Katie McDonough points to a growing grassroots shift in the Boy Scouts:
Ryan Andresen is an honor student who has been in the Boy Scouts since he was six years old. He also happens to be an openly gay teen, which is why the Eagle Board of Review refused to approve his Scouts’ Eagle application. Until [Tuesday], that is. After appearances on Ellen DeGeneres and Anderson Cooper and 460,000 signatures on a Change.org petition, a California-based Mount Diablo-Silverado Council approved Ryan’s status — in direct defiance of the national organization’s policy against gay scouts. "It’s the first in-your-face (challenge)," Boy Scout district review board chair Bonnie Hazarabedian told Reuters.
But the national organization overruled the locals:
"The Eagle application was forwarded, by a volunteer, to the local council but it was not approved because this young man proactively stated that he does not agree to Scouting’s principle of ‘duty of God’ and does not meet Scouting’s membership requirements," said a prepared statement from [BSA spokesperson Deron] Smith. "Therefore, he is not eligible to receive the rank of Eagle."
When the controversy first arose last fall, Greg Laden downplayed the role of sexual orientation in the story:
Here we have the claim that the Boy Scouts were repressing this young man because he’s gay, and we have a petition that is adding dozens of names a minute, passing the quarter million mark as I write this, but in reality, a key reason, maybe THE key reason, that Ryan is not able to go Eagle is because he is some sort of Atheist or Agnostic or other form of non-believer.
The Friendly Atheist added:
The BSA is a private organization. If they want to be homophobic and God-centric, they have every right to do that. But public schools shouldn’t give them space to recruit members, the government shouldn’t give them taxpayer money, and the rest of us shouldn’t give them any respect.
The Dish 