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Boy Scouts ‘looking into’ N.Y. chapter’s open defiance with gay hire

Were You In The Boy Scouts?

  • Yes - Cub Scout

    Votes: 2 22.2%
  • Yes - Boy Scout

    Votes: 1 11.1%
  • Yes - Eagle Scout

    Votes: 1 11.1%
  • Yes - Leader or Counselor

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yes - Not American Boy Scout But A Similar Organization

    Votes: 1 11.1%
  • No - Not At All

    Votes: 3 33.3%
  • What Is A Boy Scout?

    Votes: 1 11.1%

  • Total voters
    9

W!nston

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Boy Scouts ‘looking into’ N.Y. chapter’s open defiance with gay hire
YahooNews | By Michael Walsh | April 3 2015

LGBT advocates say first openly gay Eagle Scout leader could be the beginning of the end for organization’s discrimination

212632059a3a13d9da062abbda1bec02552d3a39.jpg

In this Feb. 4, 2013, file photo, Boy Scout Pascal Tessier, 16, center left, and his brother Lucien Tessier, 20, who had earned the rank of Eagle Scout, pose for a portrait with their parents, Oliver Tessier, left, and Tracie Felker, at their home in Kensington, Md. On Thursday, April 2, 2015, the Boy Scouts’ New York chapter announced that it hired Pascal Tessier as the nation’s first openly gay Eagle Scout as a summer camp leader, in public contrast to the national scouting organization’s ban on openly gay adult members

The New York chapter of the Boy Scouts has flouted the organization’s national ban on gay adults — in a move celebrated by socially progressive members.

Zach Wahls, a straight Eagle Scout who is dedicated to fighting for gay rights, was thrilled about the hiring of 18-year-old Pascal Tessier, of Kensington, Md., as the first openly gay Eagle Scout summer camp leader.

Now the ball is squarely in the court of the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) National Council, he said.
“If the Boy Scouts stand down at a national level, they will have more or less admitted that they can’t enforce the ban against gay adults,” Wahls said Friday in an interview with Yahoo News.

“If the Boy Scouts intervene and pull Pascal’s membership, which would disqualify him from eligibility for the summer job, they will have just engaged in employment discrimination that is illegal in New York state.”

Deron Smith, the BSA’s director of communications, provided the following statement when contacted by Yahoo News for comment:

“The Boy Scouts policies for adult leaders and employees have not changed. While we were only recently made aware of this issue, we are looking into the matter.”

A BSA spokesperson declined to comment further when asked whether the national organization will take legal action against the New York chapter.

Gay rights advocates celebrate the move as the latest sign of the nation’s growing acceptance of LGBT people and waning tolerance for discrimination.

“I think it’s another significant step forward for full equality in the Boy Scouts of America. It’s one of the last cultural institutions that continues to discriminate against gay and lesbian people in this country,” Seth Adam, director of communications at GLAAD, told Yahoo News.

Adam sees a connection between the hiring of Tessier and the unprecedented national backlash to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana.

“Discrimination will not be tolerated in any institution any longer, and the Boy Scouts need to catch up,” he said.

BSA leadership voted in 2013 to allow openly gay members, but homosexual adults are still not permitted to be leaders.

In August 2014, Tessier wrote an opinion piece in Time magazine lamenting that on his 18th birthday he would be forced to leave an organization that fundamentally shaped his childhood.

“Despite the Boy Scouts’ historic decision last year to open its ranks to gay youth, the Scouts still ban gay adults. And as of today, that means me,” he wrote.

San Diego Judge Julia Kelety, who is the chairwoman for her two sons’ Boy Scout troop in San Diego, supports ending the ban on LGBT adult members but fears that acting precipitously could endanger its staying power.

“The policy should be changed,” she said in an interview with Yahoo News. “I guess the difficulty is that it’s a large organization, and it receives substantial support from religious organizations. Any organization simply cannot ignore its major supporters and donors.”

Kelety uses her expertise in law to teach the children about the U.S. Constitution and what it means to be a citizen of this nation — to prepare them for an Eagle rank-required merit badge.

She continues to support BSA despite her disagreement with its ban on LGBT adults, she says, because of its other extraordinary qualities.

“There is no organization like Boy Scouts, that provides outdoor skills, leadership skills, citizenship, community service and collegiality in one place in such an outstanding way as Boy Scouts does,” Kelety said.

As a judge in California, Kelety will need to withdraw her adult membership by Jan. 21, 2016. Earlier this year, the state’s Supreme Court voted that judges cannot be a part of the organization due to its policy toward homosexuals.

Wahls, who has lesbian parents, is also executive director of Scouts for Equality, a group, largely comprised of BSA alumni, committed to ending the ban on LGBT members.

Many of BSA’s leaders are older men with a wealth of life experience and wisdom that they can share with the children, Wahls says. Unfortunately, he continued, this sometimes comes with outmoded views of the gay and lesbian community.

“The challenge for the Scouts is that their leadership is dominated by older men of a past generation, and they’re trying to train the next generation of American leaders,” he said.

Tessier’s attorney, David Boies, agrees with Wahls that the Greater New York Councils’ disobedience could result in a court case — but hopes it can be settled before it comes to that.

“We all started this with the idea that the best resolution of this was a resolution based on conciliation and agreement,” Boies told The Associated Press.

SOURCE
 
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W!nston

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I was in the Boy Scouts for a year when I was 10 years old. It was fun dressing up in uniforms and tying knots. It was easy enough to hide in the local ranks. My troop was well mannered for the most part but when we joined other troops for Jamboree things took a turn for the worse. As if being away from my family and the protection that provided from assholes and bullies wasn't bad enough I had to endure camping out in the rain and mud. The food was terrible because it was raining all day and night and everything got wet before we could eat it. A couple of other boys and myself decided it was time to go home to a dry place to sleep and good home cooking. The troop leader made arrangements for a counselor to drive us 100 miles back to the community center where our troop was stationed and we called our parents who came and picked us up.

That was the end of my scouting experience, lol...
 

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I was in the boy scouts for one summer back in 1964 we were learning how to use row boats and that is when I received my very first blow job rowing down the river under the trees along the bank. I will readily admit the boy scouts opened up a whole new world for me and taught me one hell of a lot.
 

W!nston

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Philadelphia Boy Scouts council allows openly gay leaders

Philadelphia Boy Scouts council allows openly gay leaders
Reuters | By Elizabeth Daley | June 19 2015 5:30pm ET

21263210b3458e9da1a77903250a0fec8960f55d.jpg

Dave Rice, founder of Scouting for All, a pro gay group, in 1993 but was subsequently kicked out of Boy Scouts after 59 years of involvement, wears a neckerchief embroidered with the Inclusive Scouting Award while talking with supporters at the Equal Scouting Summit in Grapevine, Texas May 23, 2013.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Boy Scouts council in Philadelphia will welcome qualified scoutmasters and den mothers regardless of sexual orientation, in opposition to the national organization's ban on openly gay scout leaders, the council president said on Friday.

The move by the Cradle of Liberty Council, which serves more than 15,000 members in the Philadelphia area, comes a month after Robert Gates, president of The Boy Scouts of America, called for an end to the long-time ban on adult gay leaders.

"When we heard the remarks, we thought it was a good time for change," said council president James Papada, who announced the unanimous vote by the council's board of directors.

His council had long wanted to have an inclusive policy, "but we couldn’t due to the national organization," Papada said.

The Boy Scouts of America has fought to exclude gay leaders since the 1990s. It allowed gay youths to participate in the program for the first time in 2014.

At the organization's annual national meeting in May, Gates said while he would not ask for more inclusive membership policies, "We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be."

He added that while the organization had the authority to revoke charters of councils that went against national policy, "I will not take that path."

Even before Gates made those statements, councils in Denver and New York City flouted the policy and hired gay scout leaders.

Asked to comment on the Philadelphia council's decision on Friday, the national organization told Reuters: "While no decisions were made during the national annual meeting regarding membership, a decision is expected no later than the BSA's national executive board meeting in October."

SOURCE

Another Council does the right thing. The tide has turned and the National Council will have to right itself soon. This may seem like a small victory but I believe it is a big one.
 
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