The Republican National Committee’s investigation into its 2012 electoral defeat, dubbed their “Growth & Opportunity Project,” makes clear that it the party wants to expand its outreach to minority groups including Hispanics, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, African Americans, Women, and Youth. But rather than reaching out to LGBT people, the report suggests, the party need only reach out to the straight young voters who believe in LGBT equality.

In a section called “Demographic Partners,” the report — commissioned by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus — notes that the party’s presidential nominee lost among voters under age 30 by 5 million votes in 2012. But, with a “youthful” 41-year old RNC Chairman and likely 2016 hopefuls who are younger than Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it suggests that GOP can change its current image as “old and detached from pop culture.”

Since young voters generally disagree with the GOP platform on gay rights and see this and other social issues as the “civil rights issues of our time,” the report recommends that the GOP be “welcoming and inclusive.” But rather than welcoming LGBT people, it endorses inclusion of young conservative people who disagree with the party’s anti-LGBT beliefs but might have conservative views on other issues:

For the GOP to appeal to younger voters, we do not have to agree on every issue, but we do need to make sure young people do not see the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of view. Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be.

If our Party is not welcoming and inclusive, young people and increasingly other voters will continue to tune us out. The Party should be proud of its conservative principles, but just because someone disagrees with us on 20 percent of the issues, that does not mean we cannot come together on the rest of the issues where we do agree.

It goes on to say: “On messaging, we must change our tone — especially on certain social issues that are turning off young voters.” In other words, the party will continue to oppose equal rights but will do so with a less strident approach.

Rather than work to appeal to the five percent of American voters who identify as LGBT — and preferred the Democratic nominee by a more than three-to-one margin — the GOP new plan is to stand by its exclusion, but try to sound inclusive when doing so.

In June, the Oregon Supreme Court ordered the release of 20,000 pages of files kept by Boy Scouts of America on “ineligible volunteers.” Portions of those documents were released online last week. But included, among those leaders accused or convicted of molesting Scouts, were files on several suspected gay Scout leaders who were never accused of any inappropriate behavior.

KING 5, a Seattle television station, reports that of 50 cases it reviewed from the files, 48 involved allegations of molestation, but two did not. Among those:

One file is about a scoutmaster form Ellensburg who was outsted from Scouting in 1974 after the organization had collected evidence he was gay. A memorandum from a Scout Executive in Yakima to the organization’s Registration and Subscription Executive at BSA headquarters in Texas explains they’d “become aware of a suspected moral problem” with (the Scout leader). The Yakima executive recieved information that the man had previously been discharged as a Scouting camp counselor “on suspicion of homosexuality.” The Scouts continued to build their case in the file by obtaining “proof” of their suspicion. The record is a four page letter handwritten by the scoutmaster where he confides to a friend, “Yes, I am gay (homosexual)”. It’s unclear from the file how BSA obtained the letter. The following month BSA leaders in Texas completed their file with a lifetime ban on the scoutmaster. Their “Confidential Record Sheet” lists one reason for the move: “homosexuality”.

Boy Scouts of America has long banned gay and lesbian Scouts and scout leaders — the organization stubbornly clings to its policy of discrimination despite mounting pressures for greater inclusion. In July, the organization claimed excluding LGBT people is “absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts.”

By itself, the policy of discrimination has seriously harmed LGBT youth and families. But by lumping LGBT people in the same category as child molesters is even more dangerous. Drawing a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia is the same weak argument John Briggs was making 40 years ago in an attempt to ban gay teachers in California. It’s unfounded slander against the entire gay community. Psychologists have affirmed for years that “there is no inherent connection between an adult’s sexual orientation and her or his propensity for endangering others.”

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA), the only major national youth organization that actively discriminates against would-be members and volunteers based on sexual orientation, has agreed to reconsider its policy — a potentially huge shift for the 102-year-old organization.

In 1990, Eagle Scout James Dale was removed from his position as an assistant scoutmaster — despite having attained Boy Scouting’s highest rank — after the organization learned he was gay. He challenged the decision in court, under New Jersey’s state non-discrimination laws, but, in 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that as a private organization, Boy Scouts of America was free to discriminate as much as it wanted to.

While the decision was, on its face, a win for BSA, the group’s discriminatory policy against gay scouts (and non-theists) has come at a great cost to the organization. United Way chapters across the country stopped funding the organization and membership declined significantly.

In recent weeks, the nation was reminded of the BSA’s discrimination after it ousted an Ohio mom from her position as a Cub Scout leader because she is a lesbian. GLAAD circulated and Eagle Scout and pro-equality activist Zach Wahls delivered a Change.org online petition calling for her reinstatement, with more than 275,000 signatures.

The Associated Press reported today that the organization has agreed to consider a new policy for 2013 that would allow local Scouting groups to decide for themselves whether to accept gay members and leaders, but no official decision will likely be made until May 2013.

Though a BSA spokesman notes that there is no guarantee the policy will actually be changed, the group’s mere consideration of the matter after decades of intransigence represents a significant step.