Welcome to scouting

The Boy Scouts of America finally got around to changing its rules, yesterday.  Beginning in January, the organization's doors will be flung open, and openly gay boys will be accepted into the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Explorers.  I say "openly gay," because no one doubts or questions that gays who kept their mouths shut have been scouts for generations.

Immediately, news stories began reporting attacks from two opposite ends of the political spectrum.  First, gay activists are understandably outraged that openly gay men still will not be welcome as scout leaders -- that they are seemingly still equated with sexual predators.  A spokesman for one gay rights organization says that his group will continue pressing corporate donors to refuse aid to the BSA.

My own feeling is that scouting exists for the benefit of boys, not for the benefit of men -- however generous and well-meaning -- who wish to volunteer as scout leaders.  Offering a welcome to gay boys will provide an enormous benefit both to the boys and to the country in general -- helping both gay and straight boys to grow up with the self-confidence and all the other virtues that scouting attempts to instill.  Scouting, together with attitudinal changes occurring among their peers, may well help create a generation of future gay adults free of the crippling personality problems that have stigmatized many gays in the past.

Acceptance of gay leaders in scouting will come, sooner or later.  Such acceptance will be a step forward for gay equality, but that political step forward seems to me far less important than the opening up of scouting to all boys.  The BSA obviously faces enormous strains within its membership.  It should be rewarded for making the decision that it did -- not threatened with continued sanctions.

The other attack comes from conservatives.  Despite resigned acceptance of the change by the Mormon and Catholic heirarchies, there are a considerable number of evangelical groups who are insisting that their members pull their children out of scouting.  It's hard to tell whether they fear that contact with gay scouts -- sleeping in the same tents! -- is apt to infect their children, or whether they simply wish to punish the BSA for surrendering to "liberal" pressure, and promoters of the "gay agenda."

The best response I've read today came from an evangelical father, whose church is strongly opposed to the admission of gay scouts. 

"If I place this situation in the context of my religious beliefs, I'm forced to ask myself, 'Would I turn a homosexual child away from Sunday school? From a church function? Would I forbid my children to be friends with a gay child?' I can't imagine a situation where I would answer 'yes' to any of those questions. So how can I in this one?" he wrote.

This parent isn't interested in scoring political points or punishing the scout leadership.  He is concerned with his children, and their best interests.  If I wouldn't forbid my kids to be friends with a gay classmate, he reasons, why should I refuse to permit him to belong to the same troop?

Why, indeed?  And this is the sort of careful thinking that I hope prevails among conservative parents, once the shock of the decision wears off.  Some parents will decide otherwise, just as many parents once pulled their kids out of desegregated schools.  In the long run, however, I trust that the scouting program will not lose the hundreds of thousands of members that is now being prophesized by evangelical Protestant leaders.