Hurray, we have a Nice Time, and it is about the Boy Scouts! If you search your noggin, you'll remember way back in 2013, when the entire Boy Scouts of America (BSA) got homosexual agendaed, because they lifted the ban on gay scouts, but kept the ban in place for adult members of the organization. Despite the fact that we are talking about KIDS, this did not stop religious right goons like Bryan Fischer and Kevin Swanson from making juvenile rage jokes about sodomy badges and also Boy Scouts' firm young buttocks, because Bryan Fischer and Kevin Swanson probably need professional help.

Well, it turns out that those guys' sexiest nightmares might come true, because former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, currently the president of the BSA, issued a call at the organization's national business meeting for the ban on adults to be lifted as well. Barack Obama must have gotten his libtard juice all over Gates while he was working for the Obama administration:

"Events during the past year have confronted us with urgent challenges I did not foresee and which we cannot ignore. We cannot ignore growing internal challenges to our current membership policy, from some councils ... in open defiance of the policy, to more and more councils taking a position in their mission statements and public documents contrary to national policy.

"Nor can we ignore the social, political and judicial changes taking place in our country -- changes taking place at a pace over this last year no one anticipated."

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Gates mentioned the insane backlash (in a good way!) to the so-called "religious freedom" bills in Indiana and Arkansas, which corporations quite rightly saw as attacks on LGBT people, and also noted that the Supreme Court is going to throatcram America with gay marriage this year, though regrettably he did not use yr Wonkette's exact words on that one. He told those gathered that "We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be." In other words, SORRY WINGNUTS, we know that God Hates Fags is your religion, but if we want to sit at the grown-up table with other respectable organizations, we need to act like grown-ups.

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Then Gates REALLY stuck his finger in the wingnuts' eyeholes, saying that he won't revoke the charters of any chapters what decide to let gay scoutmasters and den mothers in, because hating on queers just isn't as important to him as giving the Scouting experience to kids. Priorities! He has the right ones!

Finally Gates explained, for any of those too dumb to read the tea leaves, that their discriminatory ban puts them in an "unsustainable position," and that it simply isn't likely to stand many more court challenges. So they have a choice: Do something about it on their own, or be throatcrammed AGAIN, by another court.

So, Nice Time! It's not a done deal, but one hopes that those chapters who hate fags so much they can't stand it are among those which already left in a fit of butthurt and formed their own new organization (no girls, no gays, no Mormons, no Jews!), back in 2013 when the first ban was lifted.

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Think Progress reports that badass Eagle Scout and son of known lesbians Zach Wahls, who also serves as the executive director of Scouts For Equality, had this to say:

“Dr. Gates has built his reputation on straight talk and tough decisions, and I’m glad he’s fully endorsing a re-evaluation of the Boy Scouts’ ban on gay adults. It seems like the Boy Scouts will continue an internal dialogue about the subject and that a change within the next year or two is imminent.”

So yay, if you are part of a Scouting family that values inclusion and equality! Now get on the radio, Bryan Fischer, so you can bitch about this and talk about teen buttocks some more.

[Robert Gates's remarks / Think Progress]