This comment of the day was by RyanH on the post Why I Am Actively Supporting the Boy Scouts
“I am an Eagle Scout and current cub scout volunteer; I have 3 sons, 2 of whom are cub scouts. I’m also a very strong advocate of gay rights and of a full lift of the ban on gay scouts and leaders. I am frustrated that gay leaders are still banned. But having said that, my advice to you is to let your son join the scouts. When your family joins the scouts, you are now fighting the fight from WITHIN the organization and that’s the ONLY way the Boy Scouts will ever change their policies. We need more allies in the scouts, not less. The more allies we have inside the organization, the easier it will be to end the discrimination. You may also find with enough legwork that there are troops out there who are subtly ignoring the ban on gay leaders. I think it’s worth it to do the homework to find out.
The BSA top leadership knows it eventually has to end the ban on gay leaders. Just the fact that there are corporations that would literally release millions of dollars into the scouts *today* if they lifted the ban is motivation enough (the BSA is hurting badly for money). They also know it’s no longer a socially defensible position. However when they finally studied the issue in depth, they realized that “ripping off the band-aid” in total would cause an immediate implosion of the organization. The BSA would have ceased to exist. Instead they finally got savvy and decoupled the issues of gay youth and gay leadership. This allows for an incremental change, and I predict in a few years the ban on gay leaders will be lifted. I think once everyone sees how much of a non-issue this is in the scouts, there will be much less objection to finally removing the ban.”
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Where do you stand on the Boy Scouts?
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