The Boy Scouts of America announced plans today to partially lift the ban on gays, saying that openly gay members would be allowed but that gay adults would continue to be barred. The proposed policy change must still be approved by about 1,400 members of the Boy Scouts National Council at a meeting on May 20. “No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone,” the proposed policy states, but the organization “will maintain the current membership policy for all adult leaders.”
The Boy Scouts had previously considered letting local chapters decide for themselves on admitting gays as scouts and adult leaders or continuing to exclude them. Opting instead for the proposed policy change, Scout officials said it was the result of surveys sent earlier this year to members of the scouting community.
This is a huge shift for a group who went all the way to the Supreme Court in 2000 to argue that denying gays membership was a fundamental, cornerstone belief that should not be infringed. The Court ruled that the Boy Scouts do have the right to uphold their membership policy of excluding gays.
With the societal shift in attitudes toward gays this decision doesn’t surprise me. The attacks by gay groups and their friends in government and the media have worn down the Scouts and forced them to make a decision that would have been unthinkable even just ten years ago. Elected officials were even on the attack with legislators in California giving others ideas by proposing a bill that would have removed the Scouts nonprofit status.
Like many church denominations who already welcome openly gay couples and even perform gay weddings, the Scouts are about to become another formerly wholesome organization who now pander to a liberal minority group in order to curry favor with local sponsors and media.
I still have my merit badges and other items from my time in the Boy Scouts many years ago. They will soon become relics of better days, when Scouts weren’t denigrated for requiring members to be moral people. Chalk up another victim of the influx of immorality in our society.
This pains me.
I’m an Eagle Scout. I’m very proud of that fact, and proud that my brothers and father are also Eagle Scouts. We’ve been firm supporters of BSA, and have always appreciated their moral stance.
Sadly, a simple glance through the handbook of yesteryear compared to the current handbook says it all: BSA has gone toward the progressive view of morality, i.e. whatever feels right is moral.
And it will just get worse as time goes by.
Little by little, our society is going down a degrading road. Little by little, our society is getting used to the dark. There is no way God can be pleased with our path.
I always wonder what will be next.