District Ousts Scouts Over Policy on Gays : Education: San Diego schools will end programs in which volunteers visit classrooms, serve as assembly speakers.

The San Diego school board, objecting to the anti-gay policy of the Boy Scouts of America, voted unanimously Tuesday to oust the Scouts from running school-day programs in the eighth-largest district in the nation.

“We have to send a message to Scout leaders locally and nationally,” school board member Ron Ottinger said. “We will welcome you back into our school district when you end this discrimination.”

The board’s action was decried by Boy Scout leaders but praised by gay activists.

“It’s not surprising,” said Ronald Brundage, director of the Boy Scouts’ San Diego County Council. “The Boy Scouts will survive, but kids will be hurt.”

Frank Buttino, a former FBI agent now suing the FBI for firing him because he is gay, said he hopes the action sends a message “to the entire community that discrimination of any kind is wrong.”

The San Diego Unified School District is the second-largest in the state, with 120,000 students. The Boy Scouts organize programs at which Scout volunteers visit classrooms twice a week to teach leadership and crafts at many of the 152 schools. The Scouts also provide speakers who offer career guidance at school assemblies. Under the board action, those programs will end in July.

The Scouts have long used district facilities after school hours for troop meetings and other events. That will remain unchanged--and was never recommended for change--because the state education code lists the Boy Scouts among groups entitled to use school facilities after hours.

School board President Shirley Weber supported the recommendation of Supt. Tom Payzant but found it “inconsistent” because the school district continues to allow the military on campuses, despite the military’s policy against allowing homosexuals in uniform. The military’s activities on district campuses include a Reserve Officer Training Corps program.

She said the military, even more than the Boy Scouts, teaches a “macho” attitude that can lead to gay-bashing.

In its 5-0 vote, the school board rejected the Boy Scouts’ plea to wait until the issue of whether the Scouts can ban gays as Scout leaders is decided in court. The local Parent-Teacher Assn. had also asked that the Scouts not be ousted.

The school board action was the latest development in a gay rights controversy in San Diego that began last summer when a suburban police officer was dismissed as a leader after Boy Scout officials learned he is gay.

After the Scouts’ dismissal of El Cajon Police Officer Chuck Merino, the San Diego Police Department broke ties with the Boy Scouts and gay activists urged the United Way and San Diego City Council to follow suit by withdrawing support for the Boy Scouts until the anti-gay policy is dropped.

Both requests were denied, but Merino has filed a lawsuit seeking reinstatement as a leader of an Explorer chapter he founded.