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As for the actual Scouts themselves, I think they shouldn't kick you out if you're gay. I'll tell you why.
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Boys join the Scouts normally when they are younger - you aren't gay or straight at 11 (at least most of us aren't). And Boy Scouts give a great sense of camaraderie and direction to kids who need it.
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Take me. I was an insecure kid who had a hard time meeting people as we moved, over and over. My Dad would stop at random parks where kids were playing football and basketball and say "Why don't you go over join them?". Yeah, thanks Dad. He and I never watched sports and I went to schools that didn't have grass or basketball hoops (Chapman Ave. and El Segundo Middle School). So I don't know the rules of the "games" he wanted me to join, we moved to this place for 2 days ago and might stay here another week before we are on the run from the phone and gas company again. If you want to get laid, just drop me off at the library. You and I, Dad, don't watch games together, you never showed me how to play and you never taught me anything but how to pick up women and play miniature golf. Why don't I just join guys I didn't know, playing a game I have never seen, in a city we are moving through? I don't know, because I don't want to look like an idiot.
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Gez.
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But scouting... In scouting was okay not to know anything. They taught you. We went camping and hiking (things I can do), and learned the rest. And I had no idea I was gay when I joined - I WAS ELEVEN! The problem is also that scouting requires you to learn about yourself, and promise to be honest to yourself and others. Guess where that leads you.... Tada - at some point you realize that in order to be the man scouting helps you become, an honest and self-confident person, you have admit to yourself you're gay. To kick you out when that honesty happens - well that is a bit of a perversion of the scouting motto. Not purposefully wrong, but and really bad side effect. That is why you see troops often ignore the rules and let gay scouts stay.
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Those scouting rules made me a more honest and better person. And one that could admit he was gay. Having said that, there was noting sexual about scouts at all. Being gay at 12 or 13 isn't about sex, it is about being different and coming to grips with it. It is about not getting the jokes about girls, but getting that all the faggot jokes are directed at people like you. It is about hating or not hating yourself. And Scouting teaches you to be the best man you can be, and if others cannot accept that, it isn't your fault. It was about ME, not the other people I was around.
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So I oppose the ban on gay scouts. As for leaders, I totally see why people would think that is creepy to allow gay scout leaders. I don't agree, but I get it. Most scout leaders are there because they love scouting (or they have a kid in scouts and they need a leader). A gay man isn't going to want to be a leader to have sex with scouts. A pedophile might - if they they ever do, they should be shot. But, quite honestly, if a gay man wants sex there are about a million easier ways to do it than putting in 20 - 40 hours a week as a scout master. I get it though, I don't think my argument will change any minds. I get it, it is worrisome.
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I wish we could separate the arguments of gays in scouting from gays as scout leaders. One should be easy, one is tougher. But remember in these discussions that scouts give boys direction and help. And boys need that, whether gay or straight.