Boy Scouts of America may end ban on gays

DALLAS - Boy Scouts of America is considering ending a longstanding national ban on gay youth and adult members and leaving policies on sexual orientation to its local organizations, a spokesman said on Monday.

Lifting the ban would mark a dramatic reversal for the 103-year-old organization, which only last summer reaffirmed its policy amid heavy criticism from gay rights groups and some parents of scouts.

Eagle Scout Zach Wahls, 20, of Iowa City, Iowa, talks to reporters outside the Boy Scouts of America's Annual Meeting in Orlando in this file photo taken May 30, 2012. Wahls, the founder of a group opposing the Boy Scouts anti-gay policy, said Monday that the scouts decision to review their longstanding ban on gay members was a step in the right direction. [Photo/Agencies]

The organization's national executive board is expected to discuss lifting the ban on gay members at its regularly scheduled board meeting next week in Texas.

"The policy change under discussion would allow the religious, civic or educational organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting to determine how to address this issue," spokesman Deron Smith said in an email to Reuters.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the United Methodist Church and the Catholic Church have the largest youth membership in the Boy Scouts among faith-based organizations.

The organization, which had more than 2.6 million youth members and more than 1 million adult members at the end of 2012, "would not, under any circumstances, dictate a position to units, members, or parents," Smith said.

The Boy Scouts has also faced criticism for keeping private files covering decades of child sex abuse incidents within the organization. The Scouts released thousands of pages of files in October covering incidents from 1965 to 1985.

The Boy Scouts won a 5-4 US Supreme Court ruling allowing the organization to ban gays in 2000, but has come under increasing public pressure in recent years from activists. They include Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout with two lesbian mothers, and Jennifer Tyrrell, a lesbian mother from Ohio who was ousted as a Scout den leader and treasurer.

"This is absolutely a step in the right direction," said Wahls, who is founder of Scouts for Equality, a group that includes 3,151 other Eagle scouts.

Wahls said he would turn to persuading local councils to enact nondiscrimination policies if the change is approved.