The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) are expected on Monday to officially end their controversial ban on gay scout leaders.
The Boy Scouts' 17-member executive committee earlier this month unanimously approved a resolution that would end the overall ban on gay adult leaders and let individual scout units make their own choices regarding gay leaders.
In a statement on the decision, the organization said earlier this month that the policy banning gay adults from serving as leaders was "no longer legally defensible" - referring to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage nationwide, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
The change will become official if it's approved by the organization's 80-member board, which is expected to vote Monday.
This proposal comes two years after the organization lifted its ban on openly gay youth, a radical step for the group whose leaders once went to Supreme Court to fight accepting openly gay members, according to the Washington Post.
The move doesn't mean that gay scout leaders will be accepted universally. On top of the previously mentioned fact that individual scout units will now be make their own choices regarding gay leaders, the new policy won't prevent church-led scout groups from choosing adult leaders "whose beliefs are consistent with their own," the BSA said, according to USA Today.
Seventy percent of Boy Scout troops are run by faith-based groups, many from orthodox communities including Mormons, Catholics, Southern Baptists and Muslims who do not accept gay equality, meaning that 70 percent of the BSA are still vehemently against the prospect of gay scout leaders within the organization.
