Presidential candidate and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said on Wednesday that when he described the Boy Scouts ban on gay leaders as having “protected children,” he meant that it had protected them from political debate.
On Tuesday, a day after entering the 2016 race, Walker, an Eagle Scout, was asked about the recent decision by the Boy Scouts of America to lift its longstanding ban on gay troop leaders.
Walker told the Independent Journal Review he supported the ban because it “protected children and advanced Scout values.”
The comments were met with outrage by LGBT rights groups, including the Human Rights Campaign. In a statement sent to TPM, the group called his comments “shameful and offensive.”
But during a Wednesday press conference in South Carolina, according to the New York Times, Walker said his comments had been misunderstood.
“The protection was not a physical protection,” he said, according to the Times. Instead, it was about “protecting them from being involved in the very thing you’re talking about right now, the political and media discussion about it, instead of just focusing on what Scouts is about, which is about camping and citizenship and things of that nature.”
