Growing up with two younger brothers, I have seen my far share of youth organizations come and go. Now that we are all seventeen, nineteen and twenty-one with either full-time jobs or college in their paths those days of joining groups like The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have gone. Going to some of the Scout meetings with my mother and two brothers I have seen the incredible amount of work they do with mission statement, “The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.” …[the BSA] provides a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating…helping youth build a more conscientious, responsible, and productive society.” , along with their countless volunteer work to help improve the local community.

My issue is not with anything they provide above, but who they do not accept into, as a member nor as a creditable human being. That’s right…the GLBT community, especially openly gay males. As I have recently read from past articles sent from friends of campus pride and heard from personal stories, BSA maintains an open discrimination policy that bans anyone who identifies as a gay male or, to an extent, allies who openly fight for GLBT rights. They have an exclusionary policy banning gay members! What’s with that?!

Most of you probably never knew or would think about how this old rooted traditional, popular organization geared for promoting that “productive society”, would be against anything like this but shown in this short YouTube video back in the mid Nineties of Mitt Romney, who during that time was on the executive board of the BSA, there aligned a question relating the Boy Scouts stance on discriminating gay members.

Do you think his opinion and stance on that issue was right, even though he considers himself, back then, a gay rights advocate for an equal setting of the law. Although his statement did beat around the bush, he did say a really important point, that BSA is a privately funded organization, which has a right to place membership requirements. Does it contradict what the Boy Scout Organization stands for?

In their ‘Scouting Law and Conduct Rules’, each scout must be kind, obedient, friendly, helpful..etc to all people; how do people who are trained as boy scouts respect those qualities observed by their law, if their own organization who is training them is openly discriminate about the LGBT community!! In the video shown above, looking down at the nearly hundred comments it has received since it was posted back in 2007, stood out one comment from an openly gay scout leader in the United Kingdom. In the short posting he nearly stated that being a scout leader in England, he has never been ridiculed or hated on his sexual orientation but instead has been supported by all the patents and scouts in his group. America’s greatest fear is its bureaucrats! It was not until the late 1940’s that of African-American decent were not allowed to join the Boy Scouts of America, which shows us that it has had plenty of prejudge in its youth. Currently BSA is also being criticized by the Native American tribes for their inappropriate use of native culture and mockery. But as it stands today, the BSA will not swear in any young man who is openly GLBT or in a non religious practice.

Lets open it up...I want to hear from everyone about this topic, I know deep inside it bothers you that organizations can and will do this, eve! Truthfully when I first got my hands on the articles and information from the BSA website (www.scouting.org) I was blown away! My initial reaction to reading articles pertaining to the exclusion to LGBT members were defiantly not PG rated. I knew way back when I went to those meetings with my brothers and watched them do their oath; “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country…” I sort of understood that the organization was similar to the YMCA, a Christian based group.

Is there anyone that knows this policy first hand, or has been discriminated by the BSA?

**Note that the Girl Scouts or Camp Fire Girls do not openly discriminate against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, or transsexuals. I have however sent a respective e-mail to my local Boy Scouts of America Suffolk County Council for their comment on enforcing this policy, not their personal views on homosexuality. I will be updating on their official comment and response, if I do get one, whenever they email me back.

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Meade