I’ll camp with whoever I want

The Boy Scouts of America has been on my black list ever since I discovered they were teaching young boys narrow-minded bigotry alongside community service and campfire skills.

As the United States crawls its way out of the 15th century and into the 21st, it was very encouraging to see the organization’s leadership rescind their policy towards homosexual members in May 2013.

Effective January 2014, “No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.”

However, the trail to equality stretches out long and rocky before the scouts.

Openly gay men are still forbidden to become adult leaders on the grounds that “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the obligations in the Scout Oath and Scout Law to be morally straight and clean in thought, word and deed,” according to a 2008 policy statement.

With this history of earth-friendly discrimination in mind, imagine my surprise when I discovered the organization’s new national president is to be Robert Gates, former U.S. Secretary of Defense and CIA director.

What I find most encouraging about Gates is his extensive background in gender and sexual equality activism.

In February 2010, he lifted the Department of Defense’s ban on women serving on submarines and oversaw abolishment of the infamous Department of Defense Directive 1304, or “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

In March 2010, he approved new legislation that made it much more difficult to discharge servicemen and women for being homosexual.

Frankly, I am exhausted at the notion of entering into yet another debate on sexual equality.

I’m tired of, heartbroken by and fed up with of all the foundationless hate, so I can only imagine how those who don’t share my rights must feel.

No one is born discriminatory.

It’s an erroneous manner of thinking introduced in childhood, nourished by fear and denial into adulthood, and passed on to the next generation of
youngsters who look to their role models for guidance.

The Boy Scouts of America’s decision to appoint a president who will usher in a new era of acceptance means a new population of children will be taught compassion rather than exclusion.

At long last, with our generation, the tide of hateful exclusion is beginning to shift, and that’s what I call scouts’ honor.

— sbkissel@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.