The Boy Scouts are dropping “Boy” from their name

I remember fondly my years with the Boy Scouts. Overnight campouts with my father. Lessons in outdoor survival and the care of nature. Building camaraderie in an environment uniquely suited to develop boys into men.

As a teenager, I became too involved in academics and other activities to continue in the Boy Scouts, but I have always admired the Eagle Scouts I met and consider their achievement to be enormously significant. The list of notable Eagle Scouts includes President Gerald Ford, astronaut Neil Armstrong (the first man on the moon), Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and businessman Sam Walton.

The Boy Scouts have been one of America’s great cultural institutions. Five years ago, things began to change.

What the BSA has done

From their inception in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) excluded openly gay people from membership or leadership. The Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that they had a legal right to continue this position.

Then companies such as UPS, drug manufacturer Merck, and the United Way began opposing the organization’s policy, choosing to stop or postpone their financial support. A gay advocacy group gathered more than 1.2 million online signatures to protest the BSA’s position.

In response, the BSA voted on May 23, 2013, to open the organization to openly gay individuals. On July 27, 2015, they chose to permit openly gay Scout leaders.

On January 30, 2017, the BSA announced that transgender boys would be allowed to enroll in boys-only programs, effective immediately. On October 11, 2017, they announced that girls would be allowed to become Cub Scouts in 2018 and that a separate program for older girls would begin in 2019.

To further the inclusion of girls, the BSA is now dropping “Boy” from the name of its signature program. Starting in February 2019, the Boy Scouts program for boys ages eleven to seventeen will be called Scouts BSA. The overall organization will remain Boy Scouts of America.

The organization said…