NEW YORK (AP) — There were dire warnings for the Boy Scouts of America a year ago when the group's leaders, under intense pressure, voted to end a long-standing blanket ban on participation by openly gay adults. Several of the biggest sponsors of Scout units, including the Roman Catholic, Mormon and Southern Baptist churches, were openly dismayed, raising the prospect of mass defections. Youth membership is on the verge of stabilizing after a prolonged decline, corporations which halted donations because of the ban have resumed their support, and the vast majority of units affiliated with conservative religious denominations have remained in the fold — still free to exclude gay adults if that's in accordance with their religious doctrine. Catholic Bishop Robert Guglielmone of Charleston, South Carolina, whose duties include liaising with the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, says he knows of no instances where a Catholic unit — there are more than 7,500 — has taken on an openly gay adult leader since the policy change. Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., were unhappy with the BSA's easing of the ban on gay adults, but did not call on individual churches to disaffiliate with troops that they sponsored. Some corporations and liberal religious groups that cut ties with the Scouts because of the ban have restored them, he said, while the Catholic archdiocese — initially wary of the change — has remained fully active with scouting. The changes in BSA policy toward gay youths and adult leaders were "handled as professionally as I have seen any contentious issue handled during my career," said Mason, a lawyer experienced with complex bankruptcy proceedings. [...] last year, the Boy Scouts had explicitly adhered to a ban on gay adults for more than three decades, even taking a case all the way to the U.S.
Comment on Boy Scouts faring well a year after easing ban on gay adults
By DAVID CRARY and BRADY McCOMBS, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle
Sat, 07/23/2016 - 10:22am
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