Jennifer Tyrell: From Scouts mom to activist!

Unless they have ice water in their veins, anyone who was at Saturday night’s GLAAD Media Awards had to have been deeply moved by Jennifer Tyrell.

She’s a mom who was den leader of her son’s scouting troop.

After about a year, the Boy Scouts of America decides she has to resign as troop leader because she is a lesbian.

Jennifer is devastated but she’s also determined. She has launched a petition on Change.org calling the scouts to end its pattern of discrimination against both gay youth and LGBT families.

‘I’ve never done anything like this,’ she told me during a nice chat we had before the show. ‘When we did the local protest and were covered by the local news, we were really excited that we had like 25 signatures. It’s over 100,000 now.’

It wasn’t as if Tyrell ever tried to hide her sexuality.

‘I actually addressed it the first day and I was told, at the local level, it wouldn’t be a problem, that nobody would question it and it would be fine,’ she said. ‘It had always been fine, never been an issue.’

Would she go back to being a den mom?

‘Only if we could get the [anti-gay policy] changed,’ she said. ‘We won’t go back the way it is.’

To read more about Jennifer and her appearance at the GLAAD Awards, see my story over at Gay Star News!