Zach Wahls
This week the California Supreme Court barred the state’s judges from participating in youth groups that discriminate against LGBT people.
The change to the ethics rules prevents judges in California from participating in the Boy Scouts of America, which is based in Irving. BSA changed its policy on gay scouts under the age of 18, but it retains its discriminatory policy on scout leaders.
That standard will be part of this year’s Corporate Equality Index that is prepared by the Human Rights Campaign.
“The Boy Scouts of America’s practice of discrimination in banning LGBT leaders is not just wrong but totally incompatible with professional values of equality, fairness and equal opportunity,” said Deena Fidas, director of HRC Foundation’s Workplace Equality Program, and co-author of the foundation’s annual Corporate Equality Index, in a statement on HRC’s website.
A number of demonstrations in front of Boy Scouts of America headquarters in Irving were, in part, responsible for the change in policy for scouts. Pressure mounted when Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout with two moms who founded Scouts for Equality, got several major corporate donors to drop their support of the organization, because funding a group that discriminates violated their own corporate policies.
The CEI’s new policy may encourage additional companies with otherwise perfect scores to stop funding the Boy Scouts.
