PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The nation’s third largest Boy Scout council expanded its nondiscrimination policy to include sexual orientation, defying the national group’s anti-gay stance.

The board of the Cradle of Liberty Council, which has 87,000 members in Philadelphia and two neighboring counties, voted unanimously last month to make the change after discussions with gay activists and other community leaders that began two years ago.

“We disagree with the national stance, and we’re not comfortable with the stated national policy,” council Chair David H. Lipson Jr. said.

The code of the national Boy Scouts of America organization requires members to be “morally straight,” though no written rule specifically addresses homosexuality.

A call to Scout headquarters in Irving, Texas, was not immediately returned. Its national convention was held in Philadelphia last weekend.

In 2000, the national group went to the Supreme Court to defend a ban on gay leaders, saying that as a private organization, it is free to choose its members however it wishes.

The Scouts won the case, but the battle led some businesses and public schools to reconsider their ties with the organization, and at least 50 United Way offices pulled their contributions.

A few months after the court victory, gay activists and others objected to funding by the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania for a youth development program run by the Boy Scouts.

“The reality is, we did get some pressure from other groups who said, ‘This program may not discriminate, but this organization does,”’ said Christine James-Brown, president of the regional United Way.

The United Way organized the talks that led to the council’s nondiscrimination statement this month.

“There was anger about that (national) policy. I think people set that aside and said, ‘Let’s try to make it work in this community,”’ James-Brown said.

Two 18-year-olds, inside and outside of the annual meeting, had the same uniforms but opposite points of view.

Outside, Gregory Lattera, a Life Scout from Philadelphia, was among about 10 gay rights and other human rights advocates demonstrating against the national Boy Scout policy of refusing membership to gays or atheists.

“What’s next? An organization that preaches tolerance and love and loyalty is now ready to tell someone, ‘You can’t be part of my group because you’re an atheist, you can’t be part of my group because you’re gay,’” Lattera said.

The group’s arguments were bolstered by the Philadelphia council’s decision to end discrimination against gays.

Inside the hotel, the discrimination issue wasn’t on the agenda, but some of the 1,200 Scout leaders and members gathered for the national meeting occasionally stopped to look out at the sidewalk protesters.

“It’s a sensitive subject,” said Greg Heleniak, an 18-year-old Eagle Scout from Blue Bell. “We are taught to be accepting and tolerant of everyone.”

But despite the protests, Heleniak said the Scouts were entitled to decide who can join.

“I respect their right to do it, but I think they have to respect our rights as an organization,” he said. “We’ve been around for 90 years. Scouting has produced many great leaders. I don’t see any reason for changing it.”

The national organization didn’t plan to take up the issue at the annual meeting of councils from 50 states and Puerto Rico, which started May 28 and wrapped up with a banquet on May 30, spokesperson Gregg Shields said.

Shields said the national group considered a resolution last year to leave such policies up to the local councils, and rejected it.

He said this meeting would focus on workshops, a business meeting and appearances by Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Young Jr., from Fort Hood, Texas, a helicopter co-pilot held prisoner of war in Iraq for nearly three weeks; by 82-year-old World War II Medal of Honor winner Mitchell Paige, recently awarded his Eagle Scout badge 67 years after skipping the ceremony to enlist in the Marines in 1936, and by Texas billionaire Ross Perot, receiving Scouting’s Silver Buffalo award at the May 30 banquet for service to youth.

In addition to the protest, groups including Scouting for All and the Coalition for Inclusive Scouting ran a hospitality suite at the hotel where the national meeting was held, and held a news conference May 29.

“They think that time will just make it go away,” said Scott Cozza, of Petaluma, California, president of Scouting for All. “We’re going to be there, knocking on their door, telling them it is wrong.”

The Cradle of Liberty Council isn’t the first one to buck the national group’s stance. The Boston Minuteman Council approved a bylaw in 2001 that effectively allows gays in the group if they don’t openly reveal their sexual orientation.

Cozza said the Piedmont Council in the San Francisco area was the only other one so far to officially adopt a nondiscrimination policy. Threatened with losing its Scout charter, the group later wrote a letter saying that it would support the national policy but was doing so under coercion, he said.

Shields said no decision had been made on whether the Cradle of Liberty Council would face disciplinary action. “We need to discuss it,” he said.