If you haven’t heard, we’ll fill you in. The Boy Scouts of America have officially ended their ban against gay children joining troops! While this may not seem to important to some, after all it’s just an activity program for kids, it marks a major milestone in LGBT rights. Boy Scouts has long stood against gay inclusion, so this is could be viewed as a sign of changing cultural norms!
And social media played a big role! 1.8 million people signed Change.org petitions, not only calling for the Boy Scouts to end the ban, but also pressuring companies and other organizations to denounce the Boy Scouts.
This whole story started in 1991 when the Boy Scouts announced
“we believe that homosexual conduct is not compatible with the aims and purposes of scouting….”
By April 2012, a petition appeared on change.org, calling for the Scouts to reinstate a recently fired scout leader who was fired for being gay. It garnered over 336 thousand signatures. Only a few months later, in July, another petition forced AT&T and Ernst & Young to call for an end to anti-gay policies.
In September, Intel pulled its funding in response to public pressure, and by November, yet another petition forced UPS to withdraw their funding. As of late, the writing was on the wall and the various petitions had garnered well over a millions signatures.
And on May 23rd the Boy Scouts officially ended their prohibition against gays.
