House Routs Gays for Boy Scouts
by Bob Roehr
The US House of Representatives delivered a slap to the face of the gay and lesbian Americans on Sept. 13 by the stunning margin of 11 to 363. Some 51 Representatives voted "present" to protest the procedural manner in which it was handled. The community's Washington-based political organizations are trying to downplay the outcome.
The vote was on whether to revoke the federal charter of the Boy Scouts of America ( BSA ) that dates from 1916. The charter is symbolic, carrying no financial benefits. It was proposed in light of the Boy Scouts successfully pressing before the Supreme Court their right to discriminate against gays, atheists, and others, and yet still lay claim to government support as a nonprofit organization.
In introducing the bill on July 19, Rep Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., said, "To me there is nothing charitable or patriotic about intolerance and it's not a value we want our children to learn." Revoking the charter would "send a clear message that Congress does not support intolerance."
Only eight Representatives joined Woolsey in cosponsoring the measure. The three openly gay or lesbian members of Congress were not among them. Everyone expected it to die a quiet death in the closing days of the session.
But Sept. 12, social conservative Asa Hutchinson R-Ark., moved to suspend the rules and vote on Woolsey's bill. The debate was fast and furious, with Cass Ballenger, R-NC, defending the Scouts as being "as American as apple pie and baseball."
Woolsey readily conceded that, "And that is why I believe scouting should be available to all boys, not just to some boys." Most liberals, such as John Conyers, D-Mich., focused their comments on the "political stunt" of bringing the bill to the floor with no hearings or committee vote.
But the vote took place the following afternoon. None of the openly gay Representatives voted to revoke the Boy Scout's charter. Jim Kolbe, R-Ari., supported its retention while Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Tammy Baldwin . D-Wisc., voted present.
SCOUTING THE HRC POSITION
"The Boy Scouts should not be able to discriminate against anyone," said Winnie Stachelberg political director of the Human Rights Campaign. But she conceded that they did not lobby on this issue because of the last-minute way it was brought forward.
"I just don't think that there is a legislative fix," she added. And, "I don't think that calling on the President to step down from his highly ceremonial position" is the right way to go either. She indicated that they were unlikely to use this vote in formulating their congressional ratings.
Instead, Stachelberg focused on the "last minute ploy by the House Republican leadership" to vote on the bill, which was proposed by a liberal Democrat.
She defended the "present" vote as objecting to not going through the normal committee process. Yet she had no such reservations for using similar extra-procedural tactics to "pass" hate-crimes legislation that same afternoon.
Stachelberg pointed to pressure being brought to bear on local United Way campaigns and corporations "to rethink their support of the Boy Scouts" as "a very smart tact for us to take."
She praised state and local governments that have or are reevaluating their support of the Boy Scouts, often as the result of political pressure. But she was unwilling to apply that same pressure to the federal government.
Stachelberg claimed not to have read Attorney General Janet Reno's statement that allows federal support for the Boy Scout Jamboree and other activities to continue. Reno seemingly foreclosed further discussion of the matter.
Daniel McGlinchey, political director of National Stonewall Democrats and a member of Barney Frank's congressional staff, said, "A federal charter is totally meaningless and Congress doesn't even grant them anymore." A "present" vote "means I'm not playing your game."
CRITICISM
"The people who voted for the BSA really voted for bigotry," said Scott Cozza. He is president of Scouting For All, the organization that proposed the charter revoking to Woolsey. "It shows that we have a long way to go." Cozza is urging continued education on the issue at the grassroots.
Kevin Ivers, political director of Log Cabin Republicans declined to comment on Kolbe's vote until after he had a chance to speak with the Congressman.
He said that lobbying on the issue was untenable "when the Democratic leadership, the White House, and the Gore campaign refused to take a position that was gay positive."
Ivers asked, "If Barney Frank is going to talk about being outraged, why did he vote present? Why didn't he have the guts to vote no? Or vote yes? One way or the other."
"If members of Congress knew in their gut that discrimination against gay people was wrong, it wouldn't have taken lobbying to get their vote," said Ken Sherrill, "People would have been repelled by it."
Sherrill, a professor of political science at Hunter College in Manhattan as well as a gay and democratic activist, said that by voting "present," Frank and Baldwin "gave cover to a lot of people who lacked the courage to do the right thing."
"You have to ask the hard questions to make them part of the record," said Bob Summersgill, president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C. Recently the group dropped several long-standing questions from the survey that they use to rate candidates and added new ones because success has changed the standards by which gay-friendly candidates should be measured.
Failure to include the Boy Scouts vote in their congressional ratings "tells me that HRC is not prepared to reward courage," said Sherrill. "It is like giving a slap on the wrist to an upstanding member of society who has committed a heinous crime. You did something terrible but we are not going to punish you because you are too respected."
Evanston United Way cuts
funding of Boy Scouts
by Karen Hawkins
Evanston United Way joined a growing list of organizations and municipalities around the country to drop funding of local Boy Scouts of America chapters because of the group's policy on gays.
Evanston voted Sept. 20 to withhold the chapter's annual allocation of $5,000 for the 2001-2002 fiscal year. The organization is apparently the first in the Chicago area to take steps against funding the Scouts.
"They have been a United Way agency for a long, long time, doing good things for kids," Barbara Schwarz, president of Evanston's United Way, told the Chicago Tribune. "It was a difficult decision that we came to, and it came down to the discriminatory policy."
United Way officials told the Tribune they put the Scouts issue on their agenda after hearing from concerned citizens. .
Pamela Sumners, director of the AIDS and Civil Liberties Gay and Lesbian Rights Project at the ACLU, pointed out that the United Way is exercising its rights in the same way the BSA is.
"I think that's sort of one of the lessons that the Boy Scouts case of this summer reinforced—that private agencies like the United Way can choose who they're going to associate with. ... They don't have to associate with groups who discriminate." Sumners also told WCT that the BSA might sue agencies that cut them off in order to regain the funds, something it has done in the past.
The ACLU currently has a suit pending against the Chicago Public Schools for the district's sponsoring of the Boy Scouts, a move the organization says is unconstitutional because the Scouts require a religious oath of their members.
Since the Supreme Court ruling in June, United Way agencies, school boards and municipalities nationwide have cut or limited funding to BSA chapters.
United Ways in Florida, Seattle and Southeastern Pennsylvania have each restricted funding. Most recently, the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., city commission agreed to give the BSA one-quarter of what the organization asked for.
