United Way and the Boy Scouts of America
Background
The United Way of America is an organization which takes in donations from people and businesses and distributes the funds to programs across the nation to help serve the community.
One of the organizations which receive funds from the United Way, is the Boy Scouts of America. In 1990, an assistant scoutmaster was found out to be gay and was expelled from the Scouts as consequence. This went to the courts with the final verdict being that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) had the right to expel James Dale, the scoutmaster in question. This has been seen as the BSA having a discriminatory policy of admittance into the Scouts. The United Way has an anti-discrimination policy
all, 2010 and BSA Discrimination, 2010) have all defunded the BSA. While the BSA has petitioned those organizations to cease their defunding (BSA Discrimination, 2010), there has not been a large public backlash on those agencies, so I feel that with a zero tolerance policy on discrimination the UWCW can change policy and not lose specific donors all while furthering our vision of fostering community. Yes there has been some critics that feel that United Way or anyone else defunding the BSA is directly ignoring what the courts have said about the right of the BSA to expel openly homosexual leaders from its groups (High Beam, 2002), however the support of the United Way overall has not dropped. The last point I would address would be that we need to come together as one United Way on this policy. If only a hundred United Way affiliates defund organizations due to this policy while others retain funding, this could negatively impact the larger United Way mission. If we are seen as selective as when we uphold and when we ignore our policy as it would pertain to funded agencies, then the support of community stakeholders and the agencies receiving funding may wane.
Conversely speaking, if I were on the board and Mr. Norvell was coming to me to present his case on defunding the CPCBSA, I would request to see what his big picture for the UWCW organization is. Personally based on reading the