Boy Scouts still under legal fire --- even after winning in High Court

ewish World Review ^ | Jan. 15, 2003 | Nat Hentoff

[SJackson]

In California, bar associations in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Santa Clara have urged that state's Supreme Court to prohibit California's 1,600 judges from being members of the Boy Scouts of America because that organization discriminates against gays. California's high court is seriously considering this proposal.

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In California, bar associations in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Santa Clara have urged that state's Supreme Court to prohibit California's 1,600 judges from being members of the Boy Scouts of America because that organization discriminates against gays. California's high court is seriously considering this proposal.

California judges are already forbidden to join organizations that discriminate based on sexual orientations, but there is an exemption for nonprofit youth organizations, and that includes the Boy Scouts. Says Angela Bradstreet -- outgoing president of the Bar Association of San Francisco -- in the Los Angeles Daily Journal: "Ending the Boy Scouts' exemption is a matter of preserving a fundamental perception of fairness within our court system. It's absolutely no different from judges being excluded from sporting groups and other organizations that exclude women, African-Americans or other minorities."

If the Supreme Court of California agrees with Bradstreet, its decision will collide with a June 28, 2000, decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. The case involved James Dale, an assistant Boy Scout scoutmaster who had publicly proclaimed his homosexuality. He was expelled from the Boy Scouts for violating one of its basic principles of membership.

In its majority decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said that "we are not, as we must not be, guided by our own views of whether the Boy Scouts' teachings with respect to homosexual conduct are right or wrong." What cannot be justified, said the court, is "the state's effort to compel the organization to accept members where such acceptance would derogate from the organization's expressive message. ... The fact that an idea may be embraced and advocated by increasing numbers of people is all the more reason to protect the First Amendment rights of those who wish to voice a different opinion."

Freedom of association is one of the core rights embodied in the First Amendment. In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, the Boy Scouts emphasized that "a society in which every organization must be equally diverse is a society which has destroyed diversity." Would these organizations of lawyers in California insist that the NAACP must admit as members, particularly in leadership positions equivalent to assistant scoutmaster, those blacks who thoroughly oppose affirmative action and who believe in the crucial need for publicly financed vouchers to religious schools?

Should gay and lesbian organizations be compelled to admit as members and leaders those who are convinced that active homosexuality violates religious commandments and that its practitioners must be converted to a heterosexual life?

In Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the First Amendment "right to associate with others in pursuit of a wide variety of political, social, economic, educational, religious and cultural ends."

The High Court emphasized that "this right is crucial in preventing the majority from imposing its views on groups that would rather express other, perhaps unpopular, ideas. ... Forcing a group to accept certain members may impair the ability of the group to express those views, and only those views, that it intends to express."

In the weekly Washington-based Legal Times, professor Thomas Baker -- who holds Drake University's James Madison Chair in Constitutional Law -- distilled the essence of the First Amendment right to associate: "We cannot limit the Boy Scouts' First Amendment rights ... without limiting everyone's First Amendment rights."

Continued........

[anniegetyourgun]

Can barring judges from attending the house of worship of their choice be far behind? Leave it to CA.....

[Mo1]

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[Jumper]

Fill in the blank, future enhancements once they win on this against the Boyt Scouts.

In California, bar associations in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Santa Clara have urged that state's Supreme Court to prohibit California's 1,600 judges from being members of the _____________

Republican Party

Believers of the God of The Bible

Anyone who makes enough to actually pay taxes

write in your favorite here

[yendu bwam]

bttt

[fight_truth_decay]

The Boy Scouts of America will be paying legal fees til they can no longer exist financially..that's the intent.

[Always Right]

I would guess being members of the Catholic Church will soon be illegal for members of the California ABA.

[yendu bwam]

The Boy Scouts has done an enormous favor for America - by getting the Supreme Court to affirm that any private organization has the right to its own principles, beliefs and membership. These people in California have gone off the deep end, and will in the end be rejected by normal folk.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[RonF]

I believe that some opponents of the BSA do so on principle. I fear that others, however, have the motive you state.

[RonF]

There are many organizations that hold that homosexuality in and of itself, or homosexual behavior, is wrong and disables such people from holding positions of authority in them. Most religions fall into this category. Will this then cause such people to be disqualified from being judges in California?