Two years after allowing openly gay scouts, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) lifted an overall ban on gay or lesbian scout leaders Monday. The move does not satisfy leaders of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, citing that the BSA can still choose to deny leaders based on sexual orientation.

“I was mostly disappointed because what they’ve done is said, ‘we will allow you to discriminate’,” said Lorri L. Jean, CEO of the LGBT Center. “It’s better than mandatory discrimination. But it’s still not acceptable.”

The ban was immediately lifted Monday after years of public debate over the role of gays in one of the nation’s largest youth organizations. The new policy also bars discrimination based on sexual orientation in all Boy Scout offices and for all paid jobs.

The BSA national executive board adopted the changes with 79 percent members voting in favor.

In May, BSA’s leader Robert Gates announced that the status of the overall ban on gay leaders could not be sustained.

“Any effort to do so was inevitably going to result in simultaneous legal battles in multiple jurisdictions and at staggering costs,” Gates said after the new policy was announced.

But he added that it is important to allow religious organizations to continue to make their own decisions on whether to include gay adults.

“Religious chartered organizations may continue to use religious beliefs as a criterion for selecting adult leaders, including matters of sexuality,” Gates said. “Scouting members and parents will continue to select local units, chartered to organizations with similar beliefs that best meet the needs of their families. And no council can deny a charter to a unit that is following the beliefs of its religious chartering organization.”

BSA started allowing openly gay scouts in 2013. Total national enrollment of youths declined by 6 percent in 2013 and 7 percent in 2014, to 2.4 million.

Jean said she knows people who couldn’t get involved with BSA because they felt they weren’t welcome.

“The only thing it means is if [gay leaders] are fortunate enough to be accepted, then they are OK. But they have no protection if they are with a troop that doesn’t want them,” Jean said. “The message that this sends is still a bad one — especially for youth — that it is still OK to discriminate.”

Jean called the change in policy a half measure and hopes corporations will see through the “calculated step to get back corporate dollars” by making little progress.

“This is them trying to get their cake and eat it too,” she said.

Chuck Keathley, CEO of the BSA Greater Los Angeles Area Council, said he and the council are thrilled the national board ratified the resolution to change policy to allow gay leaders.

“Greater Los Angeles council has long supported this change internally since 2001, Keathley said. “And the resolution passed Monday is in very close alignment with resolutions sent to the national council (from the Los Angeles council) for them to review.”

Keathley said he has since received mixed reviews from stakeholders and community members on the policy change. Some people said thank you, and others said the resolution could damage BSA.

But Keathley said the Los Angeles council has strongly been in favor of being more inclusive. The greater Los Angeles BSA council serves 25,000 youth, 10,000 leaders and 750 units. He said the council’s hopes are that more families will want to take advantage of the character-based resolution.

“We think it’s a good thing,” he said. “We hope it lets us serve more families in the community with our mission.”