Adella Freeman
A Converse-area Boy Scout troop wouldn't let Adella Freeman and her partner be members because they are gay. Their son, who was nearly an Eagle Scout, left the organization because it conflicts with his values.
A nonprofit has crowdsourced more than $40,000 and it's willing to hand all that cash over to the Boy Scouts of America on one condition: repeal the ban on gay parents and adults.
Scouting for Equality, the nonprofit behind the challenge to Boy Scouts of America President Bob Gates, added $10,000 to the pot when it kicked off the campaign in late April.
With 17 more fundraising days left, the push has raised $53,845. The results won't be processed unless the Boy Scouts vote to repeal the ban at their annual meeting, which will be in Atlanta, Georgia between May 20 and 22.
A few weeks before Scouting for Equality unveiled its challenge to the Boy Scouts, a Texas couple was barred from joining their son's new Converse-area Boy Scout troop.
Adella Freeman, the boy's mother, started an online petition asking the Alamo Area Council to support a change in policy and delivered more than 100,000 signatures to the group.
"There are over a dozen other councils in which gay leaders are allowed to serve openly. We’re asking the Alamo Area Council to join their ranks and do what’s best for the local community,” Zach Wahls, Executive Director of Scouts for Equality, said at the time.
In 2014, the Boy Scouts voted to end a ban that excluded gay scouts, though it didn't extend to gay parents and adults.
