Backlash Over Scouts' Ban on Gays

July 20 -- The Boy Scouts won their case on barring homosexuals in the highest U.S. court, but members, lawmakers and funding agencies are now pressuring them to change their policy.

“The Boy Scouts may have won the battle, but they’re losing the war,” says Eagle Scout and gay activist Kirk Thomas.

Thomas, who was awarded his Eagle badge more than 20 years ago, is now a member of Scouting for All, a movement of current and former scouts and their families who are coming forward to pressure the Boy Scouts to reverse their position on homosexuality.

The group is one element in a range of efforts to put pressure on the organization, including revocation of funding by several regional United Way bodies, and efforts to revoke the Boy Scouts’ ceremonial Congressional charter.

Though it is difficult to gauge the overall reaction to the decision among those in the scouting community, it is clear that critics of the Scouts’ policy on gays have become more vocal since.

Citing the Scouts’ policy on gays, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., introduced legislation on Wednesday to revoke the Boy Scouts’ symbolic Congressional charter, an honorary recognition given to patriotic, charitable and education organizations.

“It will be symbolic. It will be a statement. The statement will be that federal government doesn’t support intolerance,” said Woolsey. She acknowledged the legislation is unlikely to be passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, but said she felt compelled to act nonetheless.

“I think that charter implies that we then agree with this discrimination and intolerance, and I don’t want the federal government to support intolerance.”

Scouts Speaking Out

Woolsey’s legislation was prompted by lobbying from a young constituent, Eagle Scout Steven Cozza, who founded Scouting for All in 1997, when he was 12. “A lot of my friends were gay, and a lot of my role models are gay. And I couldn’t believe that they weren’t allowed to be in scouting just because they were gay,” Cozza told Good Morning America earlier this month, explaining why he founded the group.