NEWS FEATURE: Religion blazes at core of Boy Scouting

c. 1999 Religion News Service CAMP BALDWIN, Ore. _ Justin Hall and Miles McFarland learned how to rescue a drowning swimmer last week, taking turns throwing a lifesaving ring into Lake Hanel. McFarland, dripping and shivering after an encounter with 67-degree water in the chilly altitude of Mt. Hood National Forest, didn’t seem to mind. […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

CAMP BALDWIN, Ore. _ Justin Hall and Miles McFarland learned how to rescue a drowning swimmer last week, taking turns throwing a lifesaving ring into Lake Hanel.

McFarland, dripping and shivering after an encounter with 67-degree water in the chilly altitude of Mt. Hood National Forest, didn’t seem to mind. For the 12-year-old, the Boy Scouts of America is about”a lot of boys having fun.” Scouting is also about something that has put the organization into hot water: a requirement to believe in God.


Such belief is OK for a private religious organization, argues the American Civil Liberties Union in separate lawsuits filed recently in Portland and Chicago, but it’s unconstitutional when the Boy Scouts are allowed to recruit in public schools.

Win or lose, the cases could damage the friendly relationship Scouting has with schools, potentially reducing membership, now at 4.8 million nationally. At a time when moral absolutes are not as popular as they once were, the lawsuits could also alter public perception of an 89-year-old institution that’s as American as fireworks on the Fourth of July.

For many, the Boy Scouts conjure up images of uniformed boys helping elderly women cross the street, or of young men in the wilderness learning to start a fire without matches. Scouting’s core values are so traditional, it’s as if Norman Rockwell painted them on a canvas.

According to the Scout Law,”A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.” It’s that last one that has landed the Boy Scouts, and school districts that support them, in court.

Multnomah County (Ore.) Circuit Judge Joseph Ceniceros will decide the ACLU case against Portland schools later this summer.

But much is clear already. Unlike the Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts aren’t about to make duty to God optional in their oath. Religion will continue to be a fundamental part of Scouting, whether a boy is Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jewish.

A line has been drawn in the dirt around the campfire.”Will we change?”said Larry Otto, executive director of the Cascade Pacific Council, who is in charge of Scouting in Northwest Oregon and Southwest Washington.”I think we’d self-destruct if we changed. That would be like taking Jesus out of the church. It’s at the core of who we are.” In some cases where the Scouts have been sued for not allowing gays and atheists, the organization has argued it can do so because it is a private, religious organization. The Scouts have won most of those.


But the cases in Portland and Chicago are different because they target schools, not the Scouts. In Portland, Nancy Powell, an atheist, says school officials made a big mistake when they allowed Cub Scout recruiters into Harvey Scott Elementary School, where her son attends.

Powell cites the Oregon Constitution, which restricts religion in public schools more stringently than the federal Constitution. She isn’t seeking monetary damages, just to keep the Boy Scouts from recruiting boys during school hours.

That could be devastating to Scouting, Otto said. Schools across the country have routinely allowed recruiting pitches, which typically invite young boys to give Cub Scouts a try.”You tell me how I tell a kid about Scouting,”Otto said.”Put an ad in the newspaper? That won’t do it. Run an ad on the radio? That won’t do it. Direct mail? Do you understand what that would cost?” While Scouting depends on public schools, it also relies on religious organizations, particularly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon Church. Nationally, the Mormon Church sponsors almost three times as many Boy Scout groups as the second-ranked religious sponsor, the United Methodist Church.

Scouting is the official youth program for Mormons. Their commitment is so strong that local bishops routinely assign men to become Scout leaders as part of their spiritual calling.

At 658-acre Camp Baldwin, evidence of religious activity was easy to find last week: The six-day camp began with a chapel, where a skit illustrated how being friendly to, instead of ridiculing, an improperly dressed Scout was following the Golden Rule.

Some Mormon-sponsored troops held their own”sacrament services,”where bread and water are passed and scripture read.


Each time one of the 225 kids at camp recited the Scout oath, he raised three fingers for the Scout sign, promising on his honor,”to do my best, to do my duty to God and my country ….” Eric Lovelin, 16, of Portland, said he appreciates all this, because”I need to be religious all the time in order to keep my values up and my faith strong.” A Lutheran, Lovelin recalled a three-day hike near Mount Jefferson where he shared a tent with a Roman Catholic friend, Tim Finn, who, like Lovelin, is just short of attaining Eagle Scout.

Heavy snowfall put them on their backs inside their tent, talking. The boys discovered that they disagree on some things but agree on essential Christian principles.

Scouting is nonsectarian, refusing to push a specific belief, but both boys said duty to God, however you define God, is essential.”No one says you have to join Scouting,”Finn said.”It’s just an option. Plus, a larger percentage of people believe in God than don’t.” The adult overseeing much of this is Barry LeVon, who doesn’t attend church and was forced to examine his own spirituality when he became a Scout volunteer nine years ago.

His faith can be summarized, he said, by an experience of walking into a forest, looking at the trees and saying,”Thank you, Supreme Being, for our playground.” LeVon has concluded that the Scouts”aren’t preaching religion, just acknowledging belief in God.” Yet when schools give access to groups espousing even a general belief in a deity, they find themselves in a constitutional mess, said Andrea Meyer, an ACLU lawyer who is arguing the case against the Portland school district.”When it comes to entanglement of church and state in our public schools, being a little bit religious is like being a little bit pregnant,”Meyer said. Attorneys for Portland schools, whose fees are being paid in part by the Boy Scouts, have admitted the Scouts are religious. But they argue the words spoken and Scouting materials distributed at Harvey Scott Elementary were not. In addition, the Boy Scouts are primarily about other things, the lawyers argue, pointing out that only four of 231 pages in the Cub Scout handbook refer to religion.”There is a lot about Scouting other than the duty-to-God portion of the Boy Scout Oath,”said attorney James Westwood.”There’s also duty to country, duty to family and duty to self.” (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM _ STORY MAY END HERE)

The main point, Westwood said, is that it should be left for the school board, not the judge, to decide whether Scouts should continue to have access. The board could decide to ban the Scouts, he said, just as it has banned military recruiters because they discriminate against gays and lesbians.

Otto, the regional Scout director, shook his head in befuddlement. In this season of societal soul-searching after school shootings in Springfield and Littleton, Colo., why would an organization with a proven record of forming young men with strong values be under such attack? It’s no accident, he said, that several of the student heroes at Springfield and Littleton were Boy Scouts.


Yet Scouting finds itself on the defensive because those values are entwined with religion, Otto said.

Otto said he knows there is nothing for the Boy Scouts to be ashamed of, but with these lawsuits,”somehow you feel unclean.”

DEA END OKEEFE

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!