The Power of Petitions, with Greg Bourke
Greg Bourke's activism for gay adult inclusion in the BSA made a big impact in the campaign for policy change.
In this episode of the Morally Straight Podcast, I’m talking to Greg Bourke. He's a Scouter from Louisville who played an important role advocating for the inclusion of gay adults in the BSA.
- He’s also the author of the an excellent book, “Gay, Catholic, and American: My Legal Battle for Marriage Equality and Inclusion,” where he recounts both his activism in the BSA and historic role as one of the named plaintiffs in the landmark United States Supreme Court decision Obergefell vs. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2015.
Why it matters: Bourke's activism and petition drive added a lot of pressure on the BSA to change its policy banning gay adults—and raised crucial questions about the BSA's relationship to religious chartering organizations.
In my conversation with Bourke, we talked about:
- How Bourke served for years as a gay Scoutmaster in his son's pack and troop (sponsored by a Catholic Church) before the national policy debate reemerged in the 2010s
- The impact of the petitions, started by Bourke and others, on BSA leadership's decisions to change policies in 2013 and 2015
- The moment when Bourke regained his Scouting membership, about a decade after he was kicked out
🎧 P.S. If you’d rather get these episodes directly in your podcast feed, you can! Find Morally Straight on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and PocketCasts.
📚 And if you want to learn more about this history, you can pre-order the Morally Straight book here.
