Pet Care. Kickball. Archery. Cub Scouts earn a colored belt loop for each cool new skill they master. Strangely, the organization doesn’t make a loop for the lesson that’s being taught to the little boys in Pack 70 of University Park, Texas: intolerance.
The pack’s leaders stripped a fellow dad of his uniform and troop leadership role earlier this month because he’s gay.
That’s all. Just gay.
For two years, Jon Langbert and his nine-year-old son, Carter, were active in the pack; Carter has more than 15 loops on his belt for fishing, woodworking, basketball, and chess.
Langbert was once a Cub Scout himself and treasures memories of building pinewood derby cars with his own dad. But he worried about joining with Carter.
“I was concerned about the gay issue,” he told me last week. “I called the Cubmaster and said, ‘Hey, I’m a gay guy and my son wants to sign up. Is there going to be any problem with that?'” The Cubmaster welcomed him, and the pack even nominated him to run its popcorn-sales fundraiser. A Harvard Business School grad, Langbert brought sales up from \$4,000 to \$13,000 in one year.