Boy Scouts Emergency
By Hans Zeiger (03/14/05)
The American Civil Liberties Union is a monster. Threatened by the slightest letter on ACLU letterhead, a victim yields and forgets Winston Churchill’s exhortation to “never give in.” One after another for decades, American institutions have been giving in to the ACLU’s legal pursuit of political correctness. And the one institution that has been a symbol of strength and honor in the face of the ACLU, the Boy Scouts of America, may now be giving in.
Last month, the ACLU sent a letter to the Boy Scouts national headquarters threatening to sue any public school that sponsors a Boy Scout troop. A troop that is chartered to a public school is able to use its facilities and form important connections to the students of the school and the citizens of the community. According to a recent BSA annual report, the Boy Scouts’ third largest type of sponsor is public schools, numbering over 10,000 Cub Scout, Tiger Cub, and Boy Scout units for some 363,000 Boy Scouts.
In recent years, controversy has surrounded public school sponsorship of Scout troops in major cities, and several hundred school districts have made decisions to prohibit Scout charters. It has been claimed repeatedly – by the ACLU, by school board members, by individual litigants, and by activist judges – that a Boy Scout partnership with a school is a direct violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. This is claimed precisely because the Boy Scouts believe in the standards of character that underlie the Constitution.
The Boy Scout Oath says, “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” If there is a single statement of self-government, that is it. But self-government isn’t cool with the ACLU. To maintain the belief that God reigns and that His order requires certain moral duties is to deny men their “right” to do wrong. Hold such rights as they may, men can never uphold the kind of Constitutional government we enjoy in America by exercising them. Character is the great requisite of American government.
The Boy Scouts are not about to abandon character. But there is no question that the ACLU has distracted the Scouts from singly pursuing its mission in recent years. A constant stream of litigation and controversy over its policies banning homosexuals and atheists has transformed the Boy Scouts from a universally respected community institution into a political and cultural symbol. The Boy Scouts of America has not changed – it clings to the same principles it did at its founding in 1910 – but the legal and moral culture has changed dramatically.
And at this moment, the Boy Scouts are feeling the weight of that change. The ACLU is the pressure agent, and the Boy Scouts realize the options: either give in or spend millions of dollars in the court of law and of public opinion defending the presence of chartered troops in America’s public schools.
“We obviously don't want that [expensive lawsuits against schools] to happen,” national Boy Scouts spokesman Gregg Shields told the Baptist Press. “Instead, the Boy Scouts have tried to protect the resources of our education partners by moving our charter from public schools to other community-based organizations such as parent-teacher organizations or Salvation Army units or nearby religious organizations.”
But the Boy Scouts won’t be doing a good turn and they won’t be protecting their educational partners by withdrawing charters from thousands of public schools. The only service rendered would be toward the ACLU. If the Boy Scouts follow through with early plans to undo public school sponsorships, the ACLU will reach new heights of power in the American legal system. Without even filing a lawsuit, the ACLU will have the unprecedented ability to fell an organization or a cause with nothing more than a 37-cent stamp on a threat letter.
What the ACLU is doing is unacceptable. Americans cannot sit still. There are two things that we must do. First, we must contribute money to the Boy Scouts via www.give2bsa.org. Second, we must contribute feedback to the Boy Scouts by contacting the national or local organizations at www.bsalegal.org.
Tell the Boy Scouts: never give in. And tell the ACLU: get off my honor.
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