WASHINGTON, DC — During an interview on Sunday, President Obama told CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley that the Boy Scouts of America should its membership rolls to openly gay members.

“My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does, in every institution and walk of life,” Obama said.

“The Scouts are a great institution that are promoting young people and exposing them to opportunities and leadership that will serve people for the rest of their lives,” the President added, “And I think nobody should be barred from that.”

The President’s comments came in the disappointing aftermath of the decision by Scouting’s leaders to postpone a decision until the week of May 20 on whether to allow gays in as both Scout leaders and members of the national organization.

That decision will be made by the 1,400 voting members of Scouting’s National Council, although the proposal in question was supposed to be settled last week by the organization’s 70-member national executive board. The members of that body decided that such a complex issue required more study before a decision could be finalized.

That proposal would ease the ban on openly-gay scouts and leaders by permitting the sponsors of local Scout units to determine for themselves whether or not to admit gays. Gay-rights groups have called the proposed policy shift inadequate, arguing that an anti-discrimination policy organization-wide is the only acceptable result.

A number of conservative and religious groups have said they want the ban to remain in place nationwide. The largest sponsor of Scouting units hand down is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), with more than 420,000 boys in close to 38,000 units. The Mormon Church supports the ban on gays, but leaders have made no official statement about the proposal change to permit leeway to troop sponsors in setting their own policy.

On the progressive side, a prominent leader of the Reform branch of American Judaism published a letter to Scouting President Wayne Parry, urging ban on gays to be lifted across the board. Since 2001, Reform synagogues have been discouraged from sponsoring units, a result of the ban.

“We look forward to the day we can encourage our congregations to return to their historical role in hosting BSA troops,” Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, wrote. “Indeed, we hope that day may be soon.”

About 70 percent of all Scouting units are sponsored by religious denominations.

Among LGBT rights organizations, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against defamation (GLAAD) has mobilized online and social media campaigns to encourage an end to the ban, and offered information to supporters on the best ways to utilize Twitter and Facebook to get the message out.