Gay Boy Scouts are apparently welcome at the National Scout Jamboree, Boy Scouts of America's (BSA) Jamboree director, Larry Pritchard, confirmed to the West Virginia Gazette on Thursday.
This comes as a surprise to many, as the BSA's ban gay youth membership does not officially expire until January 1, 2014.
"If we have gay Scouts here, they're probably having a good time," Pritchard said. "We have never asked anyone about their sexuality, so that's not an issue for us here at the Jamboree."
The West Virgina Gazette writes "Asked whether a hypothetical openly gay Scout would be welcome at the Jamboree, Pritchard said that any Scout who is having a good time is welcome."
GLAAD first started calls for the Boy Scouts of America to end its ban on gay Scouts and Scout leaders in April 2012 after Jennifer Tyrrell, a mom and den leader from Ohio was removed from her 7-year-old’s Cub Scout Pack for being gay. Tyrrell’s orginal Change.org petition has attracted more than 343,000 signatures in support of ending the Boy Scouts’ ban on gay Scouts and leaders. Tyrrell, together with GLAAD, has launched a new petition to urge the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) to completely lift its anti-gay ban on both youth members and adult employees and volunteers. To take action on this issue please visit www.glaad.org/denmother. For more on GLAAD's work on this campaign, including a timeline of key events, visit www.glaad.org/scouts.