A California teen with dreams of reaching the highest rank in the Boy Scouting division has been denied the honor because he’s gay, his mom says. Ryan Andresen, 17, says his scoutmaster knew about his sexuality all along, but the crushing news didn’t come until after he had completed the requirements for becoming an Eagle Scout.
“It was by far the biggest goal of my life,” Andresen told Yahoo News. “It’s totally devastating.”
Rainer Del Valle, the scoutmaster for Troop 212 in Moraga, Calif., let Andresen believe he’d get the rank, the teen says.
He’d been telling me all along that we’d get by the gay thing,” Andresen said.
But when the time came for Del Valle to sign off on the rank, “he said he can’t because Ryan said he is gay,” Andresen’s mother Karen said.
De Valle did not respond to request for comment from the Daily News.