Earlier this summer, high school freshman Jake Rowe was deep sea fishing, snorkeling and sailing at Sea Base, a Boy Scout camp in the Florida Keys. His dad, George, was home in Nashville, waiting on his nightly phone call. He’d wanted to accompany his son, as a chaperone — like he’d done on Scout camping trips closer to home — but he was told he couldn’t go. George Rowe is openly gay.
“I wish I could be there with you, bud,” George said into his iPhone.
“I wish you could, too,” Jake said.
This was in June, before the Boy Scouts adopted a new policy allowing openly gay leaders. The message came down from the district office that since Rowe wasn’t an official adult leader — which at that point he wasn’t allowed to be — he couldn’t go. WPLN
has been unable to confirm this point because district officials refused to comment for this story.
Gay-rights activists cheered as the Boy Scouts of America repealed its blanket ban on gay adult leaders last month. But for the parents who were previously sidelined by the policy, the change feels like a reluctant invitation.
Rowe, who is a real estate agent, said at the time he didn’t want to make a big stink. But it hurt. As a black man, Rowe compared it to being kept out of an all-white country club, especially since he led the troop’s fundraising efforts to help pay for everyone’s trip.
“To be overtly discriminated against, it’s 2015, how are organizations allowed to do this still?” he asked at the time.
Fast forward just a few weeks and Rowe is now welcome. While the policy change adopted nationally does still allow churches to opt out of allowing gay leaders, Woodmont
Baptist — where Rowe’s son is a scout — doesn’t plan to make sexual orientation an issue, according to senior pastor Jon Roebuck.
“Unless something bubbles up, we don’t get into their stuff,” he says.
But even with the barriers to full participation removed, Rowe says it’s hard to jump in with two feet at this point.
“I’m in a weird headspace
,” he says. “It’s kind of difficult for me to say, ‘yay
, thank you for giving me the right to do what everybody else has already had the right to do.'”
But Rowe says he’s thankful that the next time his son reels in a shark on a high adventure trip, he’ll be there instead of asking if anyone got a picture.
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