Today I was watching the Ellen DeGeneres show and she had a guest, Ryan Andresen, on the show who started as a cub scout and has worked his way up to the status where is able to receive the Eagle Award. He also happens to be gay. In light of our recent discussions surrounding LGBTQ issues I felt that this was extremely relevant and I wanted to post about it. Once Ryan's scout master found about him being gay he refused to sign the paperwork allowing Ryan to officially earn this award. Ryan's mom has started a petition against this action and is working to help her son get the award that he has rightfully earned. The petition can be found at this link:
http://www.change.org/petitions/boy-scouts-don-t-let-your-anti-gay-policy-deny-my-son-his-eagle-award
After having the PRIDE panel come and talk abou their identities as a LGBTQ individual, I felt that this issue deserves to be recognized. This boy has worked for 12 years towards obtaining this award and his accomplishments should not go unrecognized simply because of his sexual identity. I love that Ellen has put something like this on her show. She is allowing exposure to issues of young adults who struggle to be proud of there identity in the queer community, when such hurtful consequences such as this may be the result. Ryan is so lucky to have the support of his mom and family through a tough situation like this. It's awesome to see that Ellen is allowing individuals to become aware of these inequalities and hopefully seeing they can do something about it by signing this petition!
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