Scout Plan to Allow Gays Ignites Debates on Local Level

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/us/proposed-policy-shift-on-gays-divides-scout-community.html

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A proposed shift by the Boy Scouts of America away from its national policy banning gays, leaving the decision to local councils, has divided scouts, families and troop leaders, with thousands taking to the organization’s Facebook page and other online forums to express their views in passionate tones of anguish, opprobrium or approval.

For Margaret Kreider, the mother of an Eagle Scout in Broussard, La., the cacophony promises only the beginning of a long argument. She said she does not support allowing openly gay scout leaders, and fears that local scout councils — like the one her son, Jacob, thrived in starting at age 7 — will be forced to take sides in a divisive debate and then not be able to fight back, with lawyers and clout, if challenged.

Boy Scouts officials said on Monday that under the proposal, to be considered by the executive board next week, local scouting groups could decide for themselves whether to allow gay scouts and leaders, based on the social, religious and philosophical tenets of a troop’s families.

The real world, Ms. Kreider said, just isn’t that simple.

“It will be the small troops that decide they don’t want to have a homosexual leader, and then where do they go for help?” she asked. “If they get sued by the A.C.L.U. or whatever organization decides to come after them, they won’t have the resources or the backing of the Boy Scouts of America because of this policy. It will be the destruction of the Boy Scouts.”

Some people who support a new policy are worried, too.

“We are here for the kids,” said Val Carolin, the scoutmaster of Troop 467 in Atlanta, which meets in the “scout hut” behind Peachtree Road United Methodist Church. Mr. Carolin said that he thought inclusion was the right value for the Scouts to pursue, and that fighting over whether to welcome gay scouts or leaders would be a distraction, or worse. “If this thing comes down and causes a split, that would be very bad for scouting,” he said.

Other scout leaders said that because so many troops are affiliated with churches, a fractious local debate over gay membership could propel issues of faith and religion even more to the fore of scouting than they already are.

“I think some of the troops that are backed by churches or have more religious programs will become even more vocal,” said Jason Stewart, the committee chairman of Troop 2 in Petaluma, Calif., who favors ending the ban on gays. “There is a large element of the leadership in Boy Scouts of America that has roots in various religious organizations that have historically had policies against homosexuality.”

Some scout leaders said the right to religious expression was something that scouting should fight to protect, too, whatever the consequences.

Joe Krepel, a Cub Scout leader in Kearney, Neb., said that he would be pleased if local sponsors were given the opportunity to decide a troop’s policy, and that he would not begrudge any sponsor from barring gay leaders or members.

“Most of them are churches,” he said. “If their church is opposed to that, that’s their right.”

What role the churches might play in the end is uncertain. The chairman of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, John J. Halloran Jr., said his group would make a statement only if the Boy Scouts board approved the change. “Our Catholic faith remains our conscience and our guide,” he said in an e-mail.

A spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which strongly supports scouting, also declined to comment until a policy change is official.

“A lot of troops have been probably operating on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ for a long time,” said Gary Purlee, leader of a Boy Scout troop in Jeffersonville, Ind. “So I think for many troops it won’t make a difference at all. I think a number of scout troops, like ours, have been very tolerant for a number of years. We have welcomed boys and leaders from all orientations.”

Mr. Purlee said he had brought up the issue of sexual orientation in a church council meeting last fall at Wall Street United Methodist Church, which sponsors his troop. He said the church’s leaders overwhelmingly supported communicating to the national Boy Scout organization, as well as the United Methodist Church, their desire for more flexibility, tolerance and decision-making autonomy.

In November, Mr. Purlee wrote to Boy Scout headquarters and to his local scouting chapter suggesting movement toward a new policy. He said that a letter from the national office had thanked him for his comments, but that he had not heard anything since.

Scouting, from its roots before World War I and its charter granted by Congress in 1916, has always been a mix of top-down structure and local flavor, defined by troop volunteers and conditions of city, suburb or country. The policy banning gays was national in all regards, an edict from the top, despite what some scout leaders said was a willingness to ignore it in some troops.

The debate over gay people in American life has now mostly become a local discussion — on anti-discrimination ordinances, for example, or gay marriage, recently approved by voters in three states. But people on both sides of the issue in scouting said they thought that putting the onus on the local councils was asking those scout leaders and parents to weigh too many factors.

Some scout leaders said they worried that money was playing too big a role in the discussion. Change.org, a liberal-leaning group that pushed the Boy Scouts to revise its policy with petitions, said pressure on national sponsors had cost the Scouts at least $850,000 in reduced or suspended grants.

“My hope is that this change of heart is not monetarily driven but a realignment with what is actually right and morally correct,” said Mr. Stewart, the scout leader in Petaluma.

Who might come to scouting as it changes, or leave in a fury, is part of the debate, too.

Matt Elrod, an alumnus of Troop 236 in northern Kentucky who supports eliminating the ban on gays, said someone on the Boy Scouts of America’s Facebook page had threatened to send his medals back if gay youths were allowed to join. Mr. Elrod said he responded on Tuesday by offering to pay the man’s postage.

“That’s one less person with those kinds of views,” he said.

<NYT_AUTHOR_ID> <p>Reporting was contributed by Kim Severson in Atlanta, Malia Wollan in San Francisco, Steven Yaccino in Chicago, Ian Lovett in Los Angeles, and Trip Gabriel in Harrisburg, Pa.