More than 77,000 people have signed an online petition to reject the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) anti
-LGBT policy and reinstate Tim Griffin, The Eagle Scout who was fired by the Golden Empire Council because he is gay.
Griffin was the longest-serving employee (8 years) at Camp Winton in Amador County, Calif.
The Golden Empire Council, first chartered in 1920, serves Scouts in a large section of Northern California, primarily the Sacramento Valley and the northern Sierra Nevada mountains. The council headquarters are located in Sacramento.
Alex Hayes, Camp Winton’s program director, started the petition on Change.org in response to the discrimination. He, and nine other Camp Winton employees, resigned in protest at the decision.
The Golden Empire Council said in a statement that Griffin’s firing was “due to an issue with performance, violation of expected camp behavior and camp standards.”
Hayes rejects this, writing on the petition site, “Tim was loved not only by his fellow camp staffers, but all of the Boy Scouts who participated in programs he ran at the camp. The Golden Empire Council claims he was fired because he violated the camp’s dress code. But as his direct supervisor at the Camp Winton, I know this isn’t true. He was fired because of his sexual orientation. The men who fired Tim haven’t even stepped foot on Camp Winton this summer.”
Griffin, along with Alex Hayes and other former employees of Camp Winton, will deliver the petition in person at the Golden Empire Council’s office in Sacramento, California, tomorrow.
