Zach Wahls announces the founding of
Scouts for Equality
Faced with the terrible, horrible, wrenching decision of whether to quit encouraging bigotry and allow gay scouts and scout leaders,
the Boy Scouts decided to cut the baby in half and allow gay scouts, but not gay scout leaders:
“I’ve waited 13 years for this,” said Matt Comer, now 27, who was forced out of his scout troop at age 14 after he started a Gay-Straight Alliance at his school. Since the fourth grade, he said Thursday, he had dreamed of becoming an Eagle Scout and was crushed when he was denied the chance.
“Today we finally have some justice for me and others,” he said. “But gay youths will still be told they are no longer welcome when they turn 18.” [...]
The vote was a bittersweet one for David Knopp, 86, who spent much of his life in scouting as a boy, as a professional staff member and later as a volunteer with a council in Connecticut. He had tried to keep his sexual orientation a secret but one day, he said, two scout officials said, “We found out you are a homosexual” and forced him out.
“I see this as a good step but with a lot of misgivings,” he said of the limited opening to gays.
Of course, even letting in openly gay scouts only to ban them on their birthdays is a bridge too far for some:
Epitaph: On this day, the Boy Scouts of America died, sacrificing their honor and the sexual integrity of young men.
— @BryanJFischer via Twitter for iPad
Expect an outcry from people announcing that they're pulling their sons out of the Boy Scouts—a noisily self-righteous contrast to the boys and men who've been forced by bigotry to leave over the years, slipping away one by one.