Young men can join the Boy Scouts of America at age 10.5 and remain Scouts until age 18. During that time, 2 percent achieve the highest rank, Eagle Scout.

Eagle is an award carried for life. My grandfather still wears a small Eagle Scout pin on his fishing hat. He wears three, actually. The first is for him (which he earned in 1934), the second is my father (1967), and I’m the third (1999).

Last month, after “a nearly two-year examination,” the Boy Scouts of America decided to stand by its membership policy that excludes openly gay Scouts and adult leaders. [...]

Boy Scouts is an organization that was and is so close to being great. Remember when they had to put Old Yeller down because he got rabies? It’s not like he was a bad dog, but he got a brain infection and he tried to eat Travis. He looked the same and wasn’t about to die, but the good dog who used to save him from bears and boars just wasn’t there anymore. The policy is embarrassing and archaic, sure. [...]

But the real value in speaking against it is that it’s dangerous. When a group as massive (2.7 million youth members) and respected as the Boy Scouts makes a move like this, it stands to exacerbate a public health hazard in such a way that we can’t just agree to disagree.

Perpetuating a culture where gay teenagers — who are already commonly battling notions of inferiority and self-hatred — can be openly and decidedly told they aren’t welcome among a preeminent organization that purports to represent and define a standard of behavioral ideals, is dangerous. It’s a decided step back in rejecting the culture of gay bullying. We will see more depression, and more suicide. We’ll see more discrimination of every sort, and more hatred.

If the BSA won’t change, then the burden falls on a just society to take them out behind the barn with whatever sort of shotgun revokes credibility.”