Jul 28, 2015 4 min read

Sexuality was never an issue for parents or Scouts in Troop 2 in Bridgeville, according to Todd Fuller, whose son graduated from South Fayette as an Eagle Scout.

“Sexuality is never a topic of discussion in Scouting. That’s for parents to discuss. I have no position on it one way or another, but it’s just a pet peeve of mine that it’s an issue at all, because it distracts from what Scouting is all about: servant leadership and civic duty,” Fuller said.

Fuller’s comments came a day after nearly 80 percent of the Boy Scouts of America National Executive Board voted to ratify a resolution removing the national restriction on openly gay adult leaders and employees. The decision allows troops to organize and decide locally on whom they keep as employees and volunteer leaders.

In a message received from the national office of Boy Scouts of America, a spokesperson said, “Chartered organizations will continue to select their adult leaders, and religious chartered organizations may continue to use religious beliefs as criteria for selecting adult leaders, including matters of sexuality. … This change also respects the right of religious chartered organizations to choose adult volunteer leaders whose beliefs are consistent with their own.”

Troop 2 organizational committee chairman Doug Price said the group doesn’t anticipate any problems, and the troop would “look at personal qualifications, not any other issue” when it considers volunteers. “It’s based on leadership ability.”

Fuller’s son, Nathaniel, earned his Eagle rank in 2014 after working with the nonprofit Paddle Without Pollution to clean four miles of Charters Creek in South Fayette. Fuller said work like that should be the focus and continuing story of Boy Scouts of America, not issues of sexuality.

“I’ve been a devout Christian my entire life. And I’m speaking as a parent and my experience with Scouts, not for any troop, but just like when they removed the ban on gay (youth) members in 2014, it wasn’t an issue for us. Because as far as safety concerns go, Scouts have a ‘no one-on-one contact’ rule; to me, as a parent, that’s sufficient,” he said.

Fuller said Boy Scouts, like many other private and public organizations, dealt with civil issues like racial segregation and will continue to move past societal hurdles to continue the mission of preparing boys to become young men of character.

“Whether you made it to Eagle, or got out as a Cub Scout, everyone who’s been in Boy Scouts has benefited in some way,” Fuller said, explaining the regional Boy Scout Laurel Highlands Council sets up internships with businesses for Scouts.

A local Eagle Scout, Mason Colbert, of California, said the BSA decision was “a good first step,” but he takes issue with leaving it at the discretion of local groups. Colbert, 24, had to hide part of himself to become an Eagle Scout when he was 18.

“I kept my (religious) doubts to myself, primarily because when I started having those doubts was around the time I was coming up for my board of reviews for Eagle Scout, and I needed a pastor or religious leader to sign off on that portion of it; to work so many years, so hard to get there, I kept it to myself. But I expect that aspect to also be fought locally in the courts,” Colbert said.

BSA, a private membership organization, still bars atheists and nonreligious members, and can still exclude anyone based on criteria put forth by national leadership.

“I don’t think there’s a legal argument against BSA if they keep to tradition as they have, but if they are found to be taking taxpayer money, or public assistance from government entities – as I have seen – then there’s a legal argument that they can’t be discriminatory while taking public cash,” Colbert said, “so they’re going to have to find a balance of keeping up with the times while also maintaining historical tradition. We don’t have to excise religion from Scouting, but leadership really needs to consider if this trumps rights or privileges of others who would want to join Scouting, and are preventing them from being part of a community they would love to be involved in.”