Some parents don't want gay men leading local cub and scout troops, said Lesley Anderson, who chaired Scouting NZ's equal opportunities working party.

A survey of 550 scout troops found few had policies on handling sexual orientation. "In terms of comments from parents, a small minority were quite blatant and that was 'no homosexuals'," she said.

The anti-discrimination working party was set up when gay former scout leader Brent Mitchell said he was invited to resign after 25 years as a volunteer because he wanted to be honest about his sexuality.

Mitchell's resignation in November 1999 sparked debate within the scouting movement about gay men leading scout troops.

While scout headquarters denied he was pressured to hand in his warrant, the organisation's Canterbury commissioner John Allen said market research showed parents did not want their children in troops led by gay men as they wrongly associated homosexuality with paedophilia.

Anderson said parents would still have the right to recruit whom they liked as leaders and national headquarters could not override local decisions.

"They have that right at the time to make the decision and we can't say, 'You must go out and recruit homosexuals'. If someone is turned away (because they are gay), they have the right to take that to the Human Rights Commission."

The same was true for troops which chose not to recruit leaders of particular racial or ethnic origin. But the policy formalised anti-discrimination rules that had been loosely in place.

Anderson said troops would be able to fire a leader only on grounds of performance, not sexual orientation. The anti-discrimination policy made the issue more open and each case had to be treated individually, with clear records kept so any complaints could be followed up.

Mitchell - the former assistant national venturer commissioner who also led venturers in Canterbury - said he remained concerned about hypocrisy in scouting as the organisation did not support gay men.

"I told the group which met to get rid of me that we had quite a few closet gays in scouting. I said, 'wouldn't you rather know where they are?' but they had their heads in the sand.

"I wasn't wanting to shove it down people's throats and I only spoke out because (former CEO) Neil Chave said the scout movement did not discriminate."

The Mitchell saga came at the end of a year when former Wellington scout leader David White was sentenced to seven years' jail on charges of indecently assaulting seven boys, five of them scouts. In the previous decade, nine former scout leaders were convicted of abusing boys in their care.

Mitchell applied to get his warrant back last year and, after seven months of deliberation, was told in January he could not be a member of the organisation, which had the right to choose whom it liked.

Ironically, he received an award last week from the Canterbury Area Scouters Council for his services over the past 25 years.

Scouting NZ national secretary Fred Moselen would not comment on why Mitchell had been barred from scouting again.

In Christchurch, openly gay man Terry Horn leads a cub pack in Cashmere. The parents of the cubs, aged 8 to 10, know he is gay, while the scout council which runs the club doesn't have a problem with his sexuality.

Said Horn: "One father asked me if his son would have a problem at cubs and I told him that if I was to be interested in anyone, it would be him, not his son.

"I don't wear pink stockings and high heels. In the last 10 years, I've been asked twice by parents and it's never been an issue, the children have stayed."

Horn was concerned Mitchell had been singled out by the scouting hierarchy, but thought they were nervous because he had been leading 14- to 18-year-old venturers, mainly boys.

"I was upset about his treatment because the scouts have lost someone with huge knowledge and commitment," he said. "But I deal with quite a different age group. I would never let myself be stuck with the older age group because I wouldn't want to be tempted. I've never let myself be exposed to that age group."

Since Horn joined the cub pack 10 years ago, the 42-year-old has watched den numbers dive in the affluent suburb, from around 30 cubs to eight boys and two girls. Most of the children go to private schools and he said the greatest competition for their time was homework.

Scout numbers dropped 12 percent in the year from July 1999 to around 25,000, including about 7000 adult volunteers.