Scouting’s Next Battleground | Anne Hendershott | CWR
The Boy Scouts of America is now being pressured to allow openly gay adult scout leaders
Disney is the latest corporation to announce an end to financial support for the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) because of the Boy Scouts’ ban on openly gay adult Scout leaders. Joining former BSA sponsors—including Lockheed Martin, Major League Soccer, UPS, and others that have ended relationships with the BSA—Walt Disney World announced that it will no longer support the organization. The BSA’s official position bans openly gay Scout leaders, even though on May 23, 2013, following years of public pressure, the organization’s national governing body voted to lift its long-standing ban on openly gay youth in the program.
Now, the pressures are mounting to remove the ban on openly gay leaders. Last month, Seattle’s Rainier Beach neighborhood became the latest battleground in the gay-rights culture wars when the Boy Scouts of America revoked the charter of Seattle’s newest Scout troop for refusing to remove its openly gay Scoutmaster. Seattle’s Troop 98, which has only been chartered by the BSA for a few months, is led by Geoff McGrath, an Eagle Scout who is married to his longtime male partner.
Last month, the BSA advised Rainier Beach United Methodist Church, the sponsor of Seattle Troop 98, to dismiss Mr. McGrath as Scoutmaster because he discussed his sexual orientation in a news story with NBC Nnews.When the church refused, the BSA officially revoked the Church’s charter agreement.
BSA spokesman Deron Smith suggested that McGrath’s sexual orientation would not have become an issue until McGrath made it public. In an e-mail published by NBC News, Smith wrote: “Our policy is that we do not ask people about their sexual orientation, and it is not an issue until they deliberately inject it into Scouting in an inappropriate fashion.” Sharon Moulds, the leader of the BSA Seattle Council, told NBC News that the Council did not inquire about McGrath’s sexual orientation—as directed by BSA policy—when he applied for a leadership position. She said she found out McGrath was gay only after NBC News contacted her: “It was then that we became aware of his intentions to make a public statement about his orientation and use our program as a means to further a personal agenda.”
While McGrath denies that his decision to help create the Seattle troop was an attempt to gain media attention for what he sees as a discriminatory BSA policy to ban openly gay troop leaders, he acknowledged to NBC News that “If you don’t participate, you’re not part of the conversation. Yelling from the outside is not conversing. So we’re on the inside doing good work.” The Rainier Beach minister, Monica Corsaro, told a reporter for NBC News that she invited McGrath to lead the fledgling troop at her church.
Assessing a Policy Change Impact
Removing the current BSA policy barring “avowed homosexuals” as volunteers is more complex than McGrath and Corsaro will acknowledge because it involves a volatile mix of parental concerns, religious concerns, financial concerns, and a not insignificant concern about liability.
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