Fmr. scout: 'In order to remain relevant, the Boy Scouts need to stop discriminating'

The Boy Scouts are considering a major shift in their policy toward homosexuals and their board could vote to lift the national ban on gay scouts and leaders today. If that happens, local troops will decide on their own whether or not to accept gays.

After James Dale was expelled from the Boy Scouts in 1990 for being gay, he filed a lawsuit against the organization in New Jersey State court saying his expulsion violated New Jersey's state law against discrimination. His case made it to the Supreme Court in 2000, and it was ruled that the Boy Scouts could refuse membership to people who identify as gay.

Dale joins Early Start this morning to comment on today's vote, saying that he thinks it's "great that they’re having a conversation about this but I think it’d be more important if they did the right thing once and for all."

"What they’re going to do now is kick the can down the road and delay the inevitable," Dale says. "They can’t continue to discriminate... Unfortunately I think what they’re going to do today is compromise. They’re going to go half way."

Dale also responds to a comment by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention Richard Land on Starting Point yesterday, when he said that allowing gays could be a "catastrophe" that would propel many members to leave the Scouts.

"I’m not going to comment about what a small minded hate monger has to say about discrimination issues," Dale says.