In late June of last year, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Boy Scouts of America have the right to discriminate against homosexuals or anyone else who is applying for a leadership role. James Dale, an Eagle Scout, had filed the suit originally after being terminated from his position in his local Boy Scout troop. The Boy Scout Council found out about Mr. Dale's sexual orientation following the publication of a newspaper article that mentioned him as a gay rights activist.
The United States Supreme Court overruled a judgment against the BSA from the New Jersey Supreme Court. I agree with this final ruling, but with some hesitations.
The BSA is a privately run, privately owned organization, and I feel that as such they should be able to include as members whomever they please.
Under the First Amendment, freedom of speech and freedom of association for the BSA are protected. Dale argued, however, that the anti-homosexual policies go against the New Jersey law that prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation.
While I think that the BSA has every right to choose whomever they want to lead the young men of their troop, I also believe that they are sorely mistaken and committing a grave error when they choose to not include a qualified candidate (such as an Eagle Scout) based solely on his or her sexual orientation.
On April 20, 2000 I passed my Board of Review and became an Eagle Scout from Troop 100 Kensington in the Mount Diablo Silverado Council in northern California.
I am very proud of this fact, and I am a firm believer in the BSA as an organization to make our country a better place to live. While I was preparing for the Board of Review, my scoutmaster asked me what I thought the purpose of the Boy Scouts is.
I thought for a minute and then responded that the purpose is to produce good citizens, and I believe that the BSA does a very good job of this. During my scouting career, I was very impressed with almost everyone that I met. My many mentors were trustworthy, honest people whom I deeply respected.
The troop that I came from is very tolerant, and topics such as religion and sexual orientation are not issues. But the national council is a different story. The BSA is an organization full of tradition, and there are many members who do not wish to see the organization change.
Unfortunately this means that officially the BSA does not believe that homosexuals and atheists deserve to be a part of their organization. One of the frequently cited reasons for this lies in the Scout Oath, where at each meeting each scout states that he will keep himself "morally straight." I said this faithfully at each meeting, and I fully meant it.
But I did not mean those words in the sense of the national council's opinion. To me, "morally straight" means to do what you believe is the right thing to do, to do the morally correct action for a given situation. I take those words very seriously.
But I also take the other parts of the Scout Oath and Law just as seriously, including "I will do my best to help other people at all times," and "A scout is helpful, friendly, courteous, and kind." Sometimes I wonder if the anti-homosexual members of the BSA have forgotten some of these words.
One in four of America's young men will at some point be members of the Boy Scouts, and the BSA should take advantage of this and teach its impressionable boys how to tolerate and respect their peers, no matter what differences they may have.
I feel sad when I see this organization, which I have spent so much of my life as a part of, say to certain people that they are not wanted as members. That is not the spirit of scouting. The Boy Scouts is a community service organization, and no good to the community will ever come from discrimination.
Stereotypes exist in America today, and this is an unfortunate reality that we will have to live with until we all realize that the only way we will ever get along is if we accept each other for who we are.
I have faith that in the not-too-distant future, the BSA will realize their mistake and change their policies. I hope that one day my son will want to join the BSA, and that if he is gay or does not happen to believe that there is a god, that these differences will not prevent him from being a part of the organization that was so important to me during my childhood.
