Derek Nance, a program director at the Mataguay Scout Ranch in Southern California, where he has worked for 10 years, came out of the closet yesterday in a YouTube video. Nance says he decided to come out because his entire life revolves around the community he has built at his job with the BSA, yet he is forced to keep a secret.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…

Says Nance:

"I am gay… I'm open to all my friends and family in real life, but the people I truly feel closest to, I've had to remain distant. Which is why I've chosen this moment to open up to them, and to every other staff member of the Boy Scouts of America who is in the same position I am in. The only way we will change the Boy Scouts' discriminatory policies is if those of us who are on the front lines representing them to thousands of scouts every single summer start engaging in some open dialogue on this issue. Lawsuits by the ACLU or confidential reviews by the Boy Scouts are not going to change policies. The first step to coming to an agreement on this issue is to drop the old pretenses and stereotypes and to start actually talking."

Nance says "he wants his legacy to be more than the programs he created and changed" at Mataguay, When the time comes, Nance wants the staff at Mataguay and the BSA summer camps across the U.S. to be the first to accept out gay staff leaders. Until that time, however, Nance says his uniform will hang on the wall waiting for things to get better.

Watch Nance's confession and call to action, AFTER THE JUMP…