Scouts are targeted over ban on gays

Plymouth teachers want group off school grounds
November 11, 2000

BY AMBER ARELLANO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

A young but growing national backlash against the Boy Scouts of America's policy on gays hits metro Detroit next week.

The Plymouth-Canton School District's teachers union on Tuesday will ask its school board to bar any group -- including the Boy Scouts -- from recruiting or meeting in the district's schools if it discriminates against gays. The Scouts ban gay troop leaders.

The proposal is believed to be a first for a Michigan school district. School boards such as Minneapolis and Manhattan Public Schools, city and state governments and other groups recently have cut their support of the BSA because of the group's policy. Just last month, the Allegan County United Way downgraded the group from "partner agency" to "designation-only agency," which decreases its funding.

And this week, a Rhode Island troop announced that it won't abide by the policy -- and risks being kicked out by the national BSA.

The backlash follows a June U.S. Supreme Court ruling on an assistant scout leader who was dismissed by the BSA after he revealed that he was gay. The court said as a private organization the BSA can ban gays from serving as troop leaders. BSA leaders say gays are not "morally straight" and are poor role models.

In Plymouth-Canton, parents of scouts say a ban would hurt scouts. Scout master Karl Sponsler says his troop uses school gyms weekly and recruits most scouts at school.

He and other scouts' parents -- plus gay rights and anti-gay activists -- plan to lobby board members at the meeting, though the board isn't expected to decide anytime soon. Among its considerations:whether such a policy would make the district vulnerable to a lawsuit unless it bans all groups from its schools.

The Plymouth-Canton Education Association's executive board, comprising union members, voted 58-1, with one abstention, in support of the proposal.

Mickey Edell-Cotner, a Plymouth-Canton speech pathologist at Miller Elementary, said she supports the change because the BSA's policy is "very damaging to students, especially to gay students who've had to suffer harassment.... We need to give them a safe haven here."

a.. The Plymouth-Canton school board meeting will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the E.J. McLendon Educational Center, 454 S. Harvey, Plymouth.

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