Gay Scouts, leaders to converge on BSA headquarters Monday

As Boy Scouts leaders gather to consider softening the organization’s ban on gays, several pro-LGBT former Scouts and leaders will deliver 1.4 million signatures to the national headquarters in Irving. Change.org announced Friday that the former Scouts and leaders will deliver the petitions at 11 a.m. Monday to the Boy Scouts’s National Headquarters on West Walnut Hill Lane, where the organization’s Board of Directors will be meeting. The petitions will be delivered by lesbian former den mother Jennifer Tyrrell, gay Eagle Scout Will Oliver, gay former Scoutmaster Greg Bourke, and Eric Andresen, father of a gay Scout denied his Eagle Award. On Wednesday, the Scouts’ Board of Directors is expected to vote on whether to lift the organization’s national ban on gay Scouts and leaders. The policy change under consideration reportedly would allow local troops to decide whether to allow gays. “More than 1 million people have joined Change.org campaigns urging the Boy Scouts of America to end their national anti-gay policy, and [Monday], those signers are seeing their work and their support delivered right to the Boy Scouts of America, for one final push as the Boy Scout board determines the future of the organization,” said Mark Anthony Dingbaum, senior campaign manager at Change.org.