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GRAND RAPIDS – The American Family Association of Michigan Friday presented a check for $4,000 to the local Gerald R. Ford Council of the Boy Scouts of America, more than making up for the Allegan County United Way chapter’s cancellation of its annual $3,500 donation to the council because of the Boy Scouts’ policy prohibiting adults who engage in homosexual behavior from serving as troop leaders.
Allegan County United Way -- by announcing last week it will become the only United Way chapter in Michigan to cut funding of the Boy Scouts because of the Scouts’ stand on homosexual behavior -- thus joins a tiny fringe element of only a dozen local United Way chapters nationwide comprising less than one percent of the charity’s over 1,400 chapters. The Gerald R. Ford Council, which directs Scouting activities in much of west Michigan, will continue to receive funding from thirteen other city and county United Way chapters in Barry, Ionia, Mason, Mecosta, Montcalm, Muskegon, Newaygo, Oceana, Osceola, and Ottawa counties.
AFA-Michigan President Gary Glenn and Anthony Robinson, President of Pioneer Technology, a Michigan high-tech firm and the AFA-Michigan donor who contributed the $4,000, made the presentation during a Friday morning news conference at GRF Council headquarters, 3213 Walker Avenue NW, Grand Rapids 49544. Council President Jim Williams and Council Executive Michael Sulgrove accepted the donation on behalf of the Boy Scouts.
Glenn, an Eagle Scout and former Explorer troop adult leader, praised the Scouting organization for its "firm, principled, unwavering commitment to protect our young men from exposure to adults who openly engage in high-risk homosexual behavior."
"On behalf of families across our state, the American Family Association of Michigan makes this donation with deep gratitude to the Boy Scouts for upholding the Scout oath – for boys and adult leaders alike -- to be ‘physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight,’" Glenn said.
Robinson said he hoped his donation "is only the first of many. I encourage business people and individuals across the state to join me in making sure the Gerald R. Ford Council is financially rewarded, not punished, for the exemplary values the Boy Scouts have instilled in our young men for nearly a century."
Robinson encouraged business people statewide to join him in sending donations directly to the Gerald R. Ford Council, and he urged businesses located in Allegan County to designate any donations to their local United Way specifically for the Boy Scouts. The charity’s county chapter says it will no longer support the Boy Scouts from its general fund, but will forward donations specifically designated for the Scouts.
Glenn praised the 13 United Way chapters in West Michigan whose support of the Scouts remains strong, and he called on the Allegan County United Way chapter "to reverse its solitary, punitive and discriminatory decision to cut off funding to area Boy Scouts and their troops.
"The Allegan County chapter’s decision places it among a tiny fringe group of extremists predominantly from extremely liberal urban areas with large populations of individuals who engage in homosexual behavior. We cannot believe the conservative, pro-family citizens of Allegan County will allow this extreme and uncharacteristic action to stand," he said.
Glenn called on two prominent Allegan County leaders – Allegan County Commission Chairman Jon Campbell, immediate past chairman of the Allegan County United Way Fund Drive, and Commissioner Jeff McElwee, former executive director of the Allegan County United Way -- to "use their community leadership and close personal ties to the Allegan County chapter to press the chapter to reverse its decision."
"We believe these two respected community leaders, with the support of enough Allegan County citizens and businesses, can succeed in demanding that the local United Way chapter end its punitive, discriminatory, and extreme decision to put the homosexual political agenda ahead of what’s best for local Boy Scouts and their families," he said.
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