To: President Donald Trump
President Obama: Please be BRAVE and step down as honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have recently reaffirmed their discriminatory policy of actively excluding homosexual boys and adults from their organization and both President Obama and Mitt Romney have publicly stated their opposition to this policy. As the President of the United States is the honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America, we believe that it sends the wrong message to both the BSA and to gay youths and adults for the President to continue to act as honorary BSA president if he, in fact, does not agree with the current anti-gay policy. We, the undersigned, call on President Barack Obama to be BRAVE, in accordance with the Boy Scout Law, and step down as honorary BSA president and formally communicate to the BSA that their current policy is unacceptable.
Why is this important?
My son Luke has been a cub scout for two years and my younger son Duncan was slated to begin cub scouting this year. My husband, a former Eagle Scout, and myself both highly value the personal growth that we experienced during our scouting years and were looking forward to our children having the same opportunities. However, neither of us consider being gay as something that makes a person "bad" - in fact we have gay family members and friends whom we love and respect. We cannot be complicit in denigrating gay boys or adults by participating in an organization that actively discriminates against those people. Therefore we have chosen to leave the boy scouts. As President Obama has also publicly stated that he disagrees with the Boy Scouts of America's policy, we think that the right and principled thing for him to do is to step down as honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America. Please join us in encouraging him to do so.