Scouts to accept gay boys Jan. 1

Group hopes for smooth transition as it updates its policies

The Boy Scouts of America will accept openly gay youths starting New Year’s Day, a historic change that has prompted the organization to ponder a host of potential complications - ranging from policies on tentmates and showers to whether Scouts can march in gay pride parades.

Yet despite their be-prepared approach, Boy Scouts of America leaders are rooting for the change to be a nonevent, comparable to another New Year’s Day in 2000 when widespread fears of digital-clock chaos to start the new millennium proved unfounded.

“My hope is there will be the same effect this Jan. 1 as the Y2K scare,” said Brad Haddock, a Boy Scouts of America national executive board member who is chairman of the policy implementation committee. “It’s business as usual, nothing happens and we move forward.”

Some churches are dropping their sponsorship of Scout units because of the new policy and some families are switching to a new conservative alternative called Trail Life USA. But widespread defections haven’t materialized, and most major sponsors, including the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches, are maintaining ties.

“There hasn’t been a whole lot of fallout,” said Haddock, a lawyer from Wichita, Kan. “If a church said they wouldn’t work with us, we’d have a church right down the street say, ‘We’ll take the troop.’”

The new policy was approved in May, with support from 60 percent of the 1,400 voting members of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Council. The vote followed bitter nationwide debate and was accompanied by an announcement that the Boy Scouts of America would continue to exclude openly gay adults from leadership positions.

Under the new membership policy, youths can no longer be barred from the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts or coed Venturers program solely on the basis of sexual orientation. However, gay Scouts will face some limitations.

“Any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting,” says one Boy Scouts of America document. “No member may use Scouting to promote or advance any social or political position or agenda, including on the matter of sexual orientation.”

Trying to anticipate potential friction, the Boy Scouts of America has distributed extensive explanations and question-and-answer documents related to the policy.

A frequently-asked-questions document anticipates that some objections might surface from parents - or Scouts themselves - in cases where a unit includes an openly gay boy.

Regarding shower and toilet facilities, the Boy Scouts of America said it is encouraging units to provide greater individual privacy, including moving away from the tradition of group showers.

“The adult leaders have the discretion to arrange private showering times and locations,” the Boy Scouts of America said.

Sleeping arrangements also are addressed, with specific decisions left to unit leaders.

“If a Scout or parent of a Scout makes a request to not tent with another Scout, their wishes should be honored,” said the Boy Scouts of America.

Haddock said “isolated pockets” of problems are likely to surface, but overall he expects adult leaders will have the skills to defuse potential conflicts.

There are about 1 million adult leaders and 2.6 million youth members in Scouting in the U.S. Of the roughly 110,000 Scout units, 70 percent are sponsored by religious organizations, including several conservative denominations that had long supported the Boy Scouts of America’s exclusion of gay youths and gay adults.

Among the major sponsors, the Southern Baptist Convention made clear its disappointment with the new youth policy, but left the decision on whether to cut ties up to local churches.

The biggest sponsor of Scout units - the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - commended the Boy Scouts of America for a “thoughtful, good-faith effort” to address a challenging issue, and said it would stay engaged in Scouting.

John Gailey of the Utah National Parks Council, the nation’s largest council, said its youth membership had increased from 74,148 in December 2012 to 75,863 this month.

Like the Mormons, the Roman Catholic Church has generally accepted the new policy. Many parishes will continue to sponsor Scout units, though a few have considered cutting ties.

The National Catholic Committee on Scouting posted a question-and-answer document on its website, delving into the intersection of Scouting policy and Catholic teaching.

The ultimate decision on whether parishes would maintain or cut ties with the Boy Scouts of America was left to individual bishops. Several expressed cautious support for continuing in Scouting.

One likely target of such scrutiny will be former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, scheduled to take over in the spring as the Boy Scouts of America’s next president. As leader of the Pentagon, Gates helped change the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy banning openly gay soldiers, and gay-rights groups hope he will try to end the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay adult leaders.

The new youth policy was approved during a Boy Scouts of America meeting in May in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Grapevine, near the Scouts’ national headquarters in Irving, Texas.

Texas has a long heritage of Scouting, with tens of thousands of youth members and many families claiming generations of Eagle Scouts. Among them is Gov. Rick Perry, who achieved Scouting’s highest rank growing up in the small town of Paint Creek.

The membership debate was closely followed by local Scouts on both sides; some carried signs and held rallies outside the meeting place. But in subsequent months, the debate has quieted.

However, some Texas parents and leaders have decided to switch to Trail Life USA, an alternative that declares itself “a Christian adventure, character, and leadership program for young men.”

Front Section, Pages 4 on 12/29/2013

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