‘Honesty’ vs. ‘Duty to God’

At a tender age, twins William and Michael Randall believed in the tooth fairy, in Santa Claus and even the Easter Bunny--but not in God.

After all, the other characters brought Christmas presents, chocolate eggs and moola for teeth. If there was a God, they asked, where were the goodies to prove it?

The twins’ refusal to recite that part of the Boy Scout oath acknowledging a duty to God, and their subsequent expulsion from their Cub Scout pack, sparked a nationwide controversy in 1991.

An appeals court in Santa Ana sided with a Superior Court judge who had ordered the Boy Scouts to readmit the twins, declaring that the youth organization violated California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits businesses from discriminating on the basis of religion.

Because other appeals courts have ruled differently--that the Boy Scouts should not be considered a business establishment subject to the Unruh Act--the California Supreme Court has decided to resolve the issue once and for all.

On Jan. 5, state Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments in two cases--that of the Randalls and another involving a Los Angeles Scout who was barred from adult membership because he is gay.

The Supreme Court will be weighing the contradictory rulings in the two cases just when the Randalls are expected to be considered for Eagle Scout badges, Scouting’s highest rank and the 16-year-old twins’ ultimate goal.

If the justices eventually rule for them, the brothers say, their six-year legal battle with the Boy Scouts--which has spanned more than one-third of their lives--would have been worth it.

If they lose, the twins, and their parents, say the boys would be crushed.

“A loss would be devastating,” said James Grafton Randall, the twins’ father and attorney. “It would be like the loss of a limb. They’ve spent 11 years of their lives in [Scouting]. You might as well order up a casket and hold a funeral, because they would have lost somebody.”

Attorneys for the Boy Scouts say that having the twins in the Scouts violates the organization’s 1st Amendment right to freedom of association.

“This case deals with a core Scouting value,” George Davidson, a New York attorney for the Boy Scouts, said last week. “It’s simple. The Boy Scouts ask people to accept a requirement of undertaking a duty to God. If they won’t do that, they can’t be Boy Scouts.”

Davidson said a Supreme Court decision, expected by the end of March, will affect “a vast number of associations [that serve] a defined segment of the population, be it the aged, the young or people of a specific religious belief, nationality, sex, ethnic descent or sexual preference.”

The Boy Scouts is receiving support from an unlikely source, California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, the state’s top civil rights enforcer. In a legal brief, Lungren urged the court to rule in favor of the Scouting organization and against the Anaheim twins.

The Unruh Act “cannot restrict the right of private groups from expressing their own ideas,” Lungren said, “and it cannot be used to force them to alter the content of those beliefs by including those who do not share them.”

The boys and their parents disagree. They say they cannot disrupt the Boy Scouts’ operation simply by refusing to say “God.”

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The twins’ refusal to pledge allegiance to a deity began when they were only 6 years old and were members of a Cub Scout den in Culver City.

Without telling their parents, the twins would lip-sync through the line that mentions God when they were asked to recite the Scouts’ oath, just as they would omit the words “under God” when they were asked to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

When they moved to Anaheim Hills in 1990, a den mother who grew suspicious about the boys’ lack of religion told the twins that they could not advance in rank if they did not profess a belief in God.

When the twins refused to say “God,” Boy Scout officials suggested that the matter could be overlooked if the parents would simply sign a document saying their sons had completed the Scouts’ religious requirement, James Randall said.

When they refused to allow that to happen, the twins were told that they could not be Cub Scouts, prompting a lawsuit by their attorney father.

In 1992, Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard O. Frazee Sr. ruled that the state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits a business establishment from discriminating on the basis of religion, applied in the Randalls’ case. He reasoned that the organization is a business because it sells Scouting paraphernalia through stores operated for that purpose. Frazee’s decision was later upheld by the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana.

Attorneys for the Boy Scouts filed an immediate appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that forcing the Boy Scouts to admit nonbelievers would cause religious groups to drop their support of Scouting--something that would be particularly harmful in Orange County, where half of Scouting groups are sponsored by religious organizations.

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But others have said that the Boy Scouts has been enhanced--not harmed--by the Randalls’ participation.

James F. Meade, a former leader of the Randalls’ troop, described the twins as “two of the finest young men that I had in that troop.”

“They exemplify all of the Scouting virtues, as far as I’m concerned,” said Meade, an attorney in the county counsel’s office. “If every Scout was like them, I’d have a lot less gray hair.”

Since the case began, the brothers have grown from chubby youngsters who shared a fondness for dinosaurs to stocky youths who, at 6 feet, 1 inch and 240 pounds, now form part of the defensive line of Canyon High’s varsity football team.

During interviews last week, the boys sat next to a Christmas tree sparsely decorated with rockets, spaceships and other high-tech trinkets.

The decorations mostly belong to Michael, who said he wants to pursue a career in computers. William wants to be a lawyer like his father, whom he calls “my hero.”

But the twins said their immediate goal is to secure Eagle Scout badges. “It’s the top of the mountain,” William said. “It’ll be the apex in my Scouting career,” Michael chimed in.

Eagle Scout badges, the boys said, would attest to their leadership skills and give them an advantage in college and job applications.

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Both boys said they are “still deciding” about religion, adding that the best way to describe them is “agnostic.” They insisted that six years after the case began, they are still undecided about God and still would not know which God or gods to take an oath to, if any.

Michael said he still believes “the human body is far too complex for one person to make up.”

The boys declined to say what role their parents have played in their religious beliefs, or lack thereof.

Their mother, Valerie Sue Randall, a medical transcriber, is a former Methodist who now describes herself as a nonbeliever.

Their father, James Randall, had planned to become a Baptist minister until he served as a medical lab technician during the Vietnam War.

“If there was a God, he wouldn’t have allowed so many young boys to be blown up and killed,” James Randall said last week. “No God would allow that kind of suffering to go on.”

Since Judge Frazee’s decision, the Randalls have been condemned in Congress by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and by church groups that held marches to protest decisions by Wells Fargo Bank, Levi Strauss and other businesses to yank their financial support in protest over Boy Scout policies relating to gays and nonreligious people.

One little-known fact in the case is how the legal battle has fractured the relationship between James Randall and his own twin, John Randall III, who holds an Eagle Scout badge.

In an interview last week, John Randall, a high school history teacher in Menifee, Calif., said he believes that his twin brother has “a personal vendetta” against the Boy Scouts because he “could never make it in Scouting.”

“Scouting has always been based on duty to God and country,” John Randall said. “The [twins] knew the rules going into Scouting, and their dad did them a disservice by enrolling them.

“I’m vehemently oppose to the whole idea of his boys taking up Eagle badges,” John Randall said. “They do not deserve to wear it. If they get away with this stunt, this scam, and get Eagle badges, I and everyone who wears an Eagle badge would have been shamed.”

James Randall insisted that the legal battle is being waged on behalf of his sons--not him.

He said he is even prepared to break with the American Civil Liberties Union, which co-wrote his legal brief to the Supreme Court, and suggest that the justices could bar gays from Scouting and still rule for his sons.

“I’m selfish when it comes to my boys,” James Randall said. “I want them to become Eagle Scouts. I won’t sacrifice what my sons have worked hard for for ‘the greater good.’ ”

“This is a conflict between honesty and mere words,” James Randall said. “It has nothing to do with me or religion. It’s about two boys who said we have to be honest and not say a bunch of words that have no meaning to us.”

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The Scouts in Court

The California Supreme Court will resolve conflicting appeals court rulings involving the Boy Scouts of America. In a case from Santa Ana, an appeals court ruled that the Scouts could not expel twins from Anaheim Hills because the Boy Scouts functions like a business and is subject to California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by businesses. In a Los Angeles case, however, another panel of the same appeals court took the opposite view, ruling that the Unruh Act did not apply and the Scouts were free to refuse membership to a gay man. The justices’ decision could also affect the outcome of two other cases involving the Scouts. Background on the four cases:

Randall vs. Orange County Council, Boy Scouts of America

Case: Two Anaheim boys, Michael and William Randall, were kicked out of their troop for refusing to swear “to do my duty to God.”

Ruling: The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana upheld an Orange County Superior Court judge’s order reinstating the boys. The appellate panel held 2 to 1 on Feb. 28, 1994, that Scouting is a business and is prohibited by state law from discriminating on the basis of religious belief or lack thereof.

Curran vs. Mount Diablo Council of the Boy Scouts

Case: Timothy Curran was an 18-year-old Scout in 1981 when Scouting officials refused to allow him to become an adult member because he is gay.

Ruling: A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that the Unruh Act barred discrimination against gays, but an appellate court panel reversed the decision, saying Scouting is not a business covered by the law.

Yeaw vs. Boy Scouts of America

Case: Katrina Yeaw, an 11-year-old Sacramento County girl, sued to join the Boy Scouts because it provides more programs than Girl Scouts.

Ruling: A Superior Court judge threw out the claim, and an appellate court upheld that ruling June 2, declaring the Boy Scouts is not a business establishment within the meaning of state laws and could lawfully exclude females from membership.

Merino vs. San Diego Council of Boy Scouts

Case: El Cajon Police Officer Charles Merino, 41, was dismissed as a volunteer leader of an Explorers post because he is gay.

Ruling: An appellate court on May 22 reversed a judge’s ruling that the Boy Scouts violated Merino’s rights, also saying the Boy Scouts is not a business establishment and could exclude gays from membership.

Sources: Court records, Boy Scouts of America, Times reports; Researched by DAVAN MAHARAJ / Los Angeles Times