Looks like the Boy Scouts have put off making a decision regarding gay admittance to the organization, at least until May.

(incidentally, nice placement of the God and Country medal, the default Protestant religious emblem, in the photo on the linked HuffPo article. Points off for the age of the photo, though – “Quality Unit 1997?” wow.)

Anyway, I’m not necessarily surprised. Despite the Boy Scout motto being “Be Prepared”, I expect that the BSA was not at all prepared for the outpouring of commentary from the public on this one (although they really should have been). It seems to me that humans who hold with these sorts of exclusionary opinions tend to overestimate the acceptance of those opinions across the broader public, or even within their own organization.

This country is trending toward acceptance and equality in terms of sexual orientation. Note the recent Quinnipiac Poll on the BSA issue, showing a 22% advantage among voters (admittedly not necessarily a perfect metric) favoring elimination of the ban (even higher among women, who in my experience, tend to dominate Parents’ committees, and make up the majority of leader ranks at the Cub level).

In a lot of ways, the writing’s on the wall, and I think that this delay is the Boy Scouts of America giving themselves time to come to terms with the fact that the world, in this area at least, has passed them by. Change will come eventually, and it’ll come both as a result of an outpouring of public individual support, from little peons like me and my friends on social networks boosting this particular signal, all the way up to the President of the United States, and through the loss of corporate donations as the megacorps don’t wish to be associated with a group that discriminates againsts a significant segment of their customer base.

You can’t run giant international Jamborees every couple of years without big corporate backing – in the end, it’s going to be the economic angle that brings about change. However, let’s not discount the power of personal seniment – as such, please consider letting the BSA know how you feel on the issue.