Aknauta
03-06-2003, 12:53 PM
Pacific Legal Foundation
Blacklisting the Boy Scouts
By: Mark Pulliam
Phone: (916) 362-2833
The Boy Scouts of America are under attack—again—this time from an unlikely source: the organized bar.
Notwithstanding the 2000 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America vs. Dale, affirming the constitutional right of the Boy Scouts to exclude avowed homosexuals as adult leaders, the battle is not over. Groups opposed to the traditional values espoused by the Boy Scouts continue their campaign of intimidation and pressure. In California, several local bar associations are seeking to ostracize the Boy Scouts by prohibiting state court judges from participating in the organization on the ground that its ban on homosexual leaders makes it a “hate group” akin to the KKK. San Francisco’s judges have already formally cut ties with the Scouts.
The contention that the Boy Scouts should be shunned by respectable people—literally treated as outcasts—is profoundly misguided, for several reasons. First, the Boy Scouts are an American institution—a national icon. Over 3.3 million youth members, and more than 1.2 million adult volunteers, currently participate. Generations of Americans (more than 110 million youths since the Boy Scouts were founded in 1910) have participated in scouting.
The latest attack on the Boy Scouts comes from the bar associations for San Francisco (http://www.pacificlegal.org /view_Commentaries.as p?iID=79&sTitle=Blacklisting+ the+Boy+Scouts)
Blacklisting the Boy Scouts
By: Mark Pulliam
Phone: (916) 362-2833
The Boy Scouts of America are under attack—again—this time from an unlikely source: the organized bar.
Notwithstanding the 2000 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America vs. Dale, affirming the constitutional right of the Boy Scouts to exclude avowed homosexuals as adult leaders, the battle is not over. Groups opposed to the traditional values espoused by the Boy Scouts continue their campaign of intimidation and pressure. In California, several local bar associations are seeking to ostracize the Boy Scouts by prohibiting state court judges from participating in the organization on the ground that its ban on homosexual leaders makes it a “hate group” akin to the KKK. San Francisco’s judges have already formally cut ties with the Scouts.
The contention that the Boy Scouts should be shunned by respectable people—literally treated as outcasts—is profoundly misguided, for several reasons. First, the Boy Scouts are an American institution—a national icon. Over 3.3 million youth members, and more than 1.2 million adult volunteers, currently participate. Generations of Americans (more than 110 million youths since the Boy Scouts were founded in 1910) have participated in scouting.
The latest attack on the Boy Scouts comes from the bar associations for San Francisco (http://www.pacificlegal.org /view_Commentaries.as p?iID=79&sTitle=Blacklisting+ the+Boy+Scouts)