It looks like Robert Gates will have his hands full when he assumes his duties as president of the Boy Scouts of America. Gates, a former defense secretary under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, was announced as the youth organization's next leader last fall; he will take over at the Scouts' annual meeting in May. As we noted in this space last year, Gates is an inspired choice who could well rid the organization of its anti-gay policies.
Yet before Gates even begins his term, the Scouts are in the news for the wrong reasons. It was reported this week that the organization revoked its charter agreement with a Seattle church that refused to remove a gay troop leader after the Scouts withdrew his membership. Geoff McGrath, 49, is a Seattle software engineer and an Eagle Scout. Kudos to the Rainier Beach United Methodist Church for standing by McGrath, who had been leading the Boy Scout troop since it formed last fall. McGrath told the Associated Press that he will continue to participate in the church's youth program even if it can't use the Boy Scouts name.
According to the AP report, McGrath said he was gay while being profiled by NBC News. That led the Scouts to revoke his registration, saying that McGrath violated the group's leadership qualifications.
This is precisely the problem we anticipated when the Scouts changed its policy last year to admit openly gay youth, but not gay adults as troop leaders. Men like McGrath, who grew up participating in the Scouts, want to give back to the organization but are prohibited from doing so because they are gay. As we editorialized last year, the Scouts policy, which went into effect in January, sends a mixed message to gay youth, who will grow up to be openly gay men. The kids in McGrath's troop, whether gay or straight, are seeing first hand the destructive effects of the Scouts' policy, by taking away the Scouts name and all that goes with that.
When Gates comes on board, he must immediately work to bring the Scouts into the 21st century and rescind the policy that prohibits openly gay troop leaders. As defense secretary, Gates has some expertise in this field, as he was one of the key figures in overturning "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which prohibited out gays and lesbians from serving in the military. His recent memoir, Duty, goes into some detail about his work on repealing DADT, and he acknowledged reservations at first, mostly, he wrote, because the U.S. was involved in two wars. But one of the key takeaways for Gates were the results of an all-military survey that showed most people in the armed services would have no problem serving alongside their gay and lesbian co-workers. Once that "unit cohesion" argument was shown to have no merit, the military brass got on board with Obama, who was determined to end the discriminatory practice.
Like DADT, the Scouts' policy on adult leaders makes them hide who they are or risk being expelled, as happened to McGrath. It is an untenable situation. It also adversely affects kids who are in scouting because they may suddenly lose a trusted leader. Meanwhile, people like McGrath who are committed to working with youth are drummed out of scouting.
It's likely just a matter of time until the Boy Scouts have a non-discriminatory policy for troop leaders. With Gates taking over, it should be sooner rather than later.