The Boy Scouts are continuing to see a backlash after ending a ban on gay Scouts last week.
The recent vote to end the ban on gay Scouts was approved last week by delegates from the Boy Scouts of America. The vote won the approval of 61 percent of the 1,232 National Council delegates.
Since voting to allow gay scouts, the organization has seen some longtime members and supports speak out, even as more progressive groups praise the change.
One of those leaving the Scouts over the end of the gay scout ban is Aaron Butler, a Minnesota man who leads his 8-year-old son Evan’s pack. Butler told NBC News that he decided to leave the Boy Scouts after the ban was lifted.
“It was a big disappointment … he cried for about 10 minutes because I told him that the Boy Scouts were not honoring their own law,” Butler said. “They say it — ‘On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep [myself] physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight,’” he said.
Evan said he feels bad about having to leaving, saying he knew the decision was related to the vote to end the gay Scout ban.
“It was between honor and God, and not honoring God. And [not] honoring God got more votes,” Evan said.
Other longtime Boy Scouts supporters have pulled their entire families from the Boy Scouts , and some churches have joined in the Boy Scout protest as well. They said that Boy Scouts never actively discriminated against gay Scouts, as it never asked about their sexual orientation.
Some churches have now cut Boy Scout ties, and important loss given that they sponsor about 70 percent of the 100,000 charted Boy Scout units in the United States.
“We’re going to have a long, hard discussion of our support for our local troop,” said Dallas Pastor Gregg Simmons. “How will they maintain ‘morally straight’? They have stripped that statement of all meaning. You’re not just teaching young men how to build campfires.”
While the ban on gay Boy Scouts has been lifted, there is a still a rule against homosexuals serving in the organization’s leadership.
