Hey Boy Scouts! Guess what? You’ve had gay scouts and gay scoutmasters for years. You’ve given them badges and congratulated them on excellent fundraising and (get this) rewarded them for exemplary moral behavior, helping others, being patriotic and making their parents proud. These gay scouts have also met legislators, built structures for community organizations, worked at soup kitchens, told jokes, endured camp-outs and Klondike Derbies, and generally represented the organization with pride.
So what do you do? First of all, you deny that gay scouts and scoutmasters have a place in your organization, even though they’ve done exemplary work. Then you say that gay scouts do not reflect the vision that you have of what a healthy American boy and a committed adult male are all about and you begin to exclude them from your group. Is exclusion such a hallowed American value that you feel the need to protect it with your reputation? In a country where communal groups such as the Scouts are seeing shrinking enrollment, does it make sense to exclude people who actually want to help, and have helped throughout your history?
Now you say that you’re considering scrapping your discriminatory and hateful policies. Good for you. I will give you all the credit when you really make this decision final. In the end, you really have no choice.
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