The Boy Scouts of America are voting Thursday whether to end the organization’s longtime ban on openly gay scouts, and local gay rights activists and opponents are watching closely to see what happens.
The vote has been a long time coming. Quiet debate has been growing louder over the last few decades, but the U.S. Supreme Court set the stage about a dozen years ago, when it put the decision squarely in the hands of the organization, not the courts. That’s when the pressure on the Boy Scouts increased, as several local United Way chapters threatened to pull funding if the Scouts continued the ban.
The vote is expected to happen sometime after 3 p.m. Pacific time, at the Boy Scouts of America’s annual National Council meeting in Grapevine, Texas.
An opinion piece in Thursday’s USA Today may offer a clue as to how the vote will go. The Boy Scouts’ President, Wayne Perry, wrote, “Let in gay boys” and went on to say: “our policies must be based on what is in the best interest of our nation’s children.”
Perry notes that there is nothing in Thursday’s resolution that will allow gay adult scout leaders. That ban would remain.
A local group that supports allowing openly gay scouts, Scouts for Equality, will be rallying in support at the Chief Seattle Council office on Rainier Avenue South.
That rally will start at 3:30 p.m., about the time the results of the national vote are expected.
The vote has been a long time coming. Quiet debate has been growing louder over the last few decades, but the U.S. Supreme Court set the stage about a dozen years ago, when it put the decision squarely in the hands of the organization, not the courts. That’s when the pressure on the Boy Scouts increased, as several local United Way chapters threatened to pull funding if the Scouts continued the ban.
The vote is expected to happen sometime after 3 p.m. Pacific time, at the Boy Scouts of America’s annual National Council meeting in Grapevine, Texas.
An opinion piece in Thursday’s USA Today may offer a clue as to how the vote will go. The Boy Scouts’ President, Wayne Perry, wrote, “Let in gay boys” and went on to say: “our policies must be based on what is in the best interest of our nation’s children.”
Perry notes that there is nothing in Thursday’s resolution that will allow gay adult scout leaders. That ban would remain.
A local group that supports allowing openly gay scouts, Scouts for Equality, will be rallying in support at the Chief Seattle Council office on Rainier Avenue South.
That rally will start at 3:30 p.m., about the time the results of the national vote are expected.