President of Boy Scouts of America Warns of Legal Challenges if Gay Leader Ban is Kept

The president of the Boy Scouts of America group announced this week that the youth organization's ban on openly gay leaders cannot be "sustained."

Robert Gates, the national president of the Boy Scouts of America, said at a national meeting of the youth organization in Atlanta, Georgia this week that several troop units in the country have already opposed the ban on openly gay troop leaders.

"The status quo in our movement's membership standards cannot be sustained," he told those attending the meeting in Atlanta.

According to NBC News, Gates said at the meeting that although he doesn't recommend the organization's national leadership immediately overturn the ban, he recommends they get ahead of the issue before Boy Scouts of America faces potential lawsuits.

"I am not asking the national board for any action to change our current policy at this meeting," said Gates. "But I must speak as plainly and bluntly to you as I spoke to presidents when I was director of the CIA and secretary of defense. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be." 

"We can act on our own or we can be forced to act," Gates said, according to the media outlet. "But either way, I suspect we don't have a lot of time."

Since 2013, the Boy Scouts of America organization has allowed openly gay youth to join its rankings, but not openly gay adults.

Gates suggested in his speech that the upcoming Supreme Court ruling regarding statewide marriage bans would affect their policy on banning adult gay members.