The Mormon church has announced that it will ” … no longer charter Varsity or Venturing units with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and Scouts Canada effective Jan. 1 2018.”
As a result of the Mormon church’s decision to pull out of these programs, meant for boys aged 14-18, the Boy Scouts expects to lose between 130,000 teenage scouts ― about 5 percent of its 2.3 million youth members, reports The Huffington Post.
According to the report, the church insisted that this wasn’t a reaction to a recent change in Boy Scout’s policies that allowed gay adults to serve as leaders and transgender boys to join the organization. The policy change on gay adult leaders had initially left the church “deeply troubled.”
“The BSA offers a variety of programs from Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts to STEM Scouts, Exploring and Venturing, and our chartered partners are in the best position to decide which programs most appropriately meet the needs of the youth they serve,” the BSA said in a statement.
Although thousands of youth and leaders who participate in Venturing crews nationwide embrace and support the program, we recognize that not all programs are a perfect fit for all partners.
We anticipate that many youth from the LDS Church will continue to participate in Scouting beyond the age of 14 as young men work to earn the Eagle Scout rank.
The Mormon church will continue to use the Cub Scout and Boy Scout programs for boys and young men ages 8 through 13 and pledged to support all teenage Mormons who still want to become Eagle Scouts.
