The Peace Corps will now start taking applications from same-sex partners who want to serve together overseas.

Peace Corps Deputy Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet said Tuesday opening up to same-sex domestic partners will diversify the pool of applicants for the volunteer force, which serves overseas in a variety of projects, including education, health, economic development, environment and agriculture.

Married heterosexual couples, which make up about 7 percent of assignments, have been serving in the Peace Corps since it began in 1961, she said. Same-sex couples can start applying on June 3.

"Service in the Peace Corps is a life-defining leadership experience for Americans who want to make a difference around the world," Hessler-Radelet said in a statement. "I am proud that the agency is taking this important step forward to allow same-sex domestic partners to serve overseas together."

Same-sex couples wishing to join will be required to sign an affidavit to verify their relationship.

Though many countries that host Peace Corps volunteers have laws forbidding same-sex relationships, the Peace Corps promised to provide “safe and productive assignments.”

Peace Corps assignments for same-sex couples are new but homosexual individuals have been serving in the Peace Corps since its beginning, according an association formed for lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender alumni of the corps.

The U.S. Peace Corps  was established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and since then more than 210,000 Americans have volunteered for service in 71 host countries

Tim Sharp/Reuters file

A statue of a Scout stands at the entrance to the Boy Scouts of America headquarters in Irving, Texas.

The Boy Scouts of America said Monday that the Utah Pride Center — a LGBT advocacy group — could not charter a troop, even though the group said it would comply with the youth organization's controversial policy banning gay Scouts and leaders.

The Utah Pride Center submitted its application in late February to sponsor a troop with heterosexual leaders and middle-school age boys several weeks ago, said Valerie Larabee, the center's executive director. She said the bid, which comes ahead of the BSA vote in May on whether it should keep the ban, was not a stunt.

"We feel great concern for youth that may be involved in Scouting right now that are hiding something and we don’t ask our kids when they come to our campus here whether they are gay, straight or anything else," she told NBC News by phone. "We assume that they're here because they think this is a safe place and as a safe place we think that we can offer an incredible opportunity to young people who want to be involved in BSA."

Larabee said they submitted their application to Rick Barnes, the chief executive officer of the Great Salt Lake Council. Barnes referred questions to the BSA headquarters, "since this was a national decision."

When contacted for comment on who had reviewed the application and why it was rejected, the BSA said in a two-sentence statement: "The BSA is engaged in an internal discussion about its membership standards policy and is working to stay focused on Scouting’s mission. Based on the mission of this organization [the Utah Pride Center] we do not believe a chartered partner relationship is beneficial to Scouting.”

Larabee said she knew their file was passed higher within the BSA, but did not know if it reached the national headquarters and said they'd had no response from the organization -- just that their application had been returned without remarks on March 4. The center took it as a denial.

"We are disappointed," she said. "It's almost like they don't even want to acknowledge that we even applied. It's like they just want us to go away." 

A call placed to a Boy Scout leader who The Salt Lake Tribune said would lead the new troop committee, Nile Eatmon, was not immediately returned. Eatmon, a member of the Great Salt Lake Council's executive board, told the newspaper that he didn't see a problem with the center hosting a troop.

"I was surprised. I thought the Pride Center application complied with the Boy Scouts’ policies," Eatmon said. "All the adult members and youth that were submitted with the application were straight."

Faith-based organizations, civic and educational groups often charter Boy Scout units, providing meeting facilities and leadership among other things. More than 70 percent of the Scouting unit in 2012 were chartered to faith-based organizations, and Larabee believed their application may be a first by a LGBT group, although the BSA did not respond to a question about that.

Related: Can a gay Boy Scout share a tent with another boy? Boy Scouts survey members on anti-gay policy

The BSA announced in late January that it may ditch the national policy banning gays, instead leaving that up to local sponsoring organizations to decide. It then pushed back a decision on the policy to May, when some 1,400 members of Scouting's National Council will vote on a resolution that Boy Scouts' officers are crafting.

The membership guidelines have roiled the organization in recent years.

Last July, the BSA said it was sticking with the ban following a confidential two-year review of the policy. That review was announced months after Jennifer Tyrrell was dismissed from her post as leader of her son’s Tiger Cubs den because she is a lesbian, and a few months before California teen Ryan Andresen was denied his Eagle award because he is gay.

Both cases made national headlines for several weeks, and led a few hundred Eagle Scouts to turn in their hard-earned regalia in protest of the ban, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2000.

If you are a current or former member of the Boy Scouts and would like to share your thoughts on how your troop, pack or council is handling the BSA's upcoming decision on the membership policy, you can email the reporter at miranda.leitsinger@msnbc.com. We may use some comments for a follow-up story, so please specify if your remarks can be used and provide your name, hometown, age, Boy Scout affiliation and a phone number.

Related stories: 

Boy Scouts: We need more time for decision on gay Scouts

After years of heartache, gay Scouts and supporters react warily over proposal to lift ban

'Gravely distressed': Religion looms large over Boy Scouts decision on gays 

'BATTLESTATIONS!': Call-in war waged over Boy Scouts' ban on gays

Steve Snowden / Getty Images, file

Santa Fe Mayor David Coss speaks during a public appearance in October 6, 2009 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Democratic mayor of Santa Fe is calling on New Mexico’s county clerks to begin issuing licenses to same-sex couples, saying it was time that everyone – including his lesbian daughter – should be treated equally under the law in a state that does not ban gay marriage.

New Mexico is one of two states in the country that neither specifically allows nor explicitly bans gays and lesbians from getting married (the other is New Jersey).

Nor does it offer civil unions or domestic partnerships to same-sex couples, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The marriage statute, which does not specify gender, is “sufficiently vague” on the issue, said Phil Sisneros, a spokesman for New Mexico’s attorney general.

Mayor David Coss and City Attorney Geno Zamora teamed up to examine that legal question and believe that nothing in the state constitution or statutes prevent county clerks from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Zamora issued a legal analysis of these findings, and the City Council is expected to vote on a resolution in support of Coss’ call on March 27.

“People’s lives are short and when you’re waiting for your rights you know how long do you have to wait? I’m sorry we didn’t do it ten years ago. I don’t think we should wait another ten years before we push the issue,” Coss told NBC News. “Let’s start treating everybody equally under the law.”

Though the resolution does not carry legal weight, Zamora, who has a gay brother, said they wanted to send a message to the Supreme Court before it hears landmark cases next week challenging a federal law (Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA) that bars recognition of same-sex couples and California’s Proposition 8, which prohibits gays and lesbians from getting married in the Golden State.

“The decision was made … we cannot wait any longer to protect the rights of our brothers and sisters, our colleagues and our community members,” he said. “It’s very important for cities and city attorney’s offices to enter this debate recognizing equal rights for their citizens.”

In 2004, a clerk for Sandoval county issued same-sex marriage licenses for one day before the state attorney general ordered her to stop, saying the 64 licenses were not valid, according to The Santa Fe New Mexican.

Santa Fe County Clerk Geraldine Salazar told the newspaper on Tuesday that she wasn’t going to issue licenses to gay and lesbian couples, even though she’d like to, because she felt she couldn’t under the law.

“I would love to be able to issue marriage licenses (to same sex couples) but under the current law, I feel I’m not free and clear to do so. The Legislature creates the laws and the judges interpret the laws and I as a county clerk do not create or interpret laws,” she said. “And I feel that my oath of office does not allow to me act counter to the laws of New Mexico.”

Sisneros, of the attorney general’s office, said that the issue was unclear and felt nothing was likely to happen until a county clerk attempted to grant a license to a same-sex couple. At that point, an anti-gay marriage group may file a lawsuit or the attorney general could be asked to weigh in, among other possible scenarios.

“This seems more properly characterized as an expression of the city’s position on same-sex marriages since it does not carry the force of law,” Sisneros said of the Santa Fe mayor’s resolution. “Our office, though, has not had the opportunity yet to weigh in on the specific question of whether same sex marriages are legal under New Mexico law."

Previous state bills to ban or approve same-sex marriage have been rejected by New Mexico's lawmakers.

Thomas Peters, a spokesman for the National Organization for Marriage which opposes same-sex marriage, said New Mexicans should be able to decide the issue for themselves. 

"Allow the debate to continue and the people to decide, not activists mayors and judges," he said in a statement.

Jacquelyn Martin / AP

Pascal Tessier, 16, center left, a Scout, and his brother Lucien Tessier, 20, who had earned the rank of Eagle Scout, pose for a portrait with their parents, Oliver Tessier, left, and Tracie Felker, at their home in Kensington, Maryland, on Monday. The two Tessier boys enjoyed Cub Scouts, progressed to Boy Scouts, and continued to thrive there even as many in their troop became aware that each boy was gay.

Published at 4:45 a.m. ET: Special prayers have been urged, petitions handed in, phone calls placed and pleas for a delay made, all over a decision on an issue that has rocked one of America’s most popular youth organizations: whether or not gays can join the Boy Scouts.

A decision by national Scout leaders is expected Wednesday. Some fear an unwanted new era, while others are welcoming what they believe is an overdue change that comes amid other recent gains for the LGBT rights movement nationwide.

President Barack Obama has twice weighed in on the issue, earlier this week affirming his support for including gays in the Boy Scouts of America, while former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has called for an end to what he labelled the “war on Scouts.”

“The Boy Scouts are a fundamental part of this nation’s moral bedrock and they are one of our great cultural institutions. We have trusted them to grow and develop our young men for over a century,” Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout and son of a lesbian couple campaigning for gays to be included, said Tuesday. “They’re a big deal, and that is why this proposed change is so critically important.”

Advocates on both sides of the issue have stepped up their campaigns ahead of the BSA's final decision: They’ve encouraged their backers to make their voices heard through a phone-in and email deluge. A conservative group, the Family Research Council, said that it and 41 other groups ran a newspaper ad on Monday asking the BSA not to change the policy, and some conservative religious groups have urged their supporters to join in prayer to ask the board not to accept gays.

Related: 'Gravely distressed': Religion looms large over Boy Scouts decision on gays 

John Makely / NBC News file

Ryan Andresen had recently completed the requirements to earning his Eagle Scout award, including his final project of building a "tolerance wall" for victims of bullying like himself, but his Scoutmaster would not sign off on honoring him with the Boy Scouts' highest ranking because he is gay, his mother said. Here, Ryan holds an Eagle Scout pin that was sent to him from a supporter.

A coalition of Boy Scouts councils representing some 540,000 youth -- or 20 percent of the organization’s 2.6 million active Scouts -- asked the national organization on Monday to delay a decision on ending the controversial policy, saying it was concerned “about the pace at which such actions are being taken,” according to a statement posted on the website of the Utah-based Great Salt Lake Council.   

Roger “Sing” Oldham, spokesman for the conservative Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, said the outpouring of feedback on the issue came as no surprise to him since his group felt the BSA had not allowed opponents of the change to weigh in on the proposal, which was announced just a little more than one week ago and was being reviewed by national leaders.

Oldham said he had spoken with some troop leaders, pastors and parents who have expressed concern about the way forward if gays are allowed, particularly those units that will try to maintain the ban locally as would be permitted under the proposal. For more than two-thirds of Scouting groups affiliated with religious bodies, faith plays a large role in the private youth organization.

“When local chapters begin realizing the financial liability that they face if they exercise the local option then … they’re going to have to say we either fall into step or we have just to end the relationship,” he said. “There’ll be attrition over time and, you know, the Scouts will have permanently altered the face of who they are into the future.”

'Feeling of shame'
Some have said they will even leave the organization over the issue.

Angela Russell, who has an 11-year-old in the Boy Scouts and a 9-year-old in the Cub Scouts, said that if the BSA allows gays, particularly as leaders, they would be “breaking their own highly held codes to be ‘morally straight’ and to commit to such principles via oaths and promises.”

If the ban is lifted, “I must remove my boys from this program. My heart truly aches to think of it,” Russell, of Auburn, Wash., wrote in a letter she emailed to NBC News. “However, to leave them in a program that goes against its own teachings would be worse.”

But another mother, of a Boy Scout and two Cub Scouts, said she had “been torn for years” over the policy since her own mother is a lesbian and allowing gays would be a relief.

“I am very happy about the things my children have learned and the tools they have been given from the program,” Gina Beaudry, 37, of Raleigh, N.C., who will be the Cub Scoutmaster for her sons pack this year, wrote in an email to NBC News. 

“To have this ban lifted would take away some of the feeling of shame I feel for the organization that has been so beneficial to my children. I would hate to see any child or parent not feel like they were welcome in the program.”

Related: After years of heartache, gay Scouts and supporters react warily over proposal to lift ban

The proposed policy change comes just seven months after the BSA said it was sticking with its ban following a confidential two-year review.

That review was announced months after Jennifer Tyrrell was dismissed from her post as leader of her son’s Tiger Cubs den because she is a lesbian, and a few months before California teen Ryan Andresen was denied his Eagle award because he is gay.

Both cases made national headlines, roiling the private youth organization. Some critics pointed to declining membership numbers as a sign that families were being turned off over the issue. The controversy also prompted a few hundred Eagle Scouts to turn in their hard-earned regalia in protest of the ban, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2000.

Wahls believes the Boy Scouts will lift the exclusion of gays and rejects the idea it will cause any “mass exodus.”

“We don’t think that that’s going to be a problem at all and think that this move will definitely bolster Scouting for future generations,” he said, later adding, “Our generation has embraced LGBT rights, and like all things, Scouting should not be playing catch up, it should be blazing the trail.”

Related: 

Gay teen denied Eagle Scout: 'Change is happening' over Boy Scouts anti-gay policy

Eagle Scouts return badges to protest policy banning gays

Boy Scouts: We're keeping policy banning gays 

If you are a current or former member of the Boy Scouts and would like to share your thoughts on how your troop, pack or council is handling the possibility of a change in the membership policy, you can email the reporter at miranda.leitsinger@msnbc.com. We may use some comments for a follow-up story, so please specify if your remarks can be used and provide your name, hometown, age, Boy Scout affiliation and a phone number.

Jennifer Tyrrell cried when she got the news Monday that the Boy Scouts of America may be changing its policy to admit gays and lesbians as Scouts and leaders.

The mother of four children was kicked out of the private organization last year, as den leader of her son’s Tiger Cub pack in Ohio, because she is a lesbian. The longstanding policy has sometimes seen the quiet, or in Tyrrell’s case, public, exit of gays – an exodus that has rocked the Boy Scouts and led to growing calls for the group to open its doors to all who want to join.

“I’m looking forward to the day when we can once again take part,” Tyrrell told NBC News by phone, reminiscing about all of the fun activities she so enjoyed with her son Cruz and the youth in her pack, such as the Pinewood Derby and campfires. “This is a gigantic leap, especially on this … decades-old policy that they have gone to the Supreme Court to defend. … Of course it’s not the ultimate, but it’s definitely a great hurdle.”

It’s not the ultimate, according to Tyrrell and others, because the proposal would eliminate the ban at the national level, but would allow local sponsoring organizations to decide whether or not they would accept gays, NBC News’ Pete Williams reported.

Courtesy Jennifer Tyrrell

Jennifer Tyrrell and her son Cruz. Tyrrell was ousted from her post as den leader of her son's Tiger Cub pack in April 2012 because she is gay.

“So essentially, instead of forcing people to discriminate they’re going to allow people to discriminate,” said Zach Wahls, who is the son of a lesbian couple and who has been leading a campaign fighting to include lesbians and gays in the Scouts. “Even though one is less bad than the other, we still need to make sure that local units are understanding how a ban on gay members negatively affects their unit.”

Still, Wahls said, it was a step in the right direction though the Boy Scouts do have a ways to go.

“Compared to where we were seven months ago, with the BSA, you know, calling this the best policy for the organization right now and then seven months later understanding well actually … that’s not quite true, it’s a big development,” he added.

Wahls was referring to the Boy Scouts announcement last July that it was sticking with the policy after revealing it had undertaken a confidential two-year review of the disputed membership guidelines. It also came a few months after Tyrrell was forced out and a day before she handed in a petition to national leaders with hundreds of thousands of signatures calling for her reinstatement.

That prompted a number of Eagle Scouts to turn in their hard-earned regalia, with more than 200 posting their letters and photos of their medals, pins or certificates to a tumblr page started by Burke Stansbury, a 36-year-old communications specialist in Seattle, Wash., who decided to leave the Scouts for good over the issue.

Stansbury welcomed the news of the proposed change but said he wasn’t sure if he would ever go back.

“I sort of said all along that I was really making a decision to do this, that they’ve held on too long and that, you know, I’ve lost faith in the organization regardless of what changes they might make in the future,” he said.

Stansbury said he would wait and see if the Boy Scouts ended up reversing the policy and if they “actively worked to be an open and inclusive organization.”

The discussion of the potential change in policy is nearing its final stages, according to outside scouting supporters. If approved, the change could be announced as early as next week, after the BSA's national board holds a regularly scheduled meeting.

“Before I made any decision about rejoining or asking for my medal back, I’d really want to see that it was being implemented but yeah … I am certainly open to seeing what happens and I mean, there is you know, much to love about the Boy Scouts as an organization,” he said. “So if they were to change, it would take some time, I think, to rebuild the trust of people like me who lost faith. But I think it’s still possible.”

One of those most impacted recently by the Boy Scouts’ policy was Ryan Andresen, 18, and his family. Andresen said he was denied submitting his application for the Eagle rank to the national organization by his Scoutmaster after finishing his final service project last fall because he is gay, and after coming out as gay to his troop last summer.

After much back and forth with the local council in Moraga, Calif., and hard feelings on both sides in a story that made national headlines for weeks, his application for the pinnacle Boy Scouts’ achievement was forwarded to the national headquarters for approval, said his father Eric Andresen, 52.

John Makely / NBC News

Ryan Andresen holds an Eagle Scout pin that was given to him by a fellow Scout who is gay on Friday, Oct. 12, 2012, in New York, N.Y.

Ryan, a high school senior, was still hoping for the award, even though he already knows he has earned it, Eric Andresen said.

“Four months ago, if the ban hadn’t been in place, we wouldn’t even been going down this road. … He’s been hurt a lot. There’s been a lot of damage done to Ryan emotionally,” he said Monday. “If the board does elect to get rid of the policy, I don’t know why they wouldn’t then retroactively award Ryan his Eagle. They certainly should.”

Eric Andresen, who resigned as the committee chair of his son’s troop after the problems began, said he was done with the organization after 10 years as an adult leader, but he hadn’t yet broached the possibility with his son of being able to participate as a volunteer or leader one day if the policy is changed.

“I don’t think that’s a conversation that … I’d even want to start it with him right now,” he said, noting that after Ryan spent a dozen years with the Boy Scouts, the group “turned its back on him” and was “responsible for all of the grief he’s gone through the last four months.”

One of the Andresen’s main objectives was to help others, such as boys who may still be hiding in the closet.

“If BSA does do the right thing … we’re looking at, you know, what this is going to do for thousands of other Scouts so that nobody else has to go through what Ryan went through,” he said. “It’s time to end this stuff. Gay kids have a right to be Scouts, too.”

Related: 
Gay teen denied Eagle Scout: 'Change is happening' over Boy Scouts anti-gay policy
Eagle Scouts return badges to protest policy banning gays
Boy Scouts: We're keeping policy banning gays

If you are a current or former member of the Boy Scouts and would like to share your thoughts on whether the membership policy should be changed, you can email the reporter at miranda.leitsinger@msnbc.com. We may use some comments for a follow-up story, so please specify if your remarks can be used and provide your name, hometown, age and Boy Scout affiliation.

A Cub Scout pack in Maryland has decided to jettison its gay-friendly membership guidelines under threat of losing its Boy Scouts of America charter, according to a statement on the pack’s website.

Pack 442 of Cloverly, Md., had adopted a non-discrimination policy that read: “Pack 442 WILL NOT discriminate against any individual or family based on race, religion, national origin, ability, or sexual orientation.”

But over the weekend, the pack posted a notice on its website reading: “Due to pressure from the National Capital Area Council of BSA, Pack 442 was forced to remove its Non-Discrimination statement in order to keep our Charter (set to expire Jan 31^st). This Non-Discrimination statement, previously posted here, welcomed ALL families.”

The pack’s position ran counter to the Boy Scouts’ membership guidelines, which ban openly gay members or leaders. 

Activist groups stepped up their campaign to end the longstanding ban last year after California teen Ryan Andresen was denied the Eagle rank because he is gay, and following the dismissal of Jennifer Tyrrell as den leader of her son’s Tiger Cub pack in Ohio because she is a lesbian.

Theresa Phillips, committee chair of Pack 442, said her group had the same motivations.

“I think we need to start at this level,” she told NBC News on Saturday. “We need to teach the boys … respect for other people and their lifestyles.”

A call placed to Phillips on Monday seeking comment on the removal of the policy was not immediately returned. It was not clear if the pack would continue to accept all families under a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach similar to the one used by the military until it was rescinded last year.

Cub Scout pack may lose charter if it keeps gay-friendly policy

The pack’s member families approved the non-discrimination policy last August, and it was discussed in detail with district leaders and the regional council, to which the pack belongs, from August through October.

The issue appeared to be settled, but when the council “contacted us a few weeks ago pressuring us to remove our statement, we attempted to negotiate a rewording of the statement that would represent a compromise on the matter, but ultimately NCAC leadership felt only removal of the statement would be acceptable,” the pack said on its website.

“It's clear to us that they chose this time to bring that up because they knew that we needed to recharter at the end of January,” Phillips said.

Scout Executive Les Baron, a council leader, confirmed to NBC News on Friday that the pack could lose its charter if it maintained the policy: The “policy of the Boy Scouts are what they are and my job is to not bring into (it) my own personal feelings.”

The pack committee had been split on a way forward, which prompted a poll on whether they would keep the policy and possibly not be rechartered, or if they would remove it and return to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy welcoming all families.

The poll, which ended Friday night and was conducted on the pack website, came out 53 percent in favor of reverting to “don’t ask, don’t tell” and 47 percent backing the new policy, said Phillips, who voted in favor of explicitly including gays and lesbians. The poll had called for a two-thirds majority, she said.

The Boy Scouts reaffirmed its ban on gays and lesbians in 2012 following a two-year confidential review.

A national BSA spokesman, Deron Smith, said in an email on Friday that the private organization "has policies that all councils and local units agree to follow."

Related: 
Gay teen denied Eagle Scout: 'Change is happening' over Boy Scouts anti-gay policy
Eagle Scouts return badges to protest policy banning gays
Boy Scouts: We're keeping policy banning gays