And yet the national office took it upon itself to ban homosexuals as members and leaders for every single chartered troop. Let's take your example. What if troops chartered by Catholic churches demanded that anyone who supported abortion be denied a leadership post in the Boy Scouts? What if they said that children born of people who had divorced and remarried were illegitimate in the eyes of God and should be denied membership? Should the Boy Scout leadership then ban them from membership? Or should they let the local troop make that decision and not force their policies on the rest of the organization? And if the ledership allows individual troops latitude in that then why do they arbitrarily ban men like Mr. Dale?
It all depends on how far the RCC and other organizations that disfavored registering people who supported abortion are willing to go. Would they simply refuse to allow such people to register in their units, or are they willing to go to National and threaten to pull out unless National denied all such people the privilege (it's a privilege, not a right) of registration? And what would be the public impact on the RCC's and the BSA's image if this happened? All this would have to be considered.
Or should they let the local troop make that decision and not force their policies on the rest of the organization?
As far as I'm concerned, they should do exactly that. But it would adversely affect the membership levels of the BSA, especially in Utah and some other western states.