Following policy change, future of Boy Scouts of America, LDS Church uncertain

Written by Michael Dillman

On Monday, July 27, the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board voted 45-12 on a resolution that will effectively end the organization’s across-the-board ban on homosexual scout leaders. However, this recent change in policy would still allow individual scout troops to forbid gay leaders for religious reasons. In the aftermath of the Boy Scouts of America decision and given the LDS Church’s doctrinal stance against homosexuality, the most senior leaders of the Church have been discussing a possible shift in policy that could have momentous impacts for both institutions: whether the church should sever its 100-year symbiotic relationship with the Boy Scouts of America.

The LDS Church’s stance on the LGBT lifestyle was largely first brought to the general public eye with their support of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, and since then, the Church has remained ardent in their moral opposition to same-sex marriage and has even campaigned for “religious freedom protections” to accompany all anti-discrimination ordinances.

However, under escalating pressure—both legally and socially—to end discrimination against homosexuals applying to become scout leaders, the Boy Scouts of America has been careful to toe the line between trying to bring the organization closer to rapidly changing societal views on homosexuality while simultaneously trying to avoid fragmenting their institution by ostracizing ultra- conservative religious groups.

Boy Scouts of America President Robert M. Gates—who is also a former U.S. Defense Secretary—attempted to ease some of the qualms the LDS Church has regarding the issue by saying that in the name of religious freedom, the organization would provide legal aid to any religious group that came under attack for discriminating against homosexuals attempting to become Scout leaders in the future.

LDS Church spokesman, Eric Hawkins, said in a Salt Lake Tribune article on Tuesday that the Mormon Church is “considering creating its own international program for boys, separate from the Boy Scouts of America.”  If this consideration comes to fruition, it would have drastic consequences for the Boy Scouts of America. The LDS Church provides approximately 17 percent of the Scouts’ aggregate funding and roughly 18 percent of Boy Scouts nationwide belong to LDS-sponsored troops and packs. More locally, 99 percent of the 320,000 registered scouts from Utah currently belong to Mormon units. This is all atop concerns about what would come of the eight BSA-owned camps in Utah if the LDS Church leaves the organization entirely.