Court ruling didn't end Scout debate
Towns, schools facing questions of inclusion

By Karen Brandon, Tribune Staff Writer

For as long as anyone could remember, the Boy Scouts sold Christmas trees at the church on Main Street in Kingston, Mass. The church was happy. The Scouts were happy. It was as simple as that.

But nothing about the relationship between Boy Scout Troop 4480 and the First Congregational Parish Unitarian Universalist Church is simple anymore, and the reason is the Boy Scouts' court-sanctioned exclusion of homosexuals.

Controversy over the matter among church members led the Boy Scouts to a less-visible location, where they sold fewer trees. The troop's voluntary departure bitterly divided church members. One church leader resigned, and another is planning a town forum on the subject, praying that the gathering will not disintegrate into name-calling.

The same drama is playing out in churches, schools, government offices, philanthropic organizations and corporations throughout the nation.

The Boy Scouts, once the symbol of the ideal American boy--honest, loyal and enterprising--are seldom a simple subject anywhere any longer.

The June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the organization's right to exclude homosexuals from its leadership and membership thrust the Scouts to the precipice of the nation's deep and passionate cultural divide.

Last week the Boy Scouts of America revoked the charters of eight Oak Park Cub Scout packs whose sponsor, the Council of the Parent-Teacher Organizations, indicated it would follow the west suburban community's non-discrimination policies.

Legislators in Arizona and Georgia have introduced bills that would bar local government agencies from severing ties with the Boy Scouts.

The leaders of Reform Judaism, the most liberal of the three main branches of Judaism, recommended last month that their synagogues cut their ties to the Boy Scouts and that parents take their children out of Scout troops.

In Ft. Lauderdale, the Boy Scouts have filed a lawsuit against the Broward County School Board for barring the organization from school property because of the ban on homosexuals. In San Diego, the American Civil Liberties Union is suing the city for allowing the Boy Scouts free use of a public aquatic facility and a lease costing $1 a year for prime parkland.

In Los Angeles, the city is on the brink of severing ties with Leadership for Life, a highly praised Boy Scout affiliate program aimed at inner-city teens that has provided the city's Police Department with more than half its recruits. And in Tempe, Ariz., the mayor is bracing for a possible recall vote after he proposed curbing donations by city employees to the Scouts through the United Way.

Previously, the Scouts' position on the subject was largely on the periphery. But all that changed when the nation's highest court weighed in.

Now, even people who have only limited contact with the Boy Scouts, or who admire the organization, find that any connection with the group can become polarizing. The Boy Scouts' stance has provoked many people to take a stand, even when they wish the issue go away.

"It's hard to believe the ruling was in our favor," said Jim Schakenbach, a volunteer with his 13-year-old son's troop in Holden, Mass. "You certainly wouldn't know it."

He said most troops he knew of formerly practiced an informal "don't ask, don't tell" policy. "It simply had not been an issue," Schakenbach said. "Now the Scouts are being viewed in the light of being Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan, and the kids are painted as the dupes of hate-mongers."

The strident tone of the debate--over whether a group that discriminates ought to be allowed to meet in public schools or receive charitable donations or be sponsored by churches--surprised Schakenbach.

He felt fortunate that no parents in the troop pulled their sons out of the organization and that their meeting place was unaffected. But he found himself forced to defend the organization time and again, though he says he would not exclude anyone from the local troop.

"In small town after small town, and big city after big city, government bodies, law-enforcement entities, schools, United Ways and parent groups are having to confront this issue," said Jon Davidson, senior counsel of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the nation's largest lesbian and gay legal rights organization. "The fact that the courts didn't stop it has put the moral issue in the laps of the public. So then, people have to start asking, `Should we be joining them?'

"There is a significant cultural divide in this country between people who believe in equality for gay people and people who don't think that it's an important issue or really don't believe in it," said Davidson, who represented James Dale, the gay man and former assistant scoutmaster whose ouster from the Scouts led to the U.S. Supreme Court case.

At its executive board meeting Wednesday, the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America will receive preliminary word on the results of the fall membership drive and fundraising campaign, said Gregg Shields, national spokesman for the group.

But generally, he said, defections have been few: Of about 1,400 United Way chapters nationally, about 20, among them Evanston, Ill., have stopped funding the Scouts, he said. Reactions from corporations have been mixed. And in most instances, when support is withdrawn, someone else steps forward to make up the loss, he said. Shields believes recruitment efforts have been "not bad."

Mike Sponseller, who works at a public-relations agency in Boston, is a former Eagle Scout. Over Christmas, a Boy Scout in his church asked whether he could put a box in the office asking workers to donate clothing for the homeless.

"I had to go through three different layers of people at my company because of the homosexual issue, and here we were just getting clothes for the homeless," he said. In the end, he said the company allowed it, but only if the Boy Scout connection was not mentioned.

In Kingston, Mass., Bob Kostka, whose son is a Scout, has been straddling the issue at his church. His son, 17, is contemplating whether to begin an Eagle Scout project. The boy has a gay friend and raised the issue in the church.

He said he is struggling to balance his admiration for the local troop with his church's stated first principle, "affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person."

He said the issue drove a wedge between members of the church. "It's been awful," Kostka said. "I was really, really torn here."

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