Boy Scouts await results of survey on gay ban

Mike Chalmers, USA TODAY | USATODAY

A few weeks ago, Sandy Rakowski used Facebook to promote a fundraiser for her son's Boy Scout troop, and a friend berated her for supporting what she considers a bigoted and homophobic organization.

It was another moment of conflict for Rakowski, 31, of Elsmere, Del. She loves the Scouts for the values they teach 14-year-old James but is outraged and increasingly embarrassed by the Scouts' controversial policy barring gay members and leaders.

"It's ridiculous that something so positive for the kids they want to keep away from some of them because they're gay," she said. "The rule is stupid, and they should do away with it."

Others feel just as strongly that the Scouts should keep the policy. "Homosexuality is not a positive male image," said Terry Murphy, 45, of Newark, Del., who was an Eagle Scout and longtime adult leader. The Scouts should resist the "the minority of whiners" who oppose the rule, he said.

So goes the national debate over the Boy Scouts of America's policy banning "open or avowed homosexuals." It has been brewing for decades, most visibly since 2000 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Scouts' right to exclude gays under its membership rules. It fired up again in February, when the organization decided it needed more time to decide on possible changes in the policy — such as a proposal to allow governing councils and community sponsors of local troops to decide for themselves on gay membership.

The Scouts recently sent a 13-question survey to about 1.4 million parents, leaders and Scout alumni to gauge their reactions to various scenarios involving the policy, including whether:

--A gay man should be allowed to lead a Scout camping trip

--A lesbian mother should be allowed to lead a Cub Scout den

--A boy who completed every step to earn his Eagle, Scouting's highest rank, be denied the award if he comes out as gay.

The Scouts say they'll consider the responses to the questionnaire in deciding whether to revise the policy at their annual national meeting May 22-24. The decision will affect the nation's 2.7 million Scouts and "set the direction for generations to come," said Jason Pierce, executive of the Del-Mar-Va Council, which has about 10,000 Scouts in Delaware and portions of Maryland and Virginia.

Whatever the Scouts do, all sides agree there have always been gay Scouts and gay leaders, along with leaders who've defied the official policy with a version of the "don't ask, don't tell" practice formerly used by the military.

"We all knew Scouts who were gay, and no one did anything about it," said Rob Tornoe, 35, of Newark, Del., who earned his Eagle Scout in 1996. "You just care about putting up tents and starting fires and doing all the other things."

That's also what drew Ernest Talbert Jr. to join Scouts in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Dover, Del. He reached the rank of Star, two steps below Eagle, before embarking on a military career that included six years in the Air Force and 30 years in the Delaware Air National Guard. He became the Guard's first black general and retired in 2009.

Talbert called the Scouts "a fundamental building block of my youth."

For decades, no one talked about gays in Scouts or in the military, he said.

"Just like in larger society, you know but you don't know," Talbert said. "We all knew they were involved in the [Scouting] program, but we were all living with the hypocrisy of the situation. We're still doing it."

Glenn Simmonds, 38, of New London, Pa., earned his Eagle Scout in 1992 in North Carolina, then volunteered as an adult leader there and in Delaware. As scoutmaster of Troop 75 in Christiana, Simmonds said parents sometimes asked how he would handle a gay leader. He told them the leader's character and integrity were the only criteria that mattered to him.

"If I've got my choice between a gay leader who follows the 12 principles of the Scout Law and a straight guy who beats his wife, I'm going to take the gay guy every time," Simmonds said.

Murphy said he knew some members and leaders were gay but they were not "open" about it. That's an important distinction, he said.

"If the BSA will now have open gay leaders, it will taint the reputation of the Scouts," he wrote in an e-mail. "Instead of a well respected organization for growing boys, it can become a gay club."

Tim Reis, a member of the Del-Mar-Va Council's executive board, said the Scouts' policy should be rewritten, even if the ban essentially stays in place.

"The national policy is worded horribly," Reis said. "What does 'openly gay' mean? I don't know."

Many longtime Scout supporters said they regret how the gay ban has become a defining issue for so many people.

"It seems like it's such a distraction from what Scouting is all about," Reis said.

However the debate goes, Rakowski said she and her son will stay with the program. "It's not going to make me quit Scouts because the benefits far outweigh a rule that no one enforces anyway," Rakowski said.

Chalmers also reports for The News Journal in Wilmington, Del.