Boy Scouts of America ends ban on gay scout leaders

Greg Toppo | USATODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Boy Scouts vote to end ban on gay scout leaders Boy Scouts vote to end ban on gay scout leaders

The Boy Scouts of America relented to unprecedented pressure on Monday and lifted its national ban on gay adult leaders, paving the way for historic change — and debate — within the organization.

The historic vote shifts the specter of discrimination onto local scout groups and those sponsored by religious organizations, which retain the right to set their own policies on whether they'll allow gay men to lead scouts.

Monday's vote by the group's 71-member board followed an impassioned plea in May by the Boy Scouts President Robert Gates, a former U.S. defense secretary, who told the group, "We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be." Gates, an Eagle Scout, told leaders, "The status quo in our movement's membership standards cannot be sustained."

Zach Wahls, 24, an Eagle Scout and executive director of Scouts for Equality, which has pushed for the new policy, said the vote "marks the beginning of a new chapter" for the Boy Scouts. "As of this vote, the Boy Scouts of America is an organization that is looking forward, not back."

But the new policy won't prevent church-led scout groups from choosing adult leaders "whose beliefs are consistent with their own," the group said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, which sponsors more Scout units that any other organization, said in a statement that it was "deeply troubled" by the decision. Church officials suggested they would look into the possibility of forming their own organization to replace Boy Scouts.

"The admission of openly gay leaders is inconsistent with the doctrines of the Church and what have traditionally been the values of the Boy Scouts of America."

Mark Goldfeder, a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University School of Law, said that by ending the ban at a national level but allowing religious groups to retain exemptions based on personal beliefs, the Boy Scouts were striking "a very good balance."

The change shields the national organization from lawsuits, he said, and shifts questions of discrimination onto local groups. "They've taken a good step forward in the conversation about accommodations," he said.

The Scouts' 17-member executive committee earlier this month unanimously approved a resolution to end a blanket ban on gay adult leaders and let individual scout units set their own policy on the long-divisive issue. With Monday's vote, the change becomes official policy, effective immediately.

The Scouts' ban on gay adults saw its first major challenge last April when New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opened an inquiry into the Boy Scouts' hiring practices after the national organization said it would review the Boy Scouts' Greater New York Councils' hiring of Pascal Tessier to work in a summer camp. Tessier was the first openly gay American to become an Eagle Scout, the highest rank.

Schneiderman's civil rights chief, Kristen Clarke, warned that state law prohibits employers from refusing to hire a person based on sexual orientation.

Clarke on Monday welcomed the change, calling it "a watershed moment" for the Boy Scouts of America.

"The mission of the Boy Scouts is to prepare our nation's young people to become responsible citizens and leaders," she said. "What better way to do that than to give them the ability to learn from a diverse group of adults and role models?"

Clarke said the decision by the national group closes the state's investigation. She also said it puts the Boy Scouts "in a position of having to really take a step back and revisit this policy — and figure out what they need to do to move the organization forward. Discrimination on the basic of sexual orientation is not something permitted by law."The proposal passed by a wide margin, a Boy Scouts spokesman told USA Today. Of 71 official voting members, 57 cast votes and all but 12 voted to end the ban.

The organization has been slowly, steadily, moving toward this moment. In 2013, it allowed openly gay youth to be scouts, but stopped short of allowing gay adults to be leaders.

Gates, who became the organization's national president in May 2014, said at the time that he personally would have favored ending the ban, but that he opposed debating it after the Scouts' policy-making body upheld it. But in May 2015, at the Boy Scouts' annual meeting, he said events of the past year "have confronted us with urgent challenges I did not foresee and which we cannot ignore."

He also cited broader developments related to gay rights, and warned that rigidly maintaining the ban "will be the end of us as a national movement."

Gates said those included growing challenges to the policy in New York as well as Colorado. He also cited new state laws and court decisions barring discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Boy Scouts, he said, "finds itself in an unsustainable position" regarding the ban.

While revoking charters of councils that allowed gay leaders would be allowed under the current policy, he said, "such an action would deny the lifelong benefits of scouting to hundreds of thousands of boys and young men today and vastly more in the future. I will not take that path."