Valero sticking with the Scouts

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• Valero, other corporations, giving big to Boy Scouts despite anti-gay policies

While the Boys Scouts of America lost its largest corporate funder last week, San Antonio's Valero Energy Corporation, which gave about $189,000 to scouting groups in 2010 in spite of the group's policy of discrimination against homosexuals, plans to keep the tap open. Company spokesman Bill Day this week said Valero will continue to fund local Boy Scout chapters. Just last week, Day said, Valero gave $60,000 to the Alamo Area Council of Boy Scouts. "The Boy Scouts do a lot of good," Day said.

Day said Valero hasn't received any backlash over funding the Scouts, even after the national organization's anti-gay declaration this summer reaffirmed the long-standing policy of excluding gays. "I would say the good the Boy Scouts do outweighs the controversy," Day added.

While some other corporate foundations have policies specifically prohibiting funding groups that discriminate, Valero's not shackled by any such rules, Day said. "The Valero foundation makes donations on a case by case basis, and there's a committee that oversees the selection of the charity, but there's not a specific policy about that stuff."

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