Scouts Seek to Bar Atheists’ Advance

The Boy Scouts of America, which lost a bitter legal battle to ban twin brothers from being Cub Scouts because they are atheists, is now seeking to prevent the boys from receiving the group’s highest rank--Eagle Scout.

On Friday, Scouting officials asked the California Supreme Court to modify a lower court order that commanded them to advance Michael and William Randall up the Scouting ranks without requiring them to “promise to do their duty to God.”

The group wants to bar the brothers, now 16, from becoming Eagle Scouts, a goal that the youths say they have long desired.

The request is the latest twist in a legal battle that received nationwide attention and triggered widespread debate about religion’s role in time-honored Scouting activities.

The case began in 1991, when the Anaheim Hills twins, then 9, and their attorney father, James G. Randall, successfully sued the organization, arguing that their 1st Amendment rights were violated when they were ousted from the Scouts for refusing to swear an oath to God.

In 1992, Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard O. Frazee Sr. ruled that the boys could remain in the Scouts, a decision later upheld 2 to 1 by the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana.

The appellate justices held that the Scouts are a business and California’s Unruh Act forbids discrimination by business establishments.

But Scouting officials have long contended that it is their constitutional right to freedom of association that is being denied.

They believe allowing atheists in the Scouts would undermine the founding principles of the organization.

The state Supreme Court voted to review the case in 1994 but has yet to issue its opinion. That decision left in place an injunction barring the group from cutting the Randall twins from the membership roster.

The scouting organization on Friday filed a request asking the court to allow the group to delay reviewing the twins’ application to become Eagle Scouts pending a court decision on the larger issues.

Devon Dougherty, a spokesman for the group’s Orange County Council, said that in addition, the brothers have not met all the requirements to become Eagle Scouts and should not receive the honor.

“We’ve waited patiently” for the Supreme Court to act, Dougherty said, noting that the case is among the oldest on the court’s docket. “We simply want to know if the twins should advance completely through the program without the case being decided.”

The Randalls could not be reached for comment Friday. But in a previous interview, the boys’ father said the boys “want to be Eagle Scouts so bad they can taste it.”