I'm a boy scout and am afraid to come out because of it. Thankfully they may be changing their Gay/ Bisexual policies soon. We hope they will allow gays and straights alike. Their discrimination is so bad that I have thought of quitting. I now know that I may be able to stay in and all other boys may to.:***:
I was a boy scout when I was younger (I am now 26). Personally, if I could go back in time, I would come out and then quit because the more people who stand up for themselves, the more the top leaders will see it's not just a couple boy scouts that are actually gay and that there is more diversity within the scouts than they may realize. If scouting is about some obscure religious belief, why don't they also require a church membership and attendance every Sunday?
I didn't even know about this rule until the other day. I was in the scouts too, but that was before I even considered sexuality. I don't think it's the same in the UK though (we just played with parachutes). From what I hear though, it depends more on the individual groups - a lot of scout groups wouldn't care. In the UK, if this kind of rule existed, there would be protests up and down the country. These things don't seem to happen in the US due to the amount of people that actually agree with rules like that. I also am not sure if I'd really understand the whole issue though; it seems like boy scouts is much more of a big deal over there.
It's the Boy Scouts of America, specifically, that have this rule. Many individual troops ignore the rule already. The change they are considering is officially allowing troops to make their own policies on the matter instead of mandating nationally that all troops should exclude openly gay scouts and leaders.
The area I live in in the US is quite liberal. We have LGBT parents, several quietly open gay scouts. And then there's me (still in the closet). I sure hope the policies change at the national level. Its awful.
