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Boy Scouts of America
Court cases: 1999-DEC - now
Sponsored link.
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1999-DEC: Davis CA: The school board decided to no longer allow the
BSA to use school bulletin boards, newsletters or student folders in its
recruitment drives. The school board based this decision on the BSA's denial
of membership to gays, atheists and others. Scouting
executive Doug McDonald of the Golden Empire Chapter of BSA commented:
"I really don't want to stir up a lot of anti-Scouting feeling by
telling the superintendent of schools that he wrong. But we'll continue to
emphasize our traditional family values, and we'll just go into a different
mode of recruitment." |
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1999-DEC - New Jersey court case (cont'd): The U.S. Supreme Court
is expected to announce about 2000-JAN-10 whether it will hear the Dale
case. If it does, then oral arguments could be timed for 2000-APR. Richard
Land, head of the Ethics & Religious
Liberty Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention commented:
"This is a case the Boy Scouts must win. But even if they don't
...those of us against the gay agenda are not going away. Private
organizations with a moral viewpoint must retain the right to select their
own leaders. If a government entity is allowed to impose on such
organizations who or who may not be their leaders, what will stop them from
doing the same to religious organizations?" [The answer, of course,
is that the BSA was recognized as a public accommodation, and thus
must obey civil rights legislation. Religious congregations are private
organizations, some of which have a long history of discriminating on the basis of race, gender, sexual
orientation or any other basis.] |
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2000-JAN - New Jersey court case (cont'd): The U.S. Supreme Court
announced on JAN-16 that it will hear the appeal of the Dale case. |
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2000-APR-26: The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the
Dale case. The American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU), American Federation of Teachers, Anti-Defamation
League, California Women's Law Center, Center for Women Policy
Studies, Equal Rights Advocates, Human Rights Campaign, Mexican
American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, Inc., National Asian Pacific Legal Consortium,
National Council of Jewish Women, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,
NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, National Partnership for Women
and Families, National Women's Law Center, Northwest Women's Law
Center, People For the American Way Foundation, Women Employed,
Women's Law Project and People for the American Way have
filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Dale. Matthew Coles,
Director of the ACLU's
Lesbian and Gay Rights Project commented: "This brief makes an
incredibly profound statement – not simply in its content, but in
its source. Every leading civil rights and First Amendment group in
the country has come forward, together, telling the Supreme Court that
preventing the Boy Scouts from discriminating is not only
constitutional, but is in line with the core American value of judging
people on the basis of capability, not on stereotypes." The
brief says that the Boy Scouts "has no more right to
discriminate in violation of state law than the Rotary Club or
Jaycees. Like those other organizations, whose earlier efforts to
evade the civil rights laws were soundly rejected by this Court, the
exclusionary anti-gay membership policy that the Boy Scouts now so
vigorously defends falls outside the scope of any associational or
expressive freedom protected by the First Amendment." 1
Many conservative Judeo-Christian groups have filed briefs in
opposition: National Catholic Committee on Scouting, the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, General Commission on United
Methodist Men of the United Methodist Church, Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod, and the National Council of Young Israel. 2 |
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2000-APR-28: According to ReligionToday: The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints "would withdraw from Scouting if
it were compelled to accept openly homosexual Scout leaders,"
attorney Von G. Keetch said..."The Scouting movement as now constituted will cease to exist,"
the brief said.
There are about 424,000 Methodist Scouts, 424,000 Mormon Scouts and 255,000
Roman Catholic Scouts in the U.S. |
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2000-MAR-2: EWTN, a Roman Catholic religious news source stated that
a number of religious groups support equal rights for gays in in the
Boy Scouts. They are: the Unitarian Universalist Association, the
General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church,
the United Church of Christ Board for Homeland Ministries, the
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the Episcopal
Diocese of Newark, New Jersey. Richard Land, director of the
Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist
Convention, said that the "the assertion that the state has a
'compelling interest' in protecting the civil rights of those whose
sexual preference is homosexual to the exclusion of the constitutional
rights of free expression of another's religious convictions ... is
almost beyond belief." |
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2000-JUN-28 New Jersey court case (concluded): The U.S.
Supreme Court, in a close 5 - 4 decision, overturned the New Jersey
Supreme Court ruling that the Boy Scouts was a public accommodation.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the BSA is a
private organization and thus may set its own moral code, and exclude
whomever it wishes. Forcing it to accept gays would violate its constitutional right to
freedom of association. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for
the majority. He said in part: "The Boy Scouts asserts that
homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the values it seeks to instill.
[Requiring the Scouts to accept homosexual scoutmasters] would
significantly burden the organization's right to oppose or disfavor
homosexual conduct." He did acknowledge that homosexuality
had gained greater social acceptance. However, he wrote that "This
is scarcely an argument for denying First Amendment protection to
those who refuse to accept these views. The First Amendment protects
expression, be it of the popular variety or not." More
details |
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2002-APR-1: MD: Allegations of discrimination by school board:
The Montgomery County Public School district had traditionally
charged about $3.00 an hour to non-profit agencies for the use of their
facilities. However, they had donated the use of their rooms to the Boy
Scouts, 4-H clubs, Girl Scouts etc. without charge. They recently reviewed
their charging policies and decided that all groups should be treated
equally. This meant that the Boy Scouts and similar groups should not be
given preferential treatment; they would have to pay the same nominal
charge as do all other non-profit agencies. The federal Department of
Education's Office for Civil Rights is investigating this decision.
Myra Coleman, of the Department of Education, wrote: "Under the (No
Child Left Behind) act, these entities may not deny equal access or a fair
opportunity to meet, or otherwise discriminate against, any group
officially affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, or any other youth
group listed in title 36 of the United States Code."
The Public Advocate of the United States, a conservative nonprofit
group based in Falls Church, Va., filed a complaint against the school
district, charging that the latter had violated the "Boy Scouts of
America Equal Access Act." Eugene Delgaudio, Executive Director
of Public Advocate said: "Montgomery County officials have been given
repeated chances to obey federal statute and reverse these fees to punish
the Boy Scouts of America because of their moral virtues. Now that the
federal government is investigating these abuses, hopefully the county
will no longer ignore the law of the land."
The Interagency Coordinating Board for the Use of Public Facilities
administers the rental of school rooms to outside groups. Referring to the
BSA, Ginny Gong, board director, said: "Why should any one group be
treated differently from all of our other non-profit organizations? They,
along with the other worthy organizations, should be paying the same
non-profit rate. We are talking about three dollars an hour. The decision
was not just for Boy Scouts, it was for all scouting groups. We are
talking about 4-H, Girl Scouts, and all of these groups are impacted. It
is the interest of this board to make sure that we are not discriminating
against any group. Therefore, in the interest of equity and fair treatment
of all non-profit organizations -- and we have a lot of non-profits using
our facilities -- the board made the decision to charge the Scouts, like
all the other groups, a reduced non-profit rate. This was so that every
group would be treated fairly." 3 |
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2006-OCT: CA: U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear case: Berkeley, CA, had allowed non-profit organizations to berth their boats
without charge at the municipal marina since the 1930s. In 1997, the city restricted the free
use of the marina to groups that did not discriminate against women and/or minorities. In
1998, they revoked a subsidy previously given to the Sea Scouts -- a branch of
the Boy Scouts. City officials informed the Berkeley Sea Scouts that their
$1,500 a month subsidy for their three boats would be restored if it broke ties
with the Boy Scouts or disavowed the policy against gays and Atheists. The Sea
Scouts refused and launched a court case -- Evans v. City of Berkeley, 06-40. A
lower court ruled that the city could treat the Sea Scouts differently from
other non-profits because of the Scouts' membership policies. In 2006-MAR, the
California Supreme Court let the decision stand. They determined that municipal
governments are under no obligation to extend benefits to organizations that
discriminate. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. 4 |
Related essays on this site:
Copyright © 1999 to 2006 by Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance.
Originally published on 1999-AUG-9.
Latest updated: 2006-OCT-17
Author: B.A. Robinson
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