The Boy Scouts were all set to vote today on whether they would allow gay members to join, because for their entire existence, the Scouts didn't want no gays coming in and gaying up their khaki-short-shorts-bandanna-wearing boys-only club.
But now comes the announcement that the vote has been delayed until May, mainly because America is stupid.
The Boy Scouts of America national executive board met at its headquarters in Texas today and, as Scouts and leaders passed out petitions supporting the allowing of gay members and as conservative group Texas Values held a prayer vigil, the board decided that this issue hasn't been debated and polarizing enough, so it delayed things for another three months.
For Dean Trantalis, Fort Lauderdale's first openly gay city commissioner, who served 2003 and 2006, the issue of allowing gays into the Boy Scouts is a display of a society evolving.
"Ten years ago, the issue of the Scouts came before Fort Lauderdale, and there was a big uproar with protesters showing up chanting, 'We're a Christian nation!'" he tells New Times.
"But America isn't buying into the antigay mythology anymore."
Still, groups like Texas Values and people like Texas Gov. Rick Perry exist, spewing their stupid all over their nice Sunday suits.
Last week, Perry told the AP of the Scouts, "To have popular culture impact 100 years of their standards is inappropriate. Hopefully the board will follow their historic position of keeping the Scouts strongly supportive of the values that make Scouting this very important and impactful organization."
Being gay is so gay because of popular culture.
Meanwhile, conservative groups have warned that the Scouts would see mass defections if they allowed gays to join which would probably be for the best because then all the non-hateful jackasses would remain and the Boy Scouts can move on into the 21st Century.
But Trantalis believes the opposition is a small, albeit vocal, minority.
"Their base is shrinking," he says. "It's a knee-jerk reaction on their part. It makes them feel good to say the things they say."
But the delay speaks of the dipshittery that has become this nation and its monkey-fist death grip on "values."
Still, Brad Hankins, campaign director of Scouts for Equality, says he and his supporters don't want a partial lift of the ban on gays, and he has the signed petitions to show it. "We don't want to see Scouting gerrymandered into blue and red districts," he said.
As for Trantalis, who is running for reelection, he keeps looking at the positives and hopes the board will make the right decision (whenever the hell it grows the balls to make one, already).
"I'm relieved that at last society is embracing equality," Trantalis tells us. "Accepting of gays into the Boy Scouts would be a giant leap for our society."
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