It was a national policy. Even if he’d known, it would have been easy to imagine that his council and district would not be bigoted, given the chance. And he loves the camping trips and activities, so I kept my mouth shut and let him make his own decisions.
And then the national BSA decided to lift the national ban, making it a local issue instead of a national one. (UPDATE: The BSA just decided to delay this decision until May.) When I asked earlier this week how his scout meeting went, he told me:
“I didn’t go. They were meeting about how to keep gay people out of the Boy Scouts.”
“Oh,” I replied. “How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t like it,” he said. “I mean, I like the trips and camping, but I don’t think I want to hang around a bunch of people who discriminate against gay people. That’s like being racist. I just don’t want to be around people who discriminate like that. I’ll stop going unless my mom makes me.”
I am damn proud of my kid. Without any prompting, without any encouragement, he said:
I don’t want to be around people who discriminate like that.
Good on you, kiddo. Good on you.