Boy Scout Ruling

* Re “Boy Scouts Decision Goes Against Atheists, Agnostics,” Dec. 7:

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Welsh vs. the Boy Scouts of America has profound implications. It doesn’t matter whether or not the Scouts are “an establishment that serves the public” (the court wrongly says they are not). The central issue is that the same exclusionary justifications currently being used against nonbelievers is identical to that used in earlier times in countless “private club” situations to exclude blacks, Jews and other minorities from their ranks.

Federal laws are supposed to exist not to serve the majority but to protect the minority, a point apparently lost on the present court. To carry the court’s logic further, Buddhists would also lose a case and be excluded from Scouting because, like the atheists, they do not happen to believe in the Judeo-Christian God. Just what are the Boy Scouts afraid of?

JON NELSON

Panorama City