The head of the Boy Scouts of America has called for an end to the organisation's ban on gay adult scout leaders, describing the policy as unsustainable in a fast-moving social climate.
Former US defence secretary Robert Gates, national president of the BSA, warned that the courts could force the organisation to change its membership policies if it did not do so on its own.
"The status quo in our movement's membership standards cannot be sustained," Gates said at the group's annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday.
The Boy Scouts has been beset by internal bickering and legal wrangling over the issue of allowing gay scoutmasters, amid defiant moves by scout councils in New York, Denver and elsewhere to flout the ban.
Gates, a past head of the Central Intelligence Agency as well as being defence secretary under presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama, attained the pinnacle of scouting achievement himself as a youth by earning the top rank of Eagle Scout.
He cited "social, political and juridical changes taking place in our country, changes taking place at a pace over this past year no one anticipated".