LAPD Severs Ties With Boy Scouts of America over Gay and Religious Discrimination

Los Angeles, CAIn a move that signals a firm commitment to tolerance, the Los Angeles Police Department has decided to end its 50 year partnership with the Boy Scouts of America because of the youth group's practices relating to gay and religious discrimination.

span itemprop="image" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ImageObject" style="display:block">Since 1962, the group has partnered with the LAPD through the Boy Scouts Explorers Program, an after-school project that offers scouts interested in law enforcement the chance to assist the department with tasks ranging from crowd control to clerical work.

Last month the Police Commission voted to suspend its partnership with the Scouts, claiming that the group's discriminatory practices conflict with the city's non-discrimination policy.

"The Boy Scouts are clear that they discriminate based on sexual orientation, gender identity and religion, and the result of that is I could not be active on the Boy Scouts," Los Angeles Police Commissioner Robert Saltzman, an openly gay man, told Edge Boston.

In place of the old partnership, the LAPD will found a new, more inclusive youth organization that Saltzman predicts "will be better than the program it replaces."