On Feb. 27, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted a video announcing that he had forced Scouting America (formerly the Boy Scouts of America) to bend the knee regarding its inclusive policies. Hegseth said the organization would purge what he called "an insidious, radical, woke ideology" and membership would be based on birth certificates. Hegseth gave the organization's leaders six months to prove themselves, and he closed with a threat: "We're watching, and we're watching closely." 

I know that rhetoric. I heard it in 1990 at 19 years old, when the Boy Scouts of America expelled me for being openly gay. I was an Eagle Scout and an assistant scoutmaster in Matawan, New Jersey, and a one-page form letter told me I no longer met the standards for leadership.

I spent the next decade fighting that decision all the way to the Supreme Court, and in 2000 I lost 5-4. The conservative court held that the scouts had a First Amendment right to decide their own membership, free from government interference, overturning a unanimous decision of New Jersey's highest court.

Memo behind the Pentagon's newfound support........

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