COLCHESTER, Vt. -
On Wednesday, the Boy Scouts are expected to vote on a big and very controversial change, whether to drop a ban on openly gay scouts and leaders.
"This is the 21st century. It's insane to have that sort of policy," says Stephen Lehr, a gay Eagle Scout who lives in Vermont.
Lehr says he had even thought about turning in his Eagle, like other scouts have, to protest the ban.
"Here I am an Eagle Scout and yet here they have a policy that just because who somebody is, who their orientation is, they can't become an Eagle," says Lehr.
Right now in Texas, the Boy Scouts are debating allowing gay scouts and leaders.
But this new policy might have less to do with changing attitudes and might be more about money. That's because reports are more than a dozen big companies from UPS to IBM have stopped donating to the Boy Scouts.
That appears to have pushed the Scouts to consider dropping the national ban and leave the issue up to each troop.
"What they've said to us and to other religious leaders is that we're doing this under pressure and we're going to give people what basically amounts to a local option. You can't have a local option of a core conviction," says Richard Land, Southern Baptist Convention.
Lehr says for him to be proud of Scouts again he wants the organization to go further and force all troops to accept everyone.
"It has to be all or nothing," says Lehr.
We reached out to leaders of the Boy Scouts in Vermont.
They tell us they're waiting to see what happens Wednesday and then decide what to do and how it will affect some 4,000 scouts in Vermont.
