So you are going to see different interpretations of "avowed" by different Councils. No Council is going to start investigating all leaders to try to ascertain who's gay and who isn't. All Councils would bounce a leader who started extolling homosexuality during unit meetings or campouts. The area in between is going to vary from Council to Council, though. You can bet that the Greater New York Councils will interpret it differently than Great Salt Lake Council.
A good example would be if someone in the community called the local Council's Scout Executive and said, "Scoutmaster Joe Blow of Troop x is gay!". Some Councils will jump on this, some will be asking "how do you know" and will or won't take action depending on whether the information is public or private, or whether some kind of act occurred in a Scouting or non-Scouting context, and some will blow it off, unless the caller said "He deep kissed his boyfriend before they went into their tent together at the last campout."
When a man admits or tells the public he's homosexual, he's avowed. When a man engages in homosexual behavior, he's avowed. The prohibition against avowed homosexuals means that any kind of homosexual behavior, such as 'hitting on' a boy, is grounds for dismissal. It also means, as in the James Dale case, that once there is solid evidence that someone is homosexual, he's out. The Council in New York may wish to circumvent that, but when a parent complains to the national Council about a man who admits he's homosexual, he'll be out. The national policy is quite clear and has been reaffirmed this year.