Boy Scouts Of America | featured news

Top officials of the Boy Scouts of America unanimously recommend allowing gay boys into the ranks of the organization but excluding gay adults as leaders. Top officials of the Boy Scouts of America have unanimously recommended allowing gay boys into the ranks of one of the nation's oldest and most traditional youth groups while continuing to exclude homosexual adults as leaders.

Officials of the Boy Scouts of America said Friday that they propose ending their ban on openly gay scouts but continuing to bar gay adults from serving as leaders. The decision, which follows years of heated controversy within the organization and growing outside criticism, must be approved by the roughly 1,400 voting members of the Scouts’ National Council at a meeting in Texas the week of May 20.

The Boy Scouts of America put off a decision Wednesday on whether to lift its ban on gay members and leaders, saying the question will be taken up at the organization's national meeting in May.

As early as next week, the Boy Scouts of America may announce it will allow gay Scouts and troop leaders, a spokesman for the group has told USA TODAY. If this policy shift is approved by the national board meeting next week, it will be a sharp reversal of the Scouts' decades' old national policy banning homosexuals.

Boy Scouts of America is discussing ending a longstanding ban on gay members and whether to allow local organizations to decide their own policy, a spokesman said on Monday.

Amid reports of widespread sexual abuse of children in the late 1980s, several leading youth organizations began conducting criminal background checks of volunteers and staff members. Big Brothers Big Sisters ordered the checks for all volunteers starting in 1986. Boys and Girls Clubs of America recommended their use the same year. One of the nation's oldest and largest youth groups, however, was opposed — the Boy Scouts of America.

Increased public awareness of how child predators operate, along with better law enforcement and policies to protect children, may be helping to reduce child sex abuse despite this year's headlines about cases connected to institutions like Penn State, the Boy Scouts and the BBC....

Law enforcement will be informed of any previously undisclosed cases, the organization says. A Times investigation found Scouting did not report hundreds of cases of alleged abuse. The Boy Scouts of America has announced it will review more than a half-century of its confidential files on alleged sexual predators and will inform law enforcement of any cases it had not previously disclosed.

President Barack Obama opposes a controversial Boy Scouts' policy banning gay Scouts and leaders, the White House said Wednesday. White House spokesman Shin Inouye said in a statement that Obama believes the Boy Scouts of America has helped to educate and build character in boys. “He also opposes discrimination in all forms, and as such opposes this policy that discriminates on basis of sexual orientation,” according to the statement, which was first reported by the Washington Blade.

An Oregon jury finds the Boy Scouts of America negligent in a case of repeated sexual abuse by an assistant Scoutmaster in the 1980s and awards the plaintiff $1.4 million.

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