A few months ago, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA made a difficult but correct decision regarding its anti-discrimination policy.

The YMCA told a local Boy Scout troop that it could no longer meet at its facility because the Boy Scouts of America's official policy forbidding gay people to participate ran contrary to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Y's policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

It was a tough decision. The local Scouts had done nothing wrong, after all, and many people hotly criticized the YMCA's position. Others in the community, including us, defended the YMCA's decision as the right call: The only way to bring down what is still a widely held and in many places - including North Carolina - officially sanctioned discrimination against gay and lesbian people is to fight it wherever we find it.

We were proud of the local Y for standing up to a policy of bigotry, and for its own policy of nondiscrimination. So it's a bit of a shock, and a grievous shame, to see the very same YMCA now considering caving in on precisely that principle.

The local board is exploring joining hands with the YMCA of the Triangle, probably through either a management services agreement in which the larger organization would run the local one, or an outright merger.

The Triangle YMCA's anti-discrimination policy does not protect members or employees based on sexual orientation. If the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Y were to merge with Triangle Y, it would have to abandon its more inclusive policy for the YMCA of the Triangle's. And that, it seems to us, would amount to abandoning the principle the organization stood so firmly in defense of so recently.

Why, just months after going to the mat for its own policy, would the local Y do such a thing?

Money.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA, like many nonprofits, is facing a hard economy. Joining resources with the YMCA of the Triangle would mean a financial boost.

Chairwoman-elect Dabney Grinnan has assured the community that she and the organization are well aware of the importance of protecting the rights of the LGBT community.

But the budget picture for 2012, she said, is "much darker than we would like." Standing up for the anti-discrimination policy by refusing to work with the YMCA of the Triangle, she said, might mean the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Y may have to cut some services that are important to the community..

That would be unfortunate. But in the long run, it would be far less damaging than backing away from what is right.

This issue is especially critical now, as we gird for the steep challenge of defeating the shameful state ballot referendum that would insert a ban on gay marriage into the state constitution. The last thing we need is a prominent local institution moving backward on a matter of equal rights.

The YMCA of the Triangle says it is dedicated to providing programs and services "for all." If there are good reasons for the local YMCA to join with the regional one, then we're all for that - just as soon as the YMCA of the Triangle amends its anti-discrimination policy to reflect that dedication.