Father of Atheist Twins Suing Scouts Testifies : Court: He denies telling his sons not to believe in God, saying he encouraged them to pursue their own religious concepts.

The father of twin Anaheim Hills boys who are suing the Boy Scouts of America over its policy of excluding atheists from its ranks testified Friday that he encouraged his sons to seek out their own beliefs in God.

“I have never told my children they should not believe in God,” said attorney James Grafton Randall, who is representing his 10-year-old sons, William and Michael, in their religious discrimination lawsuit against the Boy Scouts. He said he told “them to explore (the concept of God) on their own.”

Randall admitted that he does not believe in God himself but denied that he is an atheist.

“I’m not a card-carrying member of an atheist organization,” he said. He added that he has never “heard what I thought was a rational definition” of God and does not believe there is any “white man with a long robe sitting in heaven at the Pearly Gates.”

Like their father, the Randall boys say they do not believe in God. They claim they have been illegally expelled from an Anaheim Hills Cub Scout den because they refuse to say the word God in a Scouting oath.

Boy Scout officials maintain that admitting atheists to the organization undermines its fundamental principles and violates its constitutional right of freedom of association.

Throughout the non-jury trial, which began Nov. 20, it has become apparent that the opposing sides dislike each other, making snide comments in the hallways and engaging in testy exchanges inside the courtroom.

Meanwhile, the judge in the case, Richard O. Frazee Sr., has frequently vented his frustration with both sides for bogging down the proceedings with irrelevant questions.

On Friday, attorneys for the Orange County Council of the Boy Scouts of America called Randall, despite his objections, to the stand as part of their defense.

At one point during the direct examination, defense attorney George A. Davidson questioned Randall’s educational background, saying that Randall did not receive his degree from the institution he said he graduated from--New York University.

During a court break, Randall’s wife retrieved her husband’s diploma, showing that he did indeed graduate from a New York university, but not NYU. It was the State University of New York.

At the same court recess, Randall chuckled and muttered to relatives in the courtroom: “This is the best they can do with all their money?”

Later, Davidson asked Randall if he raised his children to “question authority.”

“We raised our children to question idiocy, not authority, to question and try to find the answers,” Randall replied.

After Randall’s testimony, the Boy Scouts attorneys called a professor of sociology to the stand. Ricky Slavings, from Radford University in Virginia, testified that allowing atheists in Scouting would “minimize” the organization’s religious values and “reduce the power and importance (of religion) in the eyes of the other boys.”

He said it was “likely” that divergent views--such as atheism--within a small Cub Scout den would “spread to other members of the group.”

Slavings added that it was important that a child receive “consistent messages” about values from his parents and Scouting leaders and that conflicts could be harmful to the child and other members of the den.

Under cross-examination from Randall, Slavings acknowledged that Scouting does encourage its members to experience “certain types of diversity.” However, the professor, who is also a Scoutmaster, said that diversity in the form of atheism would “detract from the primary value that Scouting wants to instill.”