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moving forward. if the u.s. army can have gay service members openly serving, i don't understand why the boy scouts couldn't. >> well this does open up potentially because this doesn't necessarily increase the potential but there are problems with molestation. there was a case several years ago where someone brought the case against the scout leader and it was the national organization of scouts perry, that had to pay. they were the ones with deep pockets. i wonder about that whole question because my church has been a problem and you also have to ask yourself quite bluntly you don't have male scout masters of girl scouts and there has been a separation of the genders for whatever traditional and real reason it's been there. >> yeah. i think that's what gates was talking about. he wants to you know have the scouts on their own, wants to keep the way the process works, about the depend remembers separate, wants to keep that in place, but doesn't want to be accused of discriminating against gays and saying if we lead on the issue first and
tell policy back in 2010 addressed the issue in his speech yesterday and while he was careful not to enflame tensions over ban he warned the change was inevitable. >> we must deal with the world as it is not as we might wish it would be. the status quo in our members's standards cannot be sustained. if we wait for the courts to act, we could end up with a broad ruling that could forbid any kind of membership standard including our foundational belief and our duty to god and our focus on serving the specific needs of boys. waiting for the courts is a gamble with huge stakes. the one thing we cannot do is put our heads in the sand and pretend that this challenge will go away or abate. quite the opposite is happening. >> well this comes as something of a pivot for gates who last year said he would not reopen the issue during his tenure as leader of the scouts but he
cited cited indiana's upcoming religious freedom law as factors in his reassessment. reaction among scout leaders was mixed and it was noted that gates has a lot of credibility as a leader. >> there were a lot of people looking at each other and going this is not what we expected but leaders lead. bob gates is used to leading. this is not a guy who is used to sitting on the back seat and rubbing his hands and wondering what to do next. he's a leader and he's leading. >> i like that guy. current policy allows gay scouts but bans openly gay adult scoutmasters. we're joined by the "hardball" roundtable perry baker and fran chesso and jonathan allen of vox. perry, i was in the scouts for years and had the time of my life and we're going to talk
testifies on benghazi. many of those insiders from both sides say the gop may be overplaying their political hand by hammering clinton on benghazi. so alex, are they beating a dead horse? >> reporter: well, i think, you know definitely democrats think that by getting this out here by getting her in front of the committee, testifying in public they will set a lot of questions at rest. it's the last bite of the apple, as one clinton aide told me with the e-mails there. will always be a segment of the conservative base that this will be a live issue and nothing hillary clinton can do about that to put the fears to rest but for that very narrow segment of undecided voters or soft democrats who still have to get to the polls i think they feel pretty confident that they can convince them that there was nothing untoward here. >> well said. thanks alex seitz-wald. up next big changes could be coming to the boy scouts of america as former defense secretary robert gates the head of the scouts wants to lift the ban on gay scout masters.
about it at the end of the show and i liked as teens spending time with adults on an intellectual basis, we had musicians and would go away to scout camp as service volunteers. i loved it. what do you think this ban possibly going? >> i think bob gates is making a logical decision, in reality the way america is headed saying a person who is gay cannot do anything and being tolerated, i think the supreme court ruling will move things in another direction and we'll have gay marriage everywhere in a few weeks and i think bob gates has acknowledged what happens and you can't have anything that looks or seems like discrimination in today's america. >> i've obviously never been in the boy scouts of america but my husband did make it to the rank of eagle scout and we've been having this discussion allotted and one of the points that he made to me is a lot of scouts are conservatives, religious conservatives actually that the scout meetings are often held in churches, so these are the same
people who oppose same-sex marriage in the first place, and it's because it's a deeply held religious conviction so i'm not sure that just because someone like bob gates says that they think that they should be able to have gay scoutmasters that that is going to sway some of the very religious conservatives involved in the scouts. >> according to secretary gates himself 70% of american boy scout troops are sponsored by religious groups and that's a fact. jonathan, i guess this would require a deal where local parishes or temples would get to decide and i wonder how that would work putting them up to each one what the rules are. >> it's a complete moross zo zmorass and it's rooted in this idea that gay scout masters are likely to pass on being gay to scouts or to be child molesters which is just an absurd line that has been perpetrated over the years against gay people. it's good to see the boy scouts