No matter what the Boy Scouts claim, my lesbian moms were role models

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/23/boy-scouts-should-include-gay-adults

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Last week, on Good Friday, the Boy Scouts of America revoked the charter of Rainier Beach United Methodist Church, because its Scoutmaster, Geoffrey McGrath, is gay, and the Church refused to fire him. The BSA has claimed that McGrath had “inappropriately” injected the issue of his sexuality into Scouting. They haven’t yet explained exactly what this means, beyond the fact that when asked by a reporter about his sexuality, he answered truthfully. I suspect that if somebody asked Bob Gates – the new President of the BSA’s Executive Board and former US Defense Secretary – if he was gay, he would answer the question, too.

When I was in the Scouts, my mother Jackie was my Troop’s rank advancement coordinator, a registered adult member, like Geoff McGrath. Like McGrath, she is gay and she was and is an incredible role model for Scouts like I was. Unlike McGrath, we were lucky to avoid the spotlight of public attention, and our local council didn’t ask, and we didn’t have to tell.

I received my Eagle Scout award in 2007. At the ceremony, I could barely see my other mom's face from the front of the room where my Scoutmaster planned to pin the Eagle Scout medal to my uniform for the first time. Terry's health had deteriorated to the point that she could no longer sit upright in a normal chair for more than thirty minutes and was, instead, reclined in her electric wheelchair.

She wanted desperately to stand next to me as I accepted the Eagle Scout charge, so Jackie helped Terry use a cane to hobble over to my side. My Scoutmaster read the words said to the parents of the Eagle Scout, which we’d had to change to reflect that I was raised by two moms, after which he read the Eagle Scout charge. I repeated it back, and he presented the medal.

I wonder now if by standing with her then-partner and now-wife at my court of honor, Jackie could have been accused of "inappropriately injecting her sexuality" into Scouting. Nobody bothered to raise the question. But even if they had, the answer should be self-evident: of course she had not.

To wit, standing with your partner at your son’s Eagle Scout ceremony is likely the most appropriate way to present oneself in a Scouting situation. I struggle to think of a more important moment for any Scout who has achieved this rank than being accompanied by his parents, in front of his peers, charged by his Scoutmaster on his sacred honor to live the values of Scouting. To follow the Scout Law by being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

I struggle, too, to think of how being a lesbian woman somehow constitutes a violation of the Scout Law or Scout Oath. (Scouts UK shares my curiosity, by the way.) Since Lord Baden-Powell founded the program, Scouting has always been a non-sectarian program – and I have yet to see how being an LGBT person violates some greater Scouting principle. To the contrary, by banning gay adults, the BSA is denying gay men who achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, like Geoff and countless others, the right to participate in their community in this meaningful way. They are sending the message to today’s gay Scouts that they’re not welcome or that they should have to violate the first tenet of the Scout Law: A Scout is Trustworthy.

Scouting deserves better.

Terry’s health is improving. She’s made a recovery that some people, myself included, have called "miraculous." The Boy Scouts of America seems like it may be healing, too: Last year's decision to abandon the ban on openly gay youth was a step in the right direction. Yet, last week's decision to revoke this Methodist church's charter – and to deliver the news on Good Friday, no less – will be remembered by history as a self-inflicted, unnecessary, and irreverent wound.

Like so many other institutions – from the US military, to the American NFL and NBA – the Boy Scouts of America is struggling with the inclusion of gay adults. But having lesbian parents didn't make me any less of a Scout, and being gay won't make McGrath – or any other leader, my moms included – any less of a role model.

Eagle Scout's Honor.