Gay Leaders Condemn Ruling in Boy Scouts Case : Courts: L.A. Unified board member says he will try to end the organization’s access to students during the school day.

Reacting angrily to a state court decision, Los Angeles school board member and former Eagle Scout Jeff Horton said Thursday that he will press the school district to restrict the Boy Scouts’ access to students during the school day.

“I am outraged,” Horton said of a state Court of Appeal decision that upholds the Boy Scouts’ right to exclude gay men from the ranks of Scoutmasters. “It is nothing short of discrimination and it will harm young people,” declared Horton, who is gay.

Although state law requires schools to let groups such as the Boy Scouts use facilities after school, Horton said the district can take steps to bar the organization during school hours. He said it may simply be a matter of enforcing the Los Angeles Unified School District’s existing policy forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Horton was of one of several gay leaders who bitterly condemned the 66-page court opinion, which gave a sweeping victory to the Boy Scouts of America.

“The message that is inherent in this decision is that being different is not allowed,” said Teresa DeCrescenzo, executive director of Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services in Los Angeles. “And any child who might discover that he is different has been put on notice and warned: Stay hidden, keep quiet, lie, be afraid.”

Attorneys said the 2nd Appellate District opinion, issued Tuesday in Los Angeles, was the highest ruling made so far on the volatile issue of whether openly gay men should be allowed to become Scout leaders. Several lawsuits have been filed challenging the Scouts’ policy of barring gays--a policy Boy Scout officials say they have every right to set.

“We are pleased, obviously,” Scouts spokesman Richard Walker said from the organization’s national headquarters in Irving, Tex. “We are a private organization and we have the right to teach youth the traditional values we have taught them since 1910. We have maintained that all along.

“Parents overwhelmingly tell us this is not a role model they want presented as even an alternative lifestyle to their children,” Walker continued.

In a 2-1 decision, the appeals panel agreed with the Scouts’ position that the organization is not a business and is therefore not bound by the state Unruh Civil Rights Act forbidding discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

“I think it’s important that the court has recognized that the Unruh Act does not cover all organized human activity but is confined to the business or public accommodations area,” said the Scouts’ attorney, George Davidson. He added that the opinion had put the Scouts on strong legal footing to fight the expected appeal in the case.

The 13-year-old lawsuit was filed by Timothy Curran, who vowed Thursday to pursue the case with attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union.

“I am still a believer in the Scouting program,” said Curran, a former Bay Area Eagle Scout who sued after the organization refused to let him become an assistant Scoutmaster for a Berkeley troop. “I now feel more strongly than ever that it’s an excellent program run by people who haven’t got a clue about what Scouting means or the American tradition of judging people individually instead of by their membership in a class.”

Now a 32-year-old, free-lance television producer in Washington, Curran said his troop had no objection to having a gay leader. “The Scoutmaster of my troop and the parents in my troop and my fellow Scouts wanted me to stay. They were informed by the national council they had no choice in the matter.”

In a similar case now being tried in San Diego, the Curran decision prompted the judge to recess the trial for a week to study the opinion.

That case--which stems from the Scouts’ expulsion of El Cajon police Officer Chuck Merino--thrust San Diego into the middle of the controversy over gay Scout leaders. A political firestorm erupted after Merino was summarily fired as a Scout leader in 1992 by Scouting officials who had learned he is homosexual.

In protest, the El Cajon Police Department and the San Diego Police Department severed ties with the Boy Scouts and the San Diego school board moved to restrict the Boy Scouts from using school grounds during school hours.

The county Sheriff’s Department, on the other hand, sided with the Scouts and hundreds of people--including a county supervisor, a congressman and the undersheriff--attended hastily arranged “Tribute to Scouting” rallies to voice support for the Scouts’ stand against homosexuals.