Can the Boy Scouts See the Light? Don’t Take It on Faith

Columns come and columns go. You lose track of people you write about. You spend a moment in time with them and then you disappear. They do too.

Imagine my surprise, then, to pick up the paper recently and see the Randall twins--William and Michael--staring back at me. I hadn’t seen the boys since the spring of 1991, when they were a couple of precocious 9-year-old Cub Scouts in the middle of a needless controversy.

Back then, the boys were dedicated Scouts intent on advancing in the program. But to do so, they needed to fulfill a requirement verifying their belief in God. Trouble was, neither twin did. Or, at the very least, they weren’t sure. Having conviction in their nonconviction, they already had been lip-syncing when swearing allegiance to God in the Scout oath.

For an organization that didn’t like it if your neckerchief is on crooked, disbelief in God was way beyond the pale for the Boy Scouts of America. Accordingly, it took a resolute stand: no faith, no Scout membership.

Ever the peacemaker, I offered a simple solution in April of 1991. I suggested that the boys’ father and the local Scoutmaster stop the silliness, go have a cup of coffee and work things out.

This week, nearly seven years down the road, lawyers stood before the California Supreme Court and argued “Randall versus Orange County Council, Boy Scouts of America.”

So much for taking my advice.

The high court was the latest stop on a trail that began in Orange County Superior Court and then went to a state appeals court. Both courts upheld the boys’ right to remain in the Scouts.

I’ve been on the boys’ side from the beginning, but not because I’m anti-Scout. True, I was a wayward Cub Scout way back when, but it wasn’t the Scouts’ fault--I’m just not a joiner.

My plea for the Randalls, I thought, was for common sense. There wasn’t any question the twins were serious about Scouting. The fact that they’re now 16 and still pursuing Eagle Scout badges tells you that Scouting wasn’t a passing fancy for them. They don’t give Eagle badges away; you have to earn them.

I said when this furor erupted that the Randalls seem just like the kind of boys the Scouts should want--resolute, intelligent, dedicated, fearless. The notion that 9-year-olds have fully formed notions of “duty to God” struck me as patently unprovable and virtually meaningless as a Scouting requirement. Most 9-year-olds know what their parents have told them; their serious thoughts about theology come into focus later.

It seemed silly to me that the Scouts would go to the mat over this one. They chose to use it as a test of whether, as a private organization, it could set and enforce its own rules.

As a legal matter, maybe they can. I never cared about the legality of this case, but only because the legal point seemed to trivialize the Scouts, which has served this country well for most of this century. It was beyond me why the organization would kick out two preteens over something that wouldn’t even disqualify someone from serving in the armed forces of the United States. The Scouts are acting more like the Iraqi Republican Guard than a revered American institution.

The Scouts no doubt fall back on the tenet that they’re fighting for a principle. If that principle is their certainty that every 9-year-old who ever came through the Cub Scouts really and truly believed in God--not to mention every Eagle Scout or, I dare say, every Scoutmaster--then they’re more deluded than they know.

Neither the Randall twins nor any other religiously unformed youngster could possibly harm or undercut the Scouts. If the best reply is that the Randalls knew the bylaws before they joined, my retort is that that seems awfully heavy-handed treatment for 9-year-olds who want to learn the Scouting way.

The Randall twins could have done what lots of adults do--they could have mouthed a belief in God but not meant it. They chose not to. They didn’t try to convert their 9-year-old buddies into a pack of agnostics. And they haven’t gotten to the verge of being Eagle Scouts by trashing Boy Scout principles.

All they did was tell the truth about an issue that has vexed people for centuries. And they told the truth about it even when it could have cost them dearly.

Are you telling me there’s no room in the Boy Scouts of America for them?

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com