The conflict regarding the exclusion of members based on sexual orientation gained heightened public attention after the US Supreme Court’s ruling in 2000 upheld the BSA’s legal right to ban openly gay individuals from participating as members or volunteers. The BSA’s argument for excluding gays is a heteronormative one in that the organization views homosexuality as inconsistent with its traditional moral values and feels the inclusion of gay individuals would inhibit the BSA’s ability to advocate and inculcate its beliefs in youth members. While the nation’s highest court has affirmed the BSA’s argument, public sentiment has increasingly assailed the institution’s membership requirements, leading to a proposed resolution that would allow openly gay youth as members but maintain the ban on participation of adult leaders and volunteers who are openly gay (BSA, 2013a). The BSA’s 1,400-member voting community voted in May 2013 to accept the new policy which will take effect on January 1, 2014 (BSA, 2013b). Varying positions on the issue abound and resonate with elements crucial to multicultural conflict. We explore the primary position of the BSA and how the organization could have engaged the conflict with greater awareness, accuracy, adaptability, and accountability.
We start with I-AM’s focus on awareness. Over the past twenty years, the BSA has been compelled to increase self-awareness as a result of objections to its exclusionary practices. Starting with the events leading up to the Supreme Court decision, when James Dale, a lifelong member of the BSA in New Jersey, was expelled from his duties as a scoutmaster for coming out as gay when he started college and subsequently filed a lawsuit, the BSA has intermittently needed to reflect on its core assumptions, beliefs, and values, which it has done and reaffirmed time and again. Arguably, however, this has been done in limited scope. For instance, has the organization considered in its awareness the full landscape of gay oppression within the United States? Within society, the LGBTQ community is typically not treated with helpfulness, friendliness, courtesy, or kindness, all explicit standards of conduct toward others in the Scout Law (BSA, 1911). From this perspective, the BSA could be perceived as violating the very tenets it seeks to uphold. Thus, if the BSA were to think about the application of its values and the implications of exclusion more broadly, perhaps it could have allowed a redefining of what it means to be “morally straight” as an individual participant and as an organization with a social mission.
The I-AM dimension of accuracy is also relevant in this conflict. As the BSA revisited its membership standards more critically over the past ten years, it has been difficult for its leaders to ignore the changing attitudes of Americans. To its credit with respect to accuracy and recognizing the increasing diversity of the nation and lifestyles, the organization itself commissioned research about American values in 1995 and in 2005 (BSA) as a means of assessing value change over time; however, the data do not reflect explicit attitudes regarding sexual orientation or values that might be directly related to it. Despite this lack of specific information, in 2000, following the Supreme Court’s decision, the BSA (2000), in an “Open Letter to America’s Families,” stated that its “values are consistent with the ideals embraced by most American families and are grounded in the tenets and teachings of the majority of the world’s religions. We believe an avowed homosexual is not a role model for the values espoused in the Scout Oath and Law.”
Americans may still embrace BSA ideals broadly, but certainly the attitudinal tide regarding whether homosexuality is contradictory to these ideals is changing. According to one current poll, 63 percent of Americans are in support of ending the ban for youth, and 56 percent are in favor of allowing openly gay adult volunteers (Clement, 2013). Other aspects of accuracy, however, have probably not been so obvious to the organization and build on the BSA’s potentially limited awareness. As part of its investigation into the potential value conflict in having gay members, did the BSA challenge its own assumptions about homosexuality, gay culture, and the LGBTQ community? A thorough and accurate understanding of the group the BSA banned would have included seeking out information about the other from the other. Preconceived notions and negative stereotypes concerning LGBTQ individuals are pervasive. Deliberation regarding these assumptions as well as perceived value and lifestyle differences could have mitigated the harmful and unfair generalizations that likely played a role in determining the BSA’s policy.
The BSA’s revision of its standards also demonstrates the importance of adaptability. With declining membership linked to the organization’s resistance to inclusion along lines of sexual orientation (Arneil, 2010) and the cutting of funds by corporate donors (Dade, 2013), the BSA increasingly faces a reality that threatens its existence. Its recent attempt at flexibility, however, comes more than twenty years after James Dale publicized the conflict through litigation. When the organization found out about Dale’s sexual orientation through a newspaper article mentioning Dale’s leadership role in a gay and lesbian student group at his university, it immediately sent a letter to Dale revoking his membership (Hutchinson, 2001). Had the BSA had a culture that was adaptive and open to learning, it would have engaged Dale directly to explore the issue and employ creative problem solving. The time would have been ripe to reflect on entrenched patterns of assuming, believing, and being, but the organization’s rigid culture and celebrated reliance on tradition prevented it from even considering other responses as alternatives. With an orientation toward adaptivity, perhaps the organization’s membership standards would have changed long before now. Still, in its attempts to flex, the organization has used dialogue with its multiple stakeholders for nearly three years in coming to the current resolution (BSA, 2013a).
Finally there is the notion of accountability. The BSA has acknowledged greater accountability to the youth of America by proposing to end the ban. In its own words, the organization has justified the inclusion of gay youth by highlighting the vision “to prepare every [emphasis added] eligible youth in America to become a responsible, participating citizen and leader who is guided by the Scout Oath and Scout Law,” noting that “youth are still developing, learning about themselves and who they are,” and that “the organization’s policies must be based on what is in the best interest of its young people, and the organization will work to stay focused on that which unites us” (BSA, 2013a, p. 8). Now that voting members have agreed to lift the ban on gay youth members, the integrity with which the new policy is implemented will be an additional test of the BSA’s commitment to accountability. The institution could do this by assessing the impact of its decision through surveys with current members and volunteers, including measures of climate, participation, and retention rates at multiple intervals to ascertain the BSA’s progression toward a more inclusive organization. There is also the question of whether and when the BSA will expand its level of consciousness to permit openly gay adult leaders and accept them as role models for youth, comparable in worthiness to heterosexual volunteers. It would require a reframing in leaders’ response to whom the BSA is accountable and how accountability is demonstrated in this environment.
Internal integration, rather than external adaptation, has been the priority for the BSA. The organization has stood, towering and immutable, firm in its core values and beliefs, but now finds itself necessarily in an awkward modern dance of fit, fairness, and integrity. Whether those in support of preserving BSA’s policy or those in support of breaking down barriers to participation, there seems to be uneasiness about this alteration in organizational identity. No one is completely satisfied, and things might get messier before they get better, but one should expect nothing less in this case of multicultural conflict. I-AM is not a recipe for resolution but a framework that respects and helps organize the inherent messiness of managing the tough multicultural issues we face in today’s world.
CONCLUSION
The eager and sincere vetting of multiculturalism as a framework for ensuring the recognition, value, and dignity of cultures has made it a viable approach to addressing soci
ocultural justice issues. Flawed yet attractive, it has advanced the conversation about culture and diversity to critical and nuanced effect. It has much to offer with respect to how we conceptualize, analyze, research, and practice conflict and its resolution. Our recommendation is to approach multicultural conflicts at the most provocative level, as we believe that working diligently through the accompanying discomfort and complexity will have the greatest positive impact for socially just outcomes. We hope that we have provided a realistic preview of multicultural conflict resolution’s strengths, weaknesses, and applications.
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