Sunday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry became the second Republican presidential candidate to suggest the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) should be able to deny lesbian, gay, and bisexual people the ability to work and volunteer for the organization when he said on Meet the Press that the BSA would be “better off” without openly LGB employees and volunteers. Perry’s comments came days after the BSA’s Executive Committee recommended that the organization end its blanket ban on LGB adults, although the committee’s proposal allows certain local exemptions.
Earlier in the week Gov. Scott Walker said that the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on LGB people serving as volunteers was “fine.” Walker reiterated that he thought the policy was “fine” in Sunday’s CNN Report with Dana Bash, and again refused to apologize for his position, saying that the ultimate determination should be up to BSA. In the same interview Walker said he doesn’t know whether being LGBT is a choice or not.
“Rick Perry’s hurtful and offensive comments this morning are yet another reminder of how much ‘better off’ our nation is with him out of public office, and especially the White House,” said JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president of Policy and Political Affairs for the Human Rights Campaign. “The rest of the candidates need to make clear they don’t agree with Rick Perry and Scott Walker’s support of the Boy Scouts’ discriminatory policy.”
Earlier this year, BSA President Robert Gates, a former Secretary of Defense under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, characterized BSA’s discriminatory policies as “unsustainable.” The Boy Scouts of America last year began allowing openly gay youth to participate in the organization as scouts, thanks in large part to grassroots work by Scouts for Equality and its executive director Zach Wahls, and advocacy by supportive scouts, scout leaders, and scouting parents.
Perry has a track record of opposing measures to prevent discrimination against LGBT people. In his last campaign for president, he ran a TV ad opposing the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Perry also attacked the Obama Administration’s work to protect LGBT people around the world from discrimination, and he opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would have protected LGBT workers in the United States from employment discrimination. And he defended Gov. Mike Pence’s license to discriminate legislation.
