Michelangelo Signorile
Editor-at-large, HuffPost Gay Voices

What the Boy Scouts of America did last week was among the most grotesque examples of its anti-gay policy to date. Ryan Andresen, a California high school senior, was denied his Eagle Scout award after completing all the requirements, including his final project of building a "tolerance wall" to fight bullying, which he'd experienced as a gay teen. He'd been in the BSA long before he knew he was gay, from the age of six. Like many young people, he came to realize his sexual orientation as a teen. And his Scoutmaster allegedly decided that now, just before earning the BSA's highest award, it was time to dump him simply because he is gay.

And that's why it's time for companies to dump the Boy Scouts. Last month Intel, the BSA's then-largest corporate donor, decided to do just that, dropping all funding to the Boy Scouts shortly after a report revealed the names of big companies that give money to the anti-gay Boy Scouts while they claim to support diversity (some with financial donations to LGBT groups), and even many that have anti-discrimination polices that include lgbt people, like Intel. Among them are familiar names, such as Verizon, Bank of America, General Mills, Wells Fargo and Pfizer. That these companies would allow themselves to be connected to the kind of bullying and gay-bashing that Ryan Andresen experienced -- told by the BSA that he didn't honor a 'duty to God' -- is outrageous. And it's time for them to stop funding it.

full story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/the-boy-scouts-time-for-a_b_1948033.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

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