Scouts Divided

Nevertheless, the straights-only debate dominated a Boy Scouts' leadership meeting last month, with representatives of nine of the largest metropolitan scouting councils requesting the right to establish their own membership policies. They were told their proposal will be sent to a task force for consideration, but everything about the task force is top secret. "It's unbelievably dumb on their part," says a former national staff member. "They could take about 80 percent of the gas out of this thing if they were to be open and cooperative."

A few local troops are simply adopting nondiscrimination policies on their own. For instance, the Greater New York Councils' Web site emphatically declares, "Prejudice, intolerance and discrimination in any form are unacceptable." Other Scout leaders are quietly meeting funders' demands to sign nondiscrimination pledges in order to receive their grants, according to United Way's interim president, Chris Amundsen. But they risk punishment by Texas. In Oak Park, Ill., after seven Cub Scout troops decided they would accept gays as leaders, headquarters forced them to disband. In Cleveland, the Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ had sponsored Troop 98 for 90 years, longer than any other church in the city. Through the winter, troop and church leaders hammered out an accord: this troop would pledge not to discriminate. But the area Scout council would not allow it. One day in March, without warning, council leaders entered the church and removed all of the canoes, tents, flags and plaques, stripping the church bare of its Scout troop, the Rev. Laurinda Hafner says. "I feel such a deep loss about this. Now those boys are going to be reinforced with the idea that being gay is bad, and even that standing up for gays is bad," Hafner says.

And that message can be fraught with serious risks for kids. The American Medical Association has called upon groups to "reconsider exclusionary policies that are based on sexual orientation." At its annual meeting last month, the association warned that stigmatizing homosexuality can contribute to major depression and suicide among gay youth. They may well have had in mind boys like Judd Hardy, who was a 16-year-old Eagle Scout and camp counselor on the Wednesday afternoon three years ago that he took a pair of scissors and clipped the artery in his left wrist, hoping to die. "I remember thinking I have this thing inside of me that I can't get rid of," says Hardy, now 19. "But I wanted to get rid of it so much that my mind turned very practical: obviously, it's not worth living." His terrified little brother Skip called a local Scout leader from Troop 73 in Salt Lake City--the one who taught the first-aid merit-badge classes. "Judd kept saying, 'Don't call the Boy Scouts, tell them to go away'," remembers Skip, now 15. "I had no idea why."

Today, Judd says he first realized he was gay when he was 13. As a Mormon, he struggled for several years to change this through something the church calls "reparative therapy," which involved frequent fasting, memorizing Scripture and mandatory basketball games. As a Boy Scout he regularly withstood anti-gay commentary. "It breaks you," he says. "I looked around the room at all the boys who were gay-bashing, and I wanted to be just like them, but I knew that I couldn't."

After his suicide attempt, he announced his resignation from the Scouts. His parents accepted his decision over time. Soon, his brothers each concluded that blood was thicker than the Scout's oath; they left, too, in solidarity. "I knew they believed all these bad things about gay people, but this was my brother they were talking about," says James, a high-school senior. "We just didn't feel comfortable going back." Now the Hardys are estranged from their church and have founded the local chapter of Scouting for All, a national organization challenging the gay ban. In June, James, Skip and Zach (now 17, 15 and 10) marched with their parents in the gay-pride parade wearing pink kerchiefs and carrying the Scouting for All banner.

In a twist typical of the complicated struggle for the soul of scouting, Judd is not a member of the group. He just finished his freshman year at New York University, and is working as a summer counselor at a New York-area camp that does not exclude gays. "This Boy Scouts battle, that's really my parents' thing," he says. "I want to tell them it's been great, I admire their support. But it's time to give the Boy Scouts a rest."