Jennifer Tyrrell and actor and Eagle Scout George Takei lead New York City's gay pride march June 2012. (GLAAD)

Why does it matter?

The question of the legality of BSA's policy was already asked and answered by the Supreme Court in the 2000 case, Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale.

Isn't it time to move on? Abandon the organization to the Christian fundamentalists, let BSA subsist indefinitely off those who are indifferent to or support their discrimination?

It's a fair question. And it's one that certainly crossed my mind during the battle to repeal "Don't ask, don't tell." I wondered why so many of the gay and lesbian soldiers I met who had been so unfairly victimized by the military didn't just turn their backs on the whole mess? Moreover, many of them expressed a sincere interest in re-entering the service if they could.

It was a love of the culture that I couldn't easily grasp, although I did come to understand it. Perhaps because my bourgeois preconceptions of who military people were began to give way to a recognition that many were very smart, talented and, ultimately, idealists. They loved the organization and they wanted it to be better, and that included being a part of it.

And on this, I can relate. I loved the organization of Scouting as well. I still do.

I am not a dispassionate observer. I spent my entire childhood in Scouting. I am among the lucky ones who were able to spend not one, but two summers at the crown jewel of the Boy Scout organization, Philmont Scout Ranch. A land gift made in 1938 by oilman Waite Phillips, Philmont is 137,500 acres of pristine land in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.

I was so taken by my first troop visit, when I returned to Michigan I applied to join their Trail Crew program for the following summer. I was accepted and in summer of 1983, I and a friend joined Scouts from all over the country. For half the time, we built a hiking trail through the mountains, with picks and shovels, sometimes through solid rock. And for rest we were rewarded with a glorious hiking expedition through the Rocky Mountains. I can't say that the "work" part of the trip was any less enjoyable than the "reward" portion. I had the time of my life every single day.



Summer of 1983

And I confess, before I arrived, I was nervous. I was just 16. I might not be able to hack it. We were told it would be very physically demanding, and it was. I was part of a team, I needed to pull my weight.

And I did. We all pulled together as a team.

I returned from New Mexico feeling strong and powerful and resourceful and independent and popular, and at a time when it's so hard for teenagers to feel any of those things. And I conquered fears and performed feats I didn't think I could. It's hard to convey how beautiful and precious those memories are to me still today. These experiences left a lifetime impression on me, as surely as many of us can remember a favorite teacher or another life-changing event.

Today, I glanced through my photos taken with my Kodak Instantamatic X-15. The are blurry, and fading yellow, and poorly shot. Yet the memories they elicit are still vivid and bright.

It hurts me personally to think an organization I loved considers me, as a gay man, unworthy to wear the uniform. And in their eyes, I always was unworthy. Even when I was later asked to serve as assistant Scoutmaster.

And later in my adulthood, it crossed my mind to return to Philmont. I even went as far as applying to be among their summer seasonal staff. Part of me did so with great trepidation, knowing it'd be difficult to lie about myself for an entire summer. And the burden of scrupulously guarding a secret may spoil the summer and make it impossible for me to really bond with my colleagues or charges. I got called for an interview by a recruiter that seemed enthusiastic, and well he should have been, my relevant experience was great. But, I never followed through. Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right and you really can't go home again.

This is a fight worth having. There are armies of former scouts, now grown ups like myself, who have fond memories of many years of Scouting. And BSA holds a virtual monopoly on so many great resources:

No one else has Philmont.

No one else has the hundreds of local Scout camps.

No one else awards an Eagle Scout, still an impressive résumé bullet.

No one else has the credibility to be welcomed into local, even national government, for educational experiences.

No one else has the literally millions and millions of charitable dollars, public and private, funding their operations.

These are opportunities I hate to see any kids deprived of having access. I hate to see families like the Tyrrells made strangers to their own community by a top-down policy the local community wouldn't even support.

It isn't only leaders like Tyrrell. Kids are often expelled as well. Even as BSA affirmed their policy a story was breaking nationally of the expulsion of an 18-year-old Scout, Eric Jones of Missouri, being fired from his camp counselor job and ejected from the his troop.

Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and the editor in chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review, gets it. Writing in the New York Times he says (emphasis mine):



What kind of message does it send to hormone-addled adolescents discovering that they’re gay (or that their friends are) when an organization central to their identity turns out not to want them?

Imagine how Eric Jones feels right now. After one quick disclosure of honesty, Jones has transitioned from being a counselor, a leader entrusted with the responsibly of being a role model, to being an outcast, viewed as a danger to the same kids he was just months ago hired to mentor?

And kids are coming out earlier and earlier. In fact, this generation of kids increasingly may not even have a concept of having been "in."

The average age of coming out has been dropping dramatically, with public self-identification happening between 15-17 (as opposed to 19-23 in the 1990s). The LGBTQ support hotline, The Trevor Project, has also observed increasingly younger callers making use of their services. This is well within Scouting range. At least, if they're sincere in their desire to mentor boys into men.

Greg Lattera of Philadelphia was just 18 when he was expelled from the Boy Scouts in 2003 for being gay. At the time, the 18-year-old Lattera held a rank just below Eagle Scout. He too was also a camp counselor. His case spurred a federal lawsuit about public subsidizing that failed at the appeals level. After he told CNN:

"I'm still the Scout that they turned into a man... Gay Scouts are just as good as any other Scout. ... We love Scouts just as much as anybody else."

Philmont Trail Crew, Summer of 1983

This is a fight worth having. Once upon a time, Boy Scouts taught me and so many others to literally climb a mountain.

And we're going climb this one too, and we're going to win this fight. It'll happen because we're right.