Philadelphia Council Flouts Scouts' Antigay Stance

Phila. council flouts Scouts' antigay stance
A new policy on sexuality is likely to bring discussion as the national convention starts here.
By Linda K. Harris and Miriam Hill
Inquirer Staff Writers

Defying the national Boy Scouts policy of refusing membership to gays, the board of the Scouts' largest Philadelphia-area council has unanimously voted not to discriminate against homosexuals.

The decision puts the local council at odds with the national organization, which holds that homosexuality is inconsistent with the traditional moral values espoused in the Scout Oath and Law.

But the Cradle of Liberty Council, the nation's third largest - serving 87,000 youths in Philadelphia, Delaware and Montgomery Counties - this month added "sexual orientation" to its policy of nondiscrimination.

The conflict between the national and local organizations is sure to spark discussion at the National Convention of the Boy Scouts of America, which begins today at the Convention Center and continues through Saturday.

"We disagree with the national stance, and we're not comfortable with the stated national policy," said David H. Lipson Jr., board chairman of the Cradle of Liberty Council. "That's why we're working on a solution that works for everyone."

No one at the national office of the Boy Scouts of America in Texas could be reached for comment late yesterday.

In June 2000, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in the case of a New Jersey assistant scoutmaster who was expelled for being gay, that the Boy Scouts had the right to bar homosexuals as troop leaders.

The national Boy Scouts of America issued a statement saying it viewed the decision as a victory.

Lipson said that national policy hurt fund-raising and cost jobs locally. The Pew Charitable Trusts, among others, reduced its contribution, he said, though he did not say how much it had given to the local Boy Scouts.

No one at Pew was available to comment.

Although the United Way did not cut funding, it took heat from gay-rights activists and others. The agency funded a development program organized by the Boy Scouts that operated in public schools and was open to anyone. Even the limited funding caused problems.

"The reality is, we did get some pressure from other groups who said, 'This program may not discriminate, but this organization does,' " said Christine James-Brown, president of the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

The United Way served as a catalyst. Two years ago, the agency's representatives - along with local Boy Scout executives and community leaders, including gay and lesbian activists - began to meet to discuss the issue.

The statement issued this month by the Cradle of Liberty Council was a result of those discussions.

David L. Cohen, a Comcast executive who was chairman of the local United Way from May 1998 to 2001, was a participant. Cohen said that Philadelphia leaders decided they did not want to accept a policy that they did not agree with and that was harming the programs intended for area youths.

"We were not prepared to allow our kids to be casualties on the battlefield of adults who should know better," Cohen said.

James-Brown said the local United Way campaign spent a lot of time trying to understand the national policy.

"In the very beginning, people knew very little about why the national had that policy," James-Brown said. "There was anger about the policy. I think people set that aside and said, 'Let's try to make it work in this community.' "

Lipson said he did not want the gay-discrimination controversy to overshadow the many good programs the Boy Scouts offer.

"We'd like to move the discussion to standards for sexual conduct rather than sexual orientation," Lipson said.

Philadelphia's is not the first regional council to flout the controversial policies of the national Boy Scouts organization, or to have suffered consequences from the national policy.

In July 2001, the Boston Minuteman Council approved a bylaw that challenged the national council's policy. The rule effectively allows gay youths to be scouts and gay men to serve as scout leaders as long as they do not openly reveal or discuss their sexual orientation.

In December 2001, United Way boards in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties in California cut off funding to the local Boy Scout councils because of the national policy about gays.

Oh, don't get me wrong. The BSA Federal Charter says that "The purposes of the corporation are to promote, through organization, and cooperation with other agencies, the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in scoutcraft, and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred virtues, using the methods that were in common use by boy scouts on June 15, 1916." And there's little question in my mind that on June 15th, 1916, "morally straight" was generally presumed to exclude homosexuality.

What I'm saying is that when most people read the BSA Oath and see the phrase "morally straight", they don't consider it in the context of when it was written. They think of it in the context of contemporary culture. And to many people in America today, "morally straight" doesn't automatically exclude homosexuals. Hence the controversy.

So a lot of people would like the BSA should change to accomodate this. After all, the BSA used to have segregated Troops, and that changed. It used to exclude women from leadership positions. That changed. And it's arguable in both cases that the BSA wouldn't have survived unless those changes had taken place.

Accepting homosexuals as being eligible for leadership positions (I'll leave accepting homosexual youth for a different discussion) would be different, though. Despite assertions to the contrary, homosexuality is different than race or gender; the latter two are clearly and wholly biological in origin, and there is no demonstration that the differences among the races or genders makes any difference in their abilities or fitness. Whereas homosexuality is generally perceived to be at least partly behavioral choice, and there are many who believe that choice to be a moral question.

Accepting integrated leadership has little controversy, at least now. The various sponsors accepted it; those who didn't weren't missed. Accepting women as leaders is still somewhat controversial, but most sponsors have accepted it. Some haven't; notably the Mormon Church, who enroll 1/8 of all BSA members. But while they disapprove of enrolling female leaders, as it violates the tenets of their religion, they accept the presence of female leaders in other units. Apparently they can handle the messages that these other units send to their Scouts.

But the line has been drawn at accepting homosexuals. There are sponsors that would accept this. But at least one of the sponsors that can't, namely the LDS, says that they can't handle the message that this sends; that even though they themselves wouldn't accept homosexuals as leaders, they can't allow their youth to see that any Scouts can accept homosexuals as leaders. They say that if this happens, they'll quit the BSA. And while no one else has said this for the public record, I suspect that they're not alone. This kills off the possibililty of adopting "local option", which would be where some units would be free to accept people of a certain makeup or behavior (like women, or abortion providers) that other units exclude. Unless the BSA was willing to see those groups leave the BSA, as they were willing to see groups that wouldn't accept including blacks and women leave the BSA.

Only in a court of law would the relationship of sodomy and child abuse be questioned.

Actually, the relationship is questioned in one other place I know of for sure. From the BSA's web site

FICTION

The Boy Scouts of America has chosen to exclude avowed homosexuals from the ranks of its members and leaders because of a fear of pedophilia.

FACT

The BSA does not equate homosexuality and pedophilia, but neither avowed homosexuals nor pedophiles are appropriate role models for Scouting youth.

So it seems the BSA belongs on your list of fools. The BSA excludes homosexuals from membership on the basis of the moral example they present, not any danger of child abuse.

The BSA prevents child abuse not by excluding homosexuals but by instituting and using its Youth Protection policies. These work equally well against abuse by either homosexual or heterosexual child abusers. If you do a Google search on Scouting and child abuse, you'll see that almost all cases involve men that are married and have children and whose registration status was unaffected by the BSA's prohibition against avowed homosexuals.

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