President Obama, Mitt Romney Agree: Gay Boy Scouts OK

President Obama and Mitt Romney have found some new common ground -surprisingly - on an issue of gay rights.

Obama today joined Romney in publicly disagreeing with a controversial ban on gay members of the Boy Scouts of America, one of the nation's largest and most well-known youth development groups.

"The president believes the Boy Scouts is a valuable organization that has helped educate and build character in American boys for more than a century. He also opposes discrimination in all forms, and as such opposes this policy that discriminates on basis of sexual orientation," said White House spokesman Shin Inouye in a statement to the Washington Blade, a LGBT newspaper

It's the first time Obama, who was named honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America in 2009, has publicly taken a position on the issue.

Romney first voiced support for gay scouts back in 1994 - a position that his campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said remains his position today.
"I feel that all people should be allowed to participate in the Boy Scouts, regardless of their sexual orientation," Romney said in the video from 1994 recently re-surfaced by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. He added at the time that he supports "the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to do on that issue."