The LDS Church announced that the faith will stick with the Scouts after threatening last month to bolt from the youth group and form its own international organization for boys.
On Thursday the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America will decide whether or not it should change its policy which currently forbids openly gay scouts to participate in scouting troops across the country.
The proposal will be put before roughly 1,400 voting members at a meeting in Texas.
The compromise proposal from the Boy Scouts of America to allow gay youths — while continuing to exclude gay leaders — has picked up a powerful backer: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormon leaders, who sponsor more Scout troops than any other religious or civic group, announced Thursday (April 25) that they are “satisfied” with the BSA’s plan.
For former scoutmaster Richard Guglielmetti, the Boy Scouts of America’s reconsideration of its ban on gay scouts and leaders is long overdue. Guglielmetti, 66, who led Troop 76 in Simsbury, Conn., for a dozen years until 2005, said leaders and members of his troop ignored the national organization’s prohibition on gays because they felt it was wrong.