Segregation is at its most insidious when it is justified under the pretext of official progress. If Jim Crow-era “separate but equal” racial segregation and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the failed military policy banning LGBT soldiers from serving openly, taught America anything, it’s that.

The decision this week by the Boy Scouts of America to end the ban on some gay adult leaders sets the same trap. The move was cheered as evidence that Scouting is finally catching up to growing popular support for LGBT rights, similar to the Supreme Court’s watershed decision this summer guaranteeing same-sex marriage as a constitutional right.



Closer examination leads to a different conclusion. According to Robert Gates, the former US defense secretary and current president of the Boy Scouts, gay men are now officially permitted to be adult leaders, foreclosing the preposterous scenario of a gay Eagle Scout required to turn in his scouting badge upon reaching the age of majority. But under the new policy, local sponsoring organizations, like churches or synagogues, retain the authority to determine whether gay men are fit to serve as scout leaders.

In effect, Gates is outsourcing decades of discrimination by Scouting to local chapters, which apparently have been given the green light to continue to discriminate against gay adult leaders. If Gates was attempting to appease local religious sponsors with the new policy, he failed. Already, the Mormon Church is signaling it may break from Scouting altogether and create its own youth organization.

As a former Eagle Scout myself and the only openly gay member of the New York State Senate, I’ve been following Scouting’s shambolic attempts at refining their policies towards LGBT people with interest. The Boy Scouts shouldn’t permit the Mormon Church or any other group to undermine its national antidiscrimination policy. Scouting needs to make a clean break with these groups and ban all discrimination by organizations – religious or secular – against gay scout leaders.

Nothing short of zero tolerance is effective in enforcing anti-discrimination policies, a point made to me this week by an attendee I spoke to from Mississippi at a national gathering for LGBT parents and their children in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He recalled walking by a church-sponsored event this year in Jackson where Scouts were casually playing a game called “smear the queer.” Bias against LGBT people is so ingrained that it can only be stamped out in a uniform and regimented fashion.

Even more disturbing is the fact that we’ve seen this movie before when it comes to Boy Scouts of America and discrimination.

For the majority of the 20th century the Scouts’ official policy was one of racial nondiscrimination, while quietly ceding authority to local councils to set their own segregationist policies. As a result, many chapters banned black Scouts altogether for decades, while others allowed young black men to become Scouts only through segregated chapters and prohibitions on black Scouts wearing the uniform. It was not until 1974 that the last segregated Scout chapters were forced to integrate following a lawsuit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

What message are we sending young gay kids across America when the official policies of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) harken back to the bad old days of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and racial segregation? Why is the BSA dealing with the issue of workplace discrimination piecemeal? It’s telling that Girl Scouts doesn’t have this discriminatory policy.

Legislation on the federal and state levels would help address this problem head on.

Earlier this month, US Senator Jeff Merkley and US Representative David Cicilline introduced the federal Equality Act, which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to provide civil rights protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. While several states have enacted similar protections, a comprehensive federal policy is long overdue, and the most effective way to ensure that LGBT Americans are protected under the law no matter where they travel in the US.

In New York, I introduced legislation that would deny tax-exempt status to any organization – like the Boy Scouts of America – that discriminates against any person, group, organization or other entity based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

The Boy Scouts of America should clean up its act, ban discrimination in all forms and support true progressive reforms like these.