Qualifications for Service

By Bruce A. Lafitte

Can you teach someone how to pitch a tent? How skilled are you with a map and compass? What is your sexual orientation?

Does one of these questions seem out of place to you? I don’t know how often the last question is actually asked, but only heterosexuals are officially allowed membership in the Boy Scouts of America.

Let’s start with some background. In 1990, a 20-year-old named James Dale was an Assistant Scoutmaster of a Boy Scout troop in Matawan, New Jersey. As a youth member of this troop, he earned the rank of Eagle and was a member of the Order of the Arrow, the Boy Scout (BSA) honor society. Mr. Dale was also a student at Rutgers University and happened to be co-president of the Lesbian/Gay Student Alliance. He attended a seminar on the health needs of lesbian and gay teenagers where he was interviewed. When this interview was published in his local paper, BSA officials read it and expelled him from Scouting because he stated in the interview that he was gay. He sued for reinstatement and the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in his favor. The BSA then appealed to the US Supreme Court and it overturned the lower court’s ruling. That is a very brief synopsis of the history behind the current state of affairs.

Those who support the BSA policy not allowing gays to participate might quote the portion of the Scout Oath requiring that a Scout be “morally straight” and the point of the Scout Law requiring that a Scout be “clean.” I could quote other points of the Scout Law on the other side of the issue, but the main point is that all of this is so unnecessary. A Scout leader’s sexual orientation, whatever it may be, should not be a topic for discussion among Scouts. My own observance in Scouting has been that the policy in the trenches is “don’t ask / don’t tell.” For a young friend of mine, that worked for a while, but not forever. That’s partly why I am writing this.

As a youth, I spent 10 years in Scouting. I earned the rank of Eagle and the youth religious award. I was inducted into the Order of the Arrow and was a charter member (“plank owner”) of Atlanta’s first Sea Explorer Ship. I returned to Scouting when my sons got involved and have been an adult leader for 18 years. I was a Scoutmaster for four years and a Roundtable Commissioner for five. I have stayed active in OA and am a Vigil Honor member. Last year I took two weeks of my vacation to serve on the staff of a major OA service project in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. I have been good to Scouting and it has been good to me. When I was a Scoutmaster, I often struggled to find enough adult help for campouts and other events for the Scouts and would have welcomed any adults who wanted to help. When I was Roundtable Commissioner, we had a long discussion at a meeting one night about the BSA policy against gays. There were several of us who agreed that the policy needed to change. As we say about certain matters in OA, “it’s only right.” As Episcopalians, we are charged at Baptism and, again, at Confirmation to “respect the dignity of every human being.” That’s what needs to happen here.

In OA, I had the privilege of knowing a young man who is a born leader. He is an Eagle Scout, a Vigil Honor member in OA, one of the best ceremonialists I have ever seen, Chief of our OA Lodge, and a recipient of the coveted Founder’s Award in OA. After serving as a counselor at summer camp for the second or third year, he announced to his staff-mates at the closing campfire that as a gay man he could no longer abide by the BSA policy and they would not see him any more. He disappeared from OA and Scouting. It breaks my heart. Scouting needs more leaders like this young friend of mine, not less.

During my youth in Scouting, I never saw a person of color because the program was segregated. There were some courageous individuals in Scouting then who realized that the policy needed to change, and it did. Next year is the 100th anniversary of the BSA. What better time than this to end the discrimination against gays. It’s only right.