Jul 15, 2015 4 min read

It appears Boy Scouts of America is poised to make a half-measure nearly whole.

It was just two years ago that the BSA ended a long internal battle by agreeing to allow openly gay youths to be Scouts. But the organization still refused to admit gay adult leaders.

That may be about to change.

Earlier this week, it was announced that the Boy Scouts’ executive committee had voted unanimously to end the gay adult ban and allow each Scout unit to choose its own leaders.

That would permit Scout-sponsoring organizations such as Southern Baptist and Catholic churches to continue their policies excluding gays while giving other Scout troops the ability to pick leaders without regard to their sexual orientation. One presumes it will be the content of their character that matters to many, not the conduct of their personal sex lives.

Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout raised by two lesbian mothers who now leads a group called Scouts for Equality, told the Associated Press that the executive committee vote is a major step in the right direction.

“While this policy change is not perfect – BSA’s religious chartering partners will be allowed to continue to discriminate against gay adults – it is difficult to overstate the importance of today’s announcement,” Wahls said.

Those on the opposing side were quick with the doom and gloom.

Richard Land, head of the Southern Evangelical Seminary and former chief of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told the AP he is glad religious groups would have an exemption under the new policy, but he’s still concerned about the safety of Scouts with gay leaders. Land doesn’t believe boys or girls in Scouting should have, as the AP put it, “leaders who are attracted to their gender, whether the leader is gay or straight.”

“If you put them in the compromising situations that you are sometimes in with Scout leaders and Scouts, in terms of camping and other situations, it could lead to great tragedy for children,” said Land.

That’s just a thinly veiled expression of the “gays are sexual predators” slander peddled by the religious right.

Will there be an incident in which a gay Scout leader has inappropriate contact with a youngster? You can probably count on it. Sex crimes against children are committed by all types of people. Ask the Catholic Church or any number of school districts about that. Sometimes the same person commits such crimes against boys and girls. Under a rule such as the one favored by Land, a straight woman couldn’t even be a den mother for Cub Scouts. That’s ridiculous.

Even the best of background checks can’t weed out every person who ultimately might take improper liberties with a young person they are supervising. The best that organizations can do is find people they believe have the highest standards of personal behavior and responsibility, as well as a desire to truly help children grow into happy, skilled and productive adults, and bring those people into the fold.

The proposal by the executive committee now faces a vote by the Boy Scouts’ National Executive Board at a meeting later this month.

The BSA’s president, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking in May at the BSA’s annual national meeting, noted broad gains by and support for gay Americans. He said refusing to lift the ban on gay leaders “will be the end of us as a national movement.”

While the new resolution might not leave people on either side of the debate perfectly satisfied, it represents some elements that are all too lacking these days in our national discourse and our government: common sense and compromise.