EQUALITY WATCH : Boy Scout Question

The Boy Scouts of America have gone to court to uphold their policy of prohibiting gay men from serving as scout leaders. The national youth organization is obligated to safeguard its 4.3 million members, but the group should not rule out an entire class of people because of the transgressions of a few. It is true that some homosexuals are sexually promiscuous and that some proselytize their life-style. But that’s true of some heterosexuals, too.

Timothy Curran, a high-ranking Eagle Scout, was excluded from scouting after he took a male date to his senior prom at a high school in the Bay Area. He was told by a local scout executive that “homosexuality and Boy Scouting are not compatible.” Curran, now 28 and a free-lance journalist, would like to serve as a scout leader, an issue that a Los Angeles Superior Court will decide for him as well as for other gay men and women who also would like to volunteer to work with youngsters.

The prominence of gay men and women throughout society gives the case special relevance. And the Boy Scouts have taken steps to become more relevant in other ways. The group dropped its ban on women as scout leaders years ago--a change reflecting the new reality of single-parent families.

For 80 years, the Boy Scouts have been teaching boys and young men to be “physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” The determination of who can best impart that wisdom should be made based on a factual judgment about an individual, not based broadly on group or class stereotypes.