran or military status, pregnancy, age and religion.

In 2010, UPS gave $167,000 to Boy Scouts USA.

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Ellen surprises dismissed Boy Scout on the air

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player According to Mercury News, Ryan Andresen, who turned 18 on Monday, was due to receive the highest honor in Boy Scouting until he came out as gay. His mother, Karen Andresen, started a Change.org petition on Tuesday, Oct. 2, demanding that Ryan receive his Eagle Scout ranking. The petition has received more than 355,000 signatures.

Ryan was officially dismissed as a member of the Boy Scouts of America two days after his mother filed the petition.

Boy Scout leadership reaffirmed its ban on participation by gays and lesbians in July.

It’s also worth noting that Ryan’s Eagle Scout project is a 288-tile “Wall of Tolerance” on an outdoor wall at Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School in Moraga, California.

Hopefully more attention being brought to stories like Ryan’s, will pressure the BSA to reevaluated their outdated homophobic policies.

Ellen DeGeneres made good on her promise to host Ryan on her show. As she says in the clip, she couldn’t give him his Eagle Scout pin, but she found a way to impact his life, just the same.

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Intel will no longer support Boy Scouts due to gay discrimination

Just days after a petition calling for Intel to drop it’s support garnered over 30,000 signatures in less than 24 hours, the Boy Scouts of America has lost its largest corporate donor, Intel, which announced Friday that it will no longer support the group until it vows to stop discriminating against gay people.

In a statement released to Think Progress on Friday, Intel’s Chief Diversity Officer, Rosalind Hudnell, confirmed that the company would no longer fund the Boy Scouts of America, so long as the Scouts stand by their long-held policy barring gay troops and leaders from participating in the organization.

“Due to significant growth in the number of organizations funded, earlier this year we revisited our policies associated with the program, and applied new rigor that requires any organization to confirm that it adheres to Intel’s anti-discrimination policy in order to receive funding,” said Hudnell.

Zach Wahls, who led the petition drive, said “Intel made the right decision here, in order to live up to their corporate values of diversity, equality and individual liberty.”

“Companies that support the LGBT community simply can’t be in the business of funding organizations that discriminate. Frankly, by sending this message, Intel is upholding the true spirit of Scouting better than the BSA is today,” he said.

According to Wahls, Intel gave almost $700,000 to the Boy Scout in 2010.

More at LGBTQ Nation

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President Obama opposes Boy Scouts gay discrimination

Well, it looks like this is about the only thing Mitt Romney and the President agree on.  They both think the Boy Scouts of America should allow gays to participate.

“The President believes the Boy Scouts is a valuable organization that has helped educate and build character in American boys for more than a century,” White House spokesperson Shin Inouye said in the statement to The Washington Blade. “He also opposes discrimination in all forms, and as such opposes this policy that discriminates on basis of sexual orientation.”

Inouye also told The Blade that the President will not resign his position as honorary president of the organization as a result of this decision.

More at the Advocate

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Eagle Scout returns badge in protest over Boy Scouts anti-gay stance

Martin Cizmar, the arts and culture editor of Portland Oregon’s weekly Williamette Week, returned his Eagle Scout badge to the Boy Scouts yesterday in protest of the group’s anti-gay policies.
Wrote Cizmar: “I am not gay. However, I cannot in good conscious hold thi sbadge as long as the BSA continues a policy of bigotry. Though I didn’t know at the time, I was acquainted with a number fo gay scouts and scouters. They were all great men, loyal to the scout oath and motto and helpful to the movement. There is no fair reason they should not be allowed to participate in scouting.”
Added Cizmar on Twitter: “Just mailed my Eagle Scout medal back to the BSA to protest the ban on gay scouts. Kinda sad, but important.”



Via Towleroad

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Boy Scouts uphold ban on gays

After a two year review, today the Boy Scouts issued a statement reaffirming its ban on openly gay Scout members or leaders.

An 11-member special committee, formed discreetly by top Scout leaders in 2010, “came to the conclusion that this policy is absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts,” the organization’ national spokesman, Deron Smith, told The Associated Press. Smith said the committee, comprised of professional scout executives and adult volunteers, was unanimous in its conclusion — preserving a long-standing policy that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 and has remained controversial ever since. As a result of the committee’s decision, the Scouts’ national executive board will take no further action on a recently submitted resolution asking for reconsideration of the membership policy.

Recently Ernst & Young CEO James Turley and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, both of whom sit on the Boy Scouts board of directors, signaled their willingness to lift the ban. Stephenson is pegged to head the national board beginning in 2014. The above-linked story notes that the Boy Scouts concede that today’s decision came with internal dissent on its board.

Via JoeMyGod

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Zach Wahls On Boy Scouts Discrimination – June 7, 2012

ThinkProgress caught up with Eagle Scout Zach Wahls at Netroots Nation about today’s announcement that the Boy Scouts of America will reconsider its policy discriminating against the LGBT community. He discusses his new initiative, Scouts for Equality, through which he is rallying other scouts to pressure BSA.

Said Wahls:

“It’s not a smokescreen. This proposal was made after Jen Tyrrell’s pettion on Change.org. So even though this has been brought up in the past, it’s never gotten nearly the level of attention that it has today. And as another departure from the past, there’s never been a group — which I actually launched in coordination with a number of other Eagle Scouts today called Scouts For Equality — and we’re going to be working with a number of different groups to really build a community of scouts — Eagle scouts, former scout leaders, that sort of thing — we’re really going to work toward making this policy change.”