(CNN) -- The Boy Scouts of America is considering
changing its longstanding policy against allowing openly gay members,
according to a news release from the organization.
The organization, which
has 2.7 million members, is "potentially discussing" doing away with its
policy after months of nationwide protest, including hundreds of angry
Eagle Scouts renouncing their hard-earned awards and mailing back their
red-white-and-blue medals.
Many parents of Scouts
across America found the national policy excluding gays confusing -- and
at odds with basic scouting ideals.
Social media were abuzz with outrage over the policy; gay men who used to be Scouts spoke out in first-person blogs. On her TV talk show, Ellen DeGeneres featured a California Scout who had been denied his Eagle rank because he is gay.
Members of the
organization's national board are expected to bring up the issue at a
regularly scheduled biannual meeting in February. Any change would be
announced after that.
In the Scouts' statement
Monday, the group indicated that decisions on gay membership would be
made at the local level. Each troop's charter organization would be able
to decide "consistent with each organization's mission, principles, or
religious beliefs."
"The policy change under
discussion would allow the religious, civic, or educational
organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting to determine how to
address this issue," the statement said.
The statement itself is
remarkable. Some members will see the fact that Scouting's national
leadership is even discussing the issue as a softening of its stance on
gay and lesbians.
But some Scouts and Scout
parents say that passing the decision to the local level will have
little effect on the ground, because many troops have been ignoring the
national policy anyway.
The announcement comes
after Scouting's national headquarters received numerous complaints from
a grass-roots campaign targeting the policy.
In April, the Gay &
Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation started calls for the Scouts to end
the ban. The group applauded Monday's announcement.
"The Boy Scouts of
America have heard from scouts, corporations and millions of Americans
that discriminating against gay Scouts and Scout leaders is wrong,"
GLAAD President Herndon Graddick said. "Scouting is a valuable
institution, and this change will only strengthen its core principles of
fairness and respect."
The protest was sparked
last year after Ohio Cub Scout den leader Jennifer Tyrrell was forced to
step down from her position in her son's Cub Scout pack because she is
openly gay.
Some critics who say that Scouts have failed to change with the times
blame the connections to organized religion. Approximately 70% of Scout
troops are affiliated with some kind of church or religious group,
according to Boy Scouts of America spokesman Deron Smith.
Scouts for Equality
reports that 11 organization councils, which include more than 260,000
Scouts, have publicly protested the policy, according to GLAAD.
The Catholic Church and
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are among scouting's
biggest backers, Boy Scouts of America says. In 2011, Mormon-backed Cub
Scout and Boy Scout troops accounted for more than 420,000 of all Scouts
nationwide. More than 200,000 Scouts were members of units affiliated
with the Catholic Church.
President Barack Obama
-- the honorary head of the Scouts, as is every president -- supports
gay and lesbians in Girl and Boy Scouts, as does former Republican
presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a Mormon.
Last year, the Girl Scouts allowed a transgender member into a troop, sparking a cookie boycott.
The Boy Scouts of America is considering changing its longstanding policy against allowing openly gay members.
