We Heart: Ellen DeGeneres For Her Rip on the Boy Scouts

As if we needed more, here’s yet another reason to love Ellen DeGeneres. Fighting bigotry with humor, Ellen decided to use her daily monologue to speak out against the Boy Scouts of America, who recently postponed a decision on whether to accept openly gay members. Scout leaders were supposed to vote last week on the current LGBT ban but put it off until May, to the ire of LGBT supporters. Said Ellen, tongue firmly in cheek,

Now, I realize this is a big decision for the Boy Scouts because if the Boy Scouts start treating gays equally, they’re going to become the first group to do it—after the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, all of the United Kingdom and Cher. Obviously, I think that the Boy Scouts should allow gay members. I mean the fact that they don’t is insane. I mean, they won’t let their members be gay, or openly gay anyway, but they’re letting them wear neckerchiefs and green short-shorts?

She also deftly touches on how the Boy Scouts’ exclusion of gays goes against the character-building lessons the organization should be imparting to their young members:

They’re trying to teach kids to be leaders. And the more that we teach people how to accept people for who they are, the more self-confident they’ll be and the better leaders they’ll become.

We hope the Boy Scouts will eventually get on the same page as the forward-thinking Girl Scouts, a group that, in addition to causing a Thin Mint frenzy every spring, welcomes all sexual identities. They even recently accepted their first transgender member. Get with the times Boy Scouts: If President Obama and Ellen are calling you out, it’s time to do some reflection.

 

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Associate editor of Ms. magazine