CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Following a confidential two-year review, the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday reaffirmed its ban on gays, both as members and leaders.
The Scouts' Chief Executive, Bob Mazzuca said, "The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers and at the appropriate time and in the right setting."
In Charlotte, Matt Comer is the editor of a gay community paper.
"You don't go to Scouting to talk about gays. You don't go to Boy Scouts to talk about sex. You go to talk about camping and doing everything that Boy Scouts do.
Comer was himself a Scout when he was 14 and living in Winston Salem.
"I was a 14-year-old middle school student who came out of the closet and told my friends that I was gay," said Comer.
It didn't take long for the Boy Scouts to find out.
"A couple of months later the chief Scout Master in my group told me that if I was choosing to live this life style, this gay lifestyle, I was choosing not to be a Boy Scout," he said.
At the Mecklenburg County Council of Boy Scouts Tuesday night, no one returned a call for comment on the reaffirmation of the ban on gays.
As a result of the decision to continue the ban, the Scouts' national executive board will take no further action on a resolution submitted at its recent national conference asking for a reconsideration of the membership policy.
