The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) National Executive Committee has advanced a resolution that could end the group's ban on gay adults. In a memo sent on Monday to Scouting officials from BSA President Robert M. Gates and other BSA executives, they say that the inclusive membership resolution was "unanimously adopted" by the Executive Committee and now faces the National Executive Board in a vote on July 27.
The proposed resolution on adult leadership standards reads:
No adult applicant for registration as an employee or non-unit-serving volunteer, who otherwise meets the requirements of the Boy Scouts of America, may be denied registration on the basis of sexual orientation.
"It's long past time to end discrimination in Scouting," said GLAAD President & CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. "Scouting is about leadership and values like honesty and integrity -- values that this ban continues to undermine. The proposed resolution is a welcome step forward for fairness in Scouting, and it must be ratified swiftly. Otherwise, the Boy Scouts will fall even further out of step with a majority of Americans who support an end to this ban.”
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 Change.org petition has attracted more than 350,000 signatures in support of ending the Boy Scouts’ ban on gay Scouts and adult leaders.
More than 2.2 million people have joined Change.org petition campaigns since GLAAD and Tyrrell launched her first petition.