Bishop Harry Jackson has suggested that
the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is being blackmailed to drop its ban
on openly gay scouts and leaders.
Jackson, a minister at the Hope
Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland, came to prominence fighting
against the District of Columbia's gay marriage law and last year's
effort to pass a similar law in Maryland.
On Wednesday, the BSA decided to delay
until May a decision on whether to end its national policy and allow
local chapters to decide the issue.
Appearing on the Christian Broadcasting
Network's (CBN) 700 Club, Jackson urged the Scouts to “come
clean” with their “dirty laundry.”
“They probably have some dirty
laundry that is kind of being held over their head, meaning folks are
going to make accusations about improprieties over long periods of
time that have happened and call them hypocrites. So, I'd say if you
got anything that's been done wrong just come clean with it and
simply say, 'We want to maintain our reputation and we want to
continue to train the next generation of leaders.' I believe that
the folks who want a gay organization can create their own. And that
this is really totally legal, what they're doing. And it's not
discrimination.” (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)