Trail Life

Last year was also the first full year the Texas-based organization was open to openly gay youth, a compromise approved by its national leadership in 2013. But the organization still excludes openly gay adult volunteers.

Chatting in the living room one night, Ron Orr gave his 15-year-old son Andrew a choice: He could stick with the Boy Scouts of America and his mission to become an Eagle Scout, or he could join Trail Life USA — the new Christian-based alternative that excludes openly gay boys.

DALLAS — The Boy Scouts of America said Wednesday that it lost 6 percent of its membership after an often-bruising year in which it announced it would accept openly gay boys for the first time, over the objections of some participants who eventually left the organization.