Eagle Scout renounces his rank in protest of anti-gay policy

>>> this coming weekend mark it is 43rd annual pride march in new york city and two guests are raising awareness of the boy scouts . famed " star trek " actor george takei will ride in a uniform alongside jennifer tyrrell who's outed for being gay. he says i was a boy scout and i have wonderful memories of my boy scout days and not everyone is proud of third scouting past. retired multimedia journalist was a member of the eagle scouts and he has decided to renounce his rank because of its anti-gay policy. great to have you here and i understand you recently mailed some of the materials back to the boy scout as you describe as the history of troop 500. why did you decide to do that now?

>> in doing our spring cleaning, i found this wonderful battered suitcase and flipping through the pages, so many memories came forward and as i was looking at all of the different things from how to cook different recipes to who earned what merit badges , i just did not feel wonderful about -- as wonderful as i should have about it. i felt so disappointed that in the past 20 years since i earned my eagle scout rank scouting turn eed its back on the people it should be embracing.

>> you say that the boy scouts are supposed the stand for what's right and what's just. they haven't done that for the last decade. worse, there haven't been enough eagle scouts encolluding me who have stood up for what we learned in scouting. that's not scouting's failure but our failure. have you discussed with this other scouts and eagle scouts like yourself and do you hope there's a bigger pushback for solidarity and ask the boy scouts to reconsider what modern times may dictate?

>> it's interesting. for the past decade i have been ashamed of my scouting and people come up to me saying, hey, i'm also a boy scout , too, or learned of other eagle scouts and so many of us cowed in to not doing what scouting told us to do, do what's right and just. and right now, scouting's policies neither just nor right and hoping there are more eagle scouts out there who really have nothing more than just taking the right moral stance on this. come forward and say, scouting, please change. we are scouts. we want this to change.

>> you know, if the scouts were to go ahead and look at this policy and decide that, you know, they have a big process to review policies. coming up in 2013 but if they were to decide that they wanted to go ahead and reform late their thoughts on this, would you regret the fact you decided to renounce being an eagle scout ?

>> i firmly believe, yeah, one of the things they said to us coming up through scouts is that once an eagle, always an eagle. and i think that this is one of the things as an eagle scout that you need to stand up for what's right and that's really i believe that scouting is a -- scouting is a private organization and i think it's those from within that will be able to bring about the greatest change. it's the people who are scouts, that grew up with scouting that need to say, what is currently going on is not right.

>> naka that that thain yell, thank you.

>> thank you, thomas.