A number of months ago, I wrote an op-ed about how the Boy Scouts need to drag themselves into the 21st century or risk extinction (sort of like the GOP).

As a cursory Google search of my name will show, I am an Eagle Scout. It was unbelievably hard the last few years in the organization, being joined with so much hatred and so much prejudice. My particular troop was affiliated with a Reformed Synagogue, and, to be honest, they could not care less if a member or a leader was gay (or an atheist). That is mainly what got me through, and I could rest assured knowing that the majority of my city agreed with me that bigotry was wrong.

Except, evidently, they don’t. The Chron reports that the local area council for Greater Houston has voted to reaffirm their discriminatory policy expelling any “avowed homosexuals” from the BSA, either as members or leaders. The national council has recently proposed a new policy aimed at mitigating the reactionary nature of such a regulation: it would allow local councils to opt-out from expelling gay members (but not leaders), with the understanding that most kids haven’t definitively picked a sexual orientation at 11, so it would be unfair to punish them for something out of their control only happening later.

However, that is not what the Sam Houston Council did. It voted against the resolution. Even worse, the organization boasted that “75 percent of respondents” in the community approved of the board’s actions.

[expletive deleted]. I refuse to believe it. This is a progressive city, with a very ethnically and racially diverse scouting council. My guess is that this “survey” was nothing more than the old bigots’ friends, handpicked for their opinions.

Just as how the 20th century was imposed upon Southern Bigots in the scouts with the implementation of integration, the 21st century must be imposed upon their descendants with the eradication of this vile, hateful ban on gay membership.