The Boy Scouts have just lost their largest corporate donor over their unrelenting insistence to exclude — and even expel — from all levels any gay, bisexual, or transgender man, teen, or boy. Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), the $54 billion multinational semiconductor chip maker that powers most computers, has announced they recently ceased funding the century-old Scouting organization, to which it donated $700,000 annually.
GLAAD announced that on Wednesday, Eagle Scout Zach Wahls, founder of Scouts for Equality, launched a campaign on Change.org supported by GLAAD and signed by more than 30,000 Americans urging Intel to pull funding from the Boy Scouts of America after an American Independent report revealed that the company gave nearly $700,000 to the Boy Scouts in 2010.”
According to the American Independent, the Intel Foundation has a policy that it will not fund “organizations that discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, veteran or disability status.â€
Intel made their announcement yesterday.
“Intel joins current Boy Scouts of America Board Members, President Obama, Mitt Romney and hundreds of thousands of Americans in speaking out against the BSA’s practice of unfairly kicking out gay scouts and scout leaders simply because of who they are,” GLAAD President Herndon Graddick said in a statement. “All of the great work that the BSA does to help young people will continue to be overshadowed by their blatant discrimination until they join other inclusive national organizations like the Girl Scouts of the USA and the 4-H Club. The time is now for the BSA to side with fairness, otherwise they will continue to see sponsors and scouting families drop their support.”
Additionally, Intel’s Chief Diversity Officer, Rosalind Hudnell, told Think Progress:
“Intel has not provided funding to the National Boy Scouts of America organization. The $700,000 in funding from the Intel Foundation was donated to local Boy Scout troops or councils where our employees volunteer their time, through our volunteer matching grants program . . . Due to significant growth in the number of organizations funded, earlier this year we revisited our policies associated with the program, and applied new rigor that requires any organization to confirm that it adheres to Intel’s anti-discrimination policy in order to receive funding.”
Related:
Hundreds Of Boy Scouts’ Child Sex Abuse Cases Covered Up For Decades
Boy Scouts Fire Gay Staffer, 10 Quit In Protest
Huckabee: Boy Scouts Did The Right Thing Because Gays Abuse Children
Infographic: Boy Scouts Long History Of Anti-LGBT Discrimination
Boy Scouts Determined To Continue Ban On Gays After Secret Study