Boy Scouts Votes to Allow Gay Scout Leaders

On Monday, the Boy Scouts of America finally voted to end a decades-long ban on gay scout leaders. The Boy Scouts’ national executive board met in Texas and, according to NBC News, “concluded that the policy of excluding gay adults ‘was no longer legally defensible.’ The decision was approved by 79 percent of the board.”

Effectively immediately, the national ban is gone, however, local scouting units still have the ability to reject gay applicants for leadership positions if hiring them would violate the unit’s religious beliefs. The Boy Scouts stated that it would defend any local scouting group’s “good faith refusal” to admit a scouting leader based upon the group’s religious principles. “For far too long this issue has divided and distracted us,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Scouting’s current president, said in a statement. “Now it’s time to unite behind our shared belief in the extraordinary power of Scouting to be a force for good in a community and in the lives of its youth members.

Human rights groups, however, say that the vote is a start but the Boy Scouts still has a way to go. “Today’s vote by the Boy Scouts of America to allow gay, lesbian and bisexual adults to work and volunteer is a welcome step toward erasing a stain on this important organization,” said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin in a statement after the vote. “But including an exemption for troops sponsored by religious organizations undermines and diminishes the historic nature of today’s decision.”