Gerber/Hart Library and Archives (Gerber/Hart) hosted a talk with Morally Straight: How the Fight for LGBTQ Inclusion Changed the Boy Scouts—And America author and journalist Mike De Socio July 10 at Gerber/Hart.
Morally Straight weaves De Socio’s own experience as a scout and later journalist, and the evolution of the Boy Scouts of America’s (now called Scouting America) LGBTQ+ inclusive policies.
Gerber/Hart Community Outreach and Strategic Partnerships Manager Jen Dentel introduced De Socio and Oak Park Scouts for Equality Co-Founders Mary E. Anderson (a lesbian) and Cate Lujan Readling (who is straight) ahead of their discussion.
De Socio (who is queer) did a short reading from his book that focused on Anderson and Readling’s part in the Scouts for Equality organization that has since disbanded and donated their assets upon completing their mission. De Socio asked the two women about the origins of their own chapter of Scouts for Equality.
Anderson said at the time she wanted to get involved with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) as a lesbian mom with one son, and she also knew Scouts for Equality Co-Founder and current Iowa state Sen. Zach Wahls. When they were able to connect with each other, Wahls was very happy to see that parents like her wanted to get involved because at the time it was only Eagle Scouts who were pushing for the scouts to be LGBTQ+ inclusive. She added that Wahls had talked about his desire to start chapters and this is how the Oak Park chapter came to fruition with her and Readling at the helm.
Readling said their Oak Park chapter had a light-hearted competition with the San Francisco chapter over which one was technically the first to incorporate.
Anderson said 40 people showed up to their first chapter meeting, including one of the Scouts for Equality co-founders, Jonathan Hillis, who flew in from Minneapolis. She said their initial marketing campaign included a Facebook page and physical fliers. Anderson also spoke their decision to have the LGBTQ+ supportive Chicago-area Cub and Boy Scout den members to wear a rainbow neckerchief slide whenever they were in uniform.
Readling’s husband (who is an Eagle Scout) came up with the idea for the neckerchief slide, since that was the only part of the uniform that was not regulated by the BSA. She added that they created a tri-fold brochure and later their Scouts for Equality banner that she took to recruitment events. She was told by the BSA that she could not hand those brochures out, but she persisted. Readling said that Scouts for Equality Founding Member Justin P. Wilson helped her become a scout leader for her three sons’ pack.
De Socio also asked them about their mother’s campaign. Readling said that her trip to the first national gathering of Scouts for Equality in Colorado made her even more dedicated to this fight for equality in the BSA once she saw “so many men from all ages who were so deeply dedicated to saving an organization that they loved so much despite the deep harm they had caused them and that for me … absolutely fortified my commitment to making sure we won.”
Anderson added that at that point they thought this would be a 5-10 year campaign, so they decided to create a video with elected officials and local celebrities who were former Boy Scouts, and recruit other mothers across the country to also create their own videos to share online.
The video campaign began in 2013 (the year that the ban on gay and bisexual youth was lifted). Then in 2015 the BSA voted to allow out gay and bisexual adults to be involved as scout leaders. He asked why they thought this happened so fast.
Readling attributed it to the momentum that had come before their involvement, a robust inside game within the BSA, the fight for marriage equality at the same time and it was uncool to be on the wrong side of this issue, all of which made the BSA finally take that inclusive vote in 2015.
Then the conversation was flipped with Anderson’s query to De Socio about what inspired him to write this book.
De Socio said he worked for his high school newspaper when the inclusion issue had re-emerged in the BSA, so he wrote about that. He added that a few years after he graduated from college a friend encouraged him to write a book. De Socio did some research and discovered that no one had written a book about this topic so he dove in and used his journalism skills and love of scouting to bring this to fruition.
Readling asked De Socio about what he thought the turning point was and he said the early challenges in the ‘80s were necessary, including their loss at the Supreme Court to make the BSA inclusive for out gay and bisexual scouts. He added that the new media strategies that emerged in the 2010s helped spur them to victory. De Socio also said that in the years that followed the Supreme Court decision the BSA lost venue space across America and membership dropped due to their anti-LGBTQ policies.
Other topics De Socio spoke about included allyship with Anderson and Readling’s rendition of “I’m Mary. I’m Cate. I’m gay. I’m straight and we are Oak Park Scouts for Equality” as well as the toll this takes on queer/trans people to constantly be in this battle for equality, the importance individual stories play in shifting the narrative towards inclusion and his hope for the future of Scouting America where everyone is welcome. De Socio also noted that Scouting America has not fallen for the anti-woke and anti-DEI rhetoric that has enveloped the discourse in America over the past few years.
An audience Q&A followed.
Women and Children First Bookstore was also on hand to sell De Socio’s book to attendees.