PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In a reversal from a nondiscrimination policy passed just last month, Philadelphia’s Boy Scout council has declared that anyone who says they are gay may not participate in the Scouts.

“Applications for leadership and membership do not inquire into sexual orientation. However, an individual who declares himself to be a homosexual would not be permitted to join Scouting,” a new position statement from the Cradle of Liberty Council says.

The council, which is the nation’s third largest, runs Boy Scout programs in Philadelphia and two suburban counties.

The local council’s position was attached to a tersely worded memo sent last week to Boy Scout executives across the country.

“As a condition of their charter, no local council is permitted to depart from (Boy Scouts of America) membership policies,” chief scout executive Roy L. Williams wrote in the memo.

David H. Lipson, the chair of the executive board for the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts, said the local council had discussed its nondiscrimination policy with the national council. The local council passed the policy in part because the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, which funds some Scout programs, does not allow discrimination against gays. Lipson said the national council participated in the discussions but would not publicly back the nondiscrimination policy.

“We thought we had a deal,” Lipson told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “We thought we won this major victory, and we were all happy.”

Philadelphia Scout officials said soon after the policy was adopted, the national council threatened to revoke the local charter and replace its board.

“We’re taking some major hits for standing up for change,” local scout executive William T. Dwyer III said.

Gregg Shields, a spokesperson for the Boy Scouts of America, said the national organization thought the nondiscrimination policy only applied to the Learning for Life program, which does not have the same membership requirements as regular scouting.

But scouting officials and several others who attended the meetings between the local council and the United Way over a two-year period said they all understood that the policy would apply to all the council’s programs.

Earlier this week, Greg Lattera, an 18-year-old, openly gay Scout who had won a top employee award at the Boy Scout camp where he worked, went public with a certified letter he got from the local council rejecting his application to be an adult Scout leader. It gave no reason except to say that the group can reject a person when there is concern that he doesn’t meet the Scouts’ “high standards of membership.”

“He decided to hold a press conference to come out as a member of the gay community and also a potential employee and past employee of the Boy Scouts,” said Dwyer, one of the officials who signed the letter to Lattera. “Our staff knew he was gay and never made a big deal about it. He decided to make a big deal about it. The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy is pretty clear.”

But the policy adopted in May did not make any mention of gays not being allowed to make their sexual orientation public knowledge.

Lattera said he will appeal the ouster within the Boy Scout organization with the help of lawyer Stacey L. Sobel, the executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights.

“We are going to really talk about Greg’s record, which is exemplary as a Boy Scout,” Sobel said. “Greg Lattera was just demonstrating the values he was taught through the Boy Scouts, which is leadership and honesty.”

Lattera earned the rank of Life Scout, which is just below the top rank of Eagle Scout.

Lipson said the local council wants to work with the national organization, based in Irving, Texas.

“At this time, we want to work with the national council to slowly, methodically bring about change,” Lipson said. “But whatever the national policies are, we want to stay within that policy.”

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

Christine James-Brown, the president of the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, said the United Way would meet with the Scouts to reconsider funding the Learning for Life program. She said the United Way board would consider any new information.

“We take this issue very seriously,” James-Brown said. “United Way is looking to fund programs that do not discriminate.”