Today NBC News reports that leaders within the Boy Scouts of America are “close to ending” the organization’s longtime ban on openly gay members and leaders. Individuals close to the group acknowledge that they are “actively considering an end” to the formal ban and moving to allow local troops to decide on their own whether they want to admit gay and lesbian scouts and scoutmasters.

This would be a major change for an organization that built its reputation on traditionalism. And it would certainly prove controversial within the larger scouting community, which was rocked by the BSA’s poor response to its own child abuse scandal in 2012.

It would also go against recent developments. The BSA re-affirmed the ban last July, and just this weekend a local Cub Scouts pack revised gay-friendly language on its website under pressure from the larger organization.

The theory for this new approach holds that certain local factions would be free to continue banning gay members, thereby giving families the power to choose the groups that best represent their belief sets. While many continue to protest the BSA’s exclusion of openly gay individuals, we have no doubt that some longtime supporters would not be happy to see the ban end (which explains leaders’ clear desire for a “flexible” solution).

Public opinion has shifted decisively in favor of gay marriage, and our country now has more openly gay people in positions of power than ever before. The Boy Scouts will have to change at some point unless the group wants its membership to decline dramatically. But how can the organization most effectively adjust to this societal shift?

Depending on how closely you follow the news, you may have heard a bit about one of this country’s most unusual cottage industries: A series of independent practitioners offering a service called “reparative” or, more colloquially, “gay cure” therapy. The niche discipline is popular enough to earn an official ban from the State of California (when applied to subjects under the age of 18).

These “medical” professionals claim to be able to relieve individuals suffering from unwanted bouts of homosexuality; they’ve received a bit of attention from the political press over the past few years, and they’re about to face the biggest PR challenge in the history of their (relatively new) practice.

The most interesting part about this case is that it concerns the Orthodox Jewish community, most of whose members believe homosexuality to be forbidden by the Torah. Four young men whose rabbis urged them to seek reparative therapy with a group called JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing) are now suing the organization for fraud with the backing of the Southern Poverty and Law Center, a non-profit known for defending those with contradictory opinions both popular and unpopular.

The defendants’ lawsuit states that the group, whose director believes that “homosexuality is a learned behavior, which can be unlearned”, falsely advertised its services—and some of the practices involved in the JONAH “solution” are unconventional, to say the least.

One thing is clear: the immediate future presents a series of uphill battles for gay cure therapists.

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The great Morgan Freeman, an Oscar-winning vet who’s played everyone from Nelson Mandela to The Almighty Himself (though sadly not in the same movie), has what we’d call a very recognizable voice. He’s used his soothing baritone to introduce CBS News, narrate March of the Penguins, promote the 2012 London Olympics, and even endorse political candidates like our current President.

Today, Freeman moves boldly into the social advocacy sphere, applying his signature cadence to a brief TV spot titled “Dawn of a New Day for Marriage Equality”. The purpose of the commercial, produced by the non-profit Human Rights Campaign, is to celebrate the movement’s election day victories (in which gay marriage won popular approval in three states for the first time in this country) while simultaneously preparing allies for the legal and political struggles that still lie ahead.

One could spend hours parsing the messages of this ad, and we’re sure someone will question the clear link drawn between the Civil Rights Movement and the current push for marriage equality (because someone always has to do that). Still, we find it to be a fairly compelling piece of political PR; Mr. Freeman certainly makes the HRC’s case feel more…epic than a man with less powerful vocal chords possibly could.

What do we think of this spot? What influence do Freeman’s voice and celebrity status have on the power of the underlying campaign?

Wherever you may stand on gay marriage and other issues facing the LBGT community, we think you’ll agree that this week’s election was a big win for the gay rights movement; the country at large appears to be moving toward a new era in LGBT relations. But do these results reflect a future in which the public will be more receptive to gay-themed PR campaigns?

Election 2012 included several significant gay rights gains: Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay American Senator, California’s Mark Takano became the first openly gay person of color to serve in congress, Iowa voters chose to retain the judge who cast the deciding vote in approving gay marriage and, most importantly, voters in four states chose to either legalize gay marriage or reject constitutional amendments forbidding it.

It was a proud, hard-earned moment for millions of gay Americans–but how will it affect the LGBT PR industry and related campaigns?

Quite a few existing firms explicitly cater to gay audiences–and we’ve witnessed an increase in the use of obviously gay figures in advertising and PR campaigns. Here, for example, is a recent groundbreaking ad created by Brand USA to promote United States tourism to overseas audiences that features a gay couple:

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