Gays, Boy Scouts and the right thing to do

Last September, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America, as a private organization, has the right to exclude gays from adult leadership positions. From its headquarters in Texas, the BSA has been fighting legal battles across the country for a decade, clinging to its right to bar gays from membership, both as adult leaders and as Scouts.

It's gotten to the point where I'm almost ashamed to have been in Scouts.

When I joined Scouts in April 1991 — my 11th birthday had just passed, and I could at long last join in the tradition of my three older brothers — gay rights was about the furthest thing from my mind.

For as long as I could remember, I'd sat in the back seat of the family Suburban on Friday afternoon drives to and from my brothers' Boy Scout camping trips, listening jealously to their anticipations of the weekend's adventures, then even more jealously to the stories they had to tell on Sunday. By the time I was eleven, I was proud to take my place among the newly inducted Tenderfoots of Roswell, Georgia's Troop 486.

Shortly before I joined, James Dale, a 19-year-old, openly gay New Jersey Eagle Scout, was fired from an adult volunteer position in the troop where he'd been a Scout for years. He would soon be suing the BSA, under New Jersey law, for "discrimination in a place of public accommodation."

I agree with the U.S. Supreme Court that, as a private organization, the BSA has the right to set its own membership criteria. I also agree with the many cities and towns that have since withdrawn public funds from Scout troops and barred them from using publicly owned spaces for their meetings. If it wishes to exclude gays — and it apparently does — the BSA must be prepared to give up its right to public money and accommodations.

I had a rather typical Scouting experience: weekly meetings, monthly hiking and camping trips and service projects like picking up trash on the highway. The seven years I spent as a Scout gave me many of the best experiences and memories of my life. I hiked on the Appalachian Trail; watched a fellow Scout, on a dare, ride a mountain bike into a river; learned the hard way how to play Chicken underwater; and swam in a freezing mountain stream in March (on a dare). Friendships were forged in rainstorms, in canoes filled with water and over meals burnt beyond edibility.

At the start of our weekly meetings, we recited the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, in which we promised to be "trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent." We didn't always take these recitations seriously — as many of us gave each other bunny ears as made the Scout sign.

But many of us believed in the ideals behind the ritual and tried to incorporate them into our lives. Scouting was about camping and hiking, to be sure; but it was also about trying to do right by others, and, as I grew older, I was proud to try and set an example for younger boys.

That's why I'm so appalled at the BSA's policies of excluding gay leaders and Scouts. While the latter policy is not always strictly enforced, the former is. Either way, the message is clear: Gays are not welcome in Boy Scouts. And that's a lousy message to send to the three million boys, ages eight to 18, who otherwise benefit each year from Scouting's excellent programs.

Even though Scouts is not a "place of public accommodation", it is a "place" of sorts — a place where many boys go each week to learn about more than knots and tents and canoes. The most important lessons I learned were not about pitching a tent or even surviving in the woods. They were about being a member of a community whose members depended on each other.

But what lesson do boys learn about community, when a long-time friend and volunteer scoutmaster, who has earned his post with years of leadership and service, is fired when he's found to be gay? How can a group of Scouts trust their leaders, knowing that those leaders may be forced to expel any member who reveals that he is gay?

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A friend and fellow Eagle Scout approves of the ban. "Honestly, I don't think even the most open-minded person can really expect guys of all ages to be thrilled with the prospect of camping out with homosexuals," he notes.

He may be right that some boys, along with their parents, may not be comfortable with an openly gay scoutmaster. But the problem in that case is not the scoutmaster's sexual orientation, but the family's homophobia. "Homosexual" is not a synonym for "pedophile." Instead of teaching tolerance in the face of a diversity that some find unsettling, the BSA caters to ignorance and fear.

I wonder what it must be like to be a closeted gay Scout. These teenagers surely have enough to deal with, without the BSA targeting them for exclusion. Furthermore, the BSA, in excluding gay Scoutmasters, loses strong leaders who could be invaluable resources for Scouts who know they're gay or think they might be.

By openly welcoming gays, Scouting would only strengthen itself as an organization. It is true that much of Scouting's funding comes from the Mormon church, in whose eyes homosexuality remains a sin. But in reversing its anti-gay policies, the BSA would surely gain the goodwill of forward-thinking groups and corporations who would donate enough to make up for any lost income. It would also stop losing the funding that municipalities, in ever-increasing numbers, are withdrawing from local troops. And it would cease to be seen by many as a backward-thinking organization run by bigoted Texans.

For the sake of the boys it otherwise serves so well, the BSA must drop its homophobic policies. Failing that, it might want to consider dropping a few of the points of the Scout Law — "brave" and "kind" stand out as candidates.

I wouldn't trade my Scouting experience for the world. The leaders and the trips were first-rate, I made good friends, and I learned a lot about working together and getting along with others. Scouting was good to me, which is why I hate to see its national leaders align themselves with the anti-gay bigotry of this country's religious right. Scouting was good to me, which is why I can't bear to see it teach thousands of young boys a lesson in prejudice and exclusion. Scouting was good to me, and I want it to do the right thing.

James Dale spoke last night in Frist 302 about his experience fighting to keep his job with the Boy Scouts. His speech kicked off Pride Week at Princeton. Ben Allen '03 is an English major from Crozet, Va. His columns will run periodically in Campus Notebook. He can be reached at benallen@princeton.edu.