The troop has stood by its openly gay Scoutmaster in the face of the national organization’s attempt to remove him for being an “avowed homosexual.”
Last year, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) lifted its ban on openly gay youth—but reaffirmed its ban on openly LGBT adults serving as volunteers or professionals in the organization.
Geoff McGrath, an openly gay 49-year-old Eagle Scout, started a Boy Scout troop a few months later, in the Rainier Beach section of Seattle, Washington. The chartering organization, an LGBT-inclusive United Methodist Church, reportedly encouraged McGrath to take the volunteer position, well aware of his record pro-equality activism.