Boy Scouts being part of gay pride month
This makes me smile. I had to deal with this issue when I was on the board of my temple and was the Charter Organization Representative for my temple's boy scout troop. In 1980, the SCOTUS ruled that the BSA could exclude a homosexual leader due to that leader wearing his uniform at a gay pride event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_v._Dale The board of my temple instructed the troop that we could not comply with the BSA ruling and we nearly lost the troop over this. Informally there was a don't ask, don't tell policy in effect for most regional scout councils and Dale blew it by wearing his scout uniform to a gay pride event.
BSA is organized with a number of large regional councils covering a large area and each council having districts that included a good number of troops. The council for the Houston area used to have over 100,000 scouts back in my day. In my district there were good number of gay leaders at different troops who complied with the don't ask, don't tell policy. A good number of these leaders earned one of the highest scouting awards (the Silver Beaver) and I was at a leader training camp out with a number of these leaders.
We have two Jewish scout troops in Houston and the temples that sponsor these troops had over one-third of the members of the local United Way. The scout master and I had to meet with the senior leadership for the council for our region to make the board of my temple happy. We sort of mentioned the names of some of the members of the United Way board who were members of the two temples causally and the Council was happy to agree that the two troops would have no trouble so long as we complied with don't ask, don't tell. I had the fun job of discussing this with the board as I had become a member of the board.
This picture makes me smile. Time have changed
Link to tweet
BTW, things have changed. One of the reasons why BSA appears to have changed policy is that that BSA has become co-ed and the Mormons formed their own alternative to BSA.
https://www.deseret.com/2019/7/17/8936741/church-announces-replacement-for-boy-scouts-personal-progress-children-and-youth#:~:text=The%20new%20initiative%20to%20replace%20the%20Boy%20Scouts,Personal%20Progress%3A%20%27Children%20and%20Youth%27%20-%20Deseret%20News
Before this group was formed, all Mormon boys were expected to participate in Boy Scouts and a good number of these children were not happy. While Mormons made up about 3% of the population, they account for 15% of the scouting population. My troop went to summer camp the week after all of the Mormon troops had been at that camp and there was a ton of damage left behind by kids who really did not want to be at summer camp.
I am happy to see scouting troops participate in gay pride events
= new reply since forum marked as read
On the scout message boards there used to be a saying that there would never be the three Gs in scouting: Gays, Girls, and Godless.
I’m so glad to see 2* (girls and gays) of those in in my lifetime, pray** that I’ll see the other included someday.
* I’m not happy how their decision screwed over the Girl Scouts, but that’s another topic.
**Yes, I am aware of the irony… 
