Gay rights ally Zach Wahls has denied
that allowing openly gay members in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA)
is about keeping politics and sex out of the program.
Under proposed changes expected to be
voted on next month, the Boy Scouts would end its ban on gay scouts
but not leaders.
During a CNN segment, Wahls, the
21-year-old founder of Scouts for Equality, went head-to-head with
John Stemberger, the founder of OnMyHonor.net, the coalition of
Christian conservatives formed to lobby the Boy Scouts on the issue,
and the president of the Florida Family Policy, a group opposed to
gay rights.
Stemberger asserted that the proposed
policy change would “destroy scouting as we know it.”
“The new proposal requires every
scouting unit to foster open homosexuality amongst its boys,”
Stemberger argued. “And that just disrespects the religious faiths
and traditions of the vast majority of churches that sponsor these
units.”
“Full participation is not good
enough for the gay activists, they want to promote the gay agenda.
And that's just what's inappropriate. It distracts from scouting's
mission. And we say no sex and politics in scouting. And this
proposal does just that.”
Wahls disagreed, saying that his
lesbian mother “wasn't waving a rainbow flag” as den mother to
his troop.
“When people try to say that this is
about open or avowed homosexuality, that's really just a code word
for the problem that they have with gay people. Being an open gay
person is not a whole lot different from being a closeted gay person.
Except for the fact that you have someone trying to lie and violate
the very first part of the Scout law, which is that a Scout is
trustworthy.” (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
(Related: Mormon
church endorses Boy Scouts proposal to end gay ban.)