c. 2000 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ A coalition of religious groups from Roman Catholics to Orthodox Jews and Mormons to Southern Baptists has sent a clear message to the Supreme Court: Don’t force the Boy Scouts of America to accept gays as Scoutmasters.

When the justices convene this week to review a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that said the Boy Scouts cannot ban homosexuals, the legal arguments will center on questions dealing with civil rights and freedom of speech and association.

James Dale, a 29-year-old gay activist barred from a Boy Scout troop in Matawan, will argue through attorneys that the Boy Scouts of America is a public organization that may not discriminate based on sexual orientation. Attorneys for the Scouts maintain the organization is private and entitled under the First Amendment to establish its own membership rules and code of behavior.

But for a number of churches and synagogues that sponsor Boy Scout troops and believe homosexuality is immoral and wrong, the issue is being cast in religious terms, and the New Jersey court ruling characterized as promoting an unconstitutional government entanglement with religion.

“Any attempt by the government to regulate Scoutmaster selection decisions in the more than 60 percent of the Scouting units sponsored by religious organizations would interfere directly with the right of churches and synagogues to govern their own ecclesiastical affairs,” warned a legal brief filed with the court by the religious groups.

These groups, which view Scouting as a vehicle for “youth ministry” and pick Scout leaders who conform with their values and religious principles, include the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the National Council of Young Israel and the General Commission on United Methodist Men of the United Methodist Church.

The U.S. Catholic Conference, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Agudath Israel of America and several groups from the religious right such as Focus on the Family have taken a similar position, arguing in other friend-of-the-court briefs that the New Jersey decision places them in a wholly untenable situation.

“Unless the decision is reversed, not only the Boy Scouts of America, but churches, synagogues and other religious sponsors will be forced to provide tacit approval of Scout leaders whose conduct they find religiously and morally objectionable,” said a legal brief filed by the U.S. Catholic Conference.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the largest single sponsors of Scouting in the United States with almost 400,000 members, said it would “withdraw from Scouting if it were compelled to accept openly homosexual Scout leaders.”

The religious community, however, is far from monolithic on the subject of homosexuality, and several groups have joined Dale in expressing opposition to the Boy Scout policy.

The General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, the Diocesean Council of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark and deans of several divinity schools and rabbinical institutions have filed legal briefs supporting the right of gays to be Scout leaders and condemning the Boy Scouts’ policy as discriminatory.

(BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM))

Separate from the Boy Scout case, leaders of the nation’s Jewish Reform rabbis recently endorsed religious ceremonies to unite same-sex couples.

And in the next few months, the Methodist, Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches will hold national meetings at which the question of how to treat gay relationships will play a central role. Many within these churches, as evidenced by conflicting legal briefs from two Methodist groups in the Boy Scout case, hold differing views on the issue of homosexuality.

While more than 60 percent of the nation’s Boy Scout troops are sponsored by churches and synagogues and the program stresses themes like “duty to God,” its bylaws say that troops may not require members to hold any particular religious beliefs or participate in religious ceremonies.

(END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Evan Wolfson, the attorney for Dale, said the religious arguments are an effort to “muddy the waters” and do not reflect the Boy Scout history as “a nonsectarian, pluralistic organization” that is open to all boys.

He said Boy Scout troops are sponsored by civic organizations and public institutions, and use public facilities like schools, firehouses and police stations. The Boy Scouts of America, he said, has a federal charter and tax preferences.

Wolfson argued that the Scouting and its allies cannot hide behind the First Amendment right of free association or religious arguments to intentionally violate the civil rights of gay Americans.

“An organization as vast, non-selective and entwined with government as the Boy Scouts of America cannot claim the freedom of intimate association to shield itself from the laws against discrimination,” Wolfson said.

George Davidson, the attorney for the Boy Scouts, said the New Jersey Supreme Court decision now being challenged would “force Scouting to appoint openly gay leaders when the organization believes that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with its principles that Scouts should be `morally straight.’

“This case involves the constitutional right at the heart of our free society: the freedom of a private, voluntary, noncommercial organization to create and interpret its own moral code, and to choose leaders and define membership criteria accordingly,” said Davidson.

In its unanimous decision last year, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts are a place of “public accommodation and are therefore bound by the state’s anti-discrimination law.” That law specifically bans discrimination based on sexual orientation.

New Jersey was the first state to reach such a ruling. Previously, top state courts in California, Connecticut, Kansas and Illinois and a federal appeals court in Chicago have ruled the Boys Scouts of America is a private organization that can deny admission to those who do not share its fundamental values.

Dale, now living in New York City and working at Poz, a magazine devoted to dealing with the problems of people with AIDS and HIV, earned 30 merit badges and other awards during his 12 years in the organization.

He was expelled by the Monmouth Council of the Boy Scouts in 1990 after the group learned from an article in The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., that he was gay and co-president of the Rutgers University Lesbian/Gay Alliance. He sued in 1992, losing in the trial court but then winning on appeal.

DEA END COHEN