The committee action follows a speech in May by the organization's president, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in which he declared that the long-standing ban on participation by openly gay adults was no longer sustainable. He and other BSA leaders said the ban was likely to be the target of lawsuits that the Scouts were apt to lose.

In 2013, after bitter internal debate, the BSA decided to allow openly gay youths as Scouts but not gay adults as leaders.

Under the resolution, local Scout units would be able to select adult leaders without regard to sexual orientation — a stance that several Scout councils have already adopted in defiance of the official national policy.

"This change allows Scouting's members and parents to select local units, chartered to organizations with similar beliefs, that best meet the needs of their families," the BSA statement said. "This change would also respect the right of religious chartered organizations to continue to choose adult leaders whose beliefs are consistent with their own."

Several denominations that sponsor large numbers of Scout units — including the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormon church and the Southern Baptist Convention — have been apprehensive about ending the ban on gay adults.

Southern Evangelical Seminary President Richard Land, who formerly led the Southern Baptist Convention's ethics and religious liberty commission, said that he was glad the policy allowed an exemption for religiously sponsored groups but that it didn't resolve his main concern, that neither boys nor girls in Scouting should have leaders who are sexually attracted to their gender, whether the leader is gay or straight.

"If you put them in the compromising situations that you are sometimes in with Scout leaders and Scouts, in terms of camping and other situations, it could lead to great tragedy for children," Land said. "It's best to avoid the temptation."

In a memo sent Monday to local Scout officials nationwide, the BSA's top leaders said that they consulted their religious partners before acting on the resolution and that they pledged to defend the right of any church-sponsored units to continue excluding gay adults from leadership posts.

