New Jersey’s Merck Foundation announced today it will no longer fund the Boy Scouts of America. The pharmaceutical company’s charitable foundation says the Boy Scout’s exclusion of gay members from its ranks and leadership conflicts with both the company’s nondiscrimination policy and the foundation’s giving guidelines. The foundation will reconsider donating money to Boy Scouts, however, if the organization will change its sexual orientation policy.

According to the Associated Press, the Merck Foundation gave $30,000 to the Boy Scouts of America in 2011. Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, a scout in his youth, was honored by the Boy Scouts in June when he received the “Good Scout” Award from the Philadelphia Cradle of Liberty Boy Scout Council.

Merck joins other companies who have pulled funding from the Boy Scouts over its discriminating policies, including Intel Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. The companies’ decisions follow petitions from Scouts for Equality founder Zach Wahls. More than 60,000 people have joined Wahls’ most recent campaign on Change.org which now urges Verizon Communications, Inc. to pull its funding from the Boy Scouts until the organization removes its bank on gay scouts.

“I am thrilled that Merck & Company—a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical giant—has announced its foundation arm is immediately withdrawing funding form the Boy Scouts of America until the program ends its anti-gay membership policy,” Wahls, an Eagle Scout himself, said. “Now it’s Verizon’s turn to join a growing list of political and corporate leaders urging the Boy Scouts of America to end this policy before more young people are harmed.”

Wahls added that he is sorry to see any damage come to the Boy Scouts of America, but believes the short-term harm of reduced funding is a small price to pay for the long-term benefit of eliminating a discriminatory policy.

“These companies are helping to bring change to the Boy Scouts of America by speaking out against the discriminatory policy and in support of the young people who are harmed by it,” GLAAD President Herndon Graddick said. “The Boy Scouts of American should take the health of their organization into account and focus on making scouting open to all, rather than working to keep an outdated and unpopular ban in place.”

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