STATEMENT TO MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA IN SUPPORT OF ADOPTION OF RESOLUTION CHANGING MEMBERSHIP STANDARDS TO END DISCRIMINATION AGAINST GAY YOUTH

Washington D.C. -“Next week, the 1,400 national council members of the Boy Scouts of America will meet in Grapevine, Texas during the 2013 Annual Meeting to vote on a resolution to amend its membership standards to end discrimination against gay youth. If this resolution is adopted, no longer will a Boy Scout be denied his Eagle Scout badge merely because he is gay. As a member of the Houston Boy Scout Council, I strongly support this resolution and I urge you to vote for its adoption and to speak in support of the resolution forcefully and publicly as the occasions arise.

“I support the change in the Boy Scout’s membership standards as strongly as I disapproved of the vote two weeks ago by the Houston Boy Scouts Council to retain the current policy. I disapproved of that vote because I believe discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong, just as it is wrong to discriminate on the basis of race or religion or national origin.

“America works better when everyone is treated fairly and everyone has an equal opportunity to fulfill his or her potential. For more than a century the Boy Scouts of America has played an important role in the lives of communities across the nation and taught young people the importance of being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

“A vote to change the membership policy to end discrimination against gay youth teaches and demonstrates the importance of humility, perhaps the most important character trait of all. Humility is the opposite of proud and stubborn; humility embodies “the spirit of liberty,” which, as Judge Learned Hand famously noted, “is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.”

“Admitting that a policy which has been in place for more than a century is wrong and does not reflect contemporary attitudes and beliefs and then changing it is a sign not of weakness but of strength and charity, which is, as the Scriptures teach, the greatest quality of all.

“While I strongly support the proposed change to the Boy Scouts membership standards to end discrimination against gay youth, I am disappointed that the resolution does not go further and lift the membership ban against gay adults. But I am not discouraged. Those of us who have labored long and hard fighting for justice and equality understand that victories do not come easy or overnight or without struggle. But because truth and justice is on our side, victory is sure to come one day. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

“As a member of the Houston Boy Scout Council, I strongly support the resolution changing the Boy Scouts membership standards. I urge all members of the National Council, especially those members of the Houston Boy Scouts Council, to vote for the resolution when it comes before the body at the Annual Meeting later this week.”

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