Dozens Protest Exclusive Rules at Scouts Event

Demonstrators on Saturday swarmed entrances to the largest Boy Scout event of the year in Orange County, protesting the organization’s exclusion of homosexuals and boys who refuse to profess a belief in God.

About 35 protesters formed lines at the Scout-O-Rama in Fountain Valley. They stood along the roadside holding up signs denouncing religious extremism and bigotry that Scouts and their parents could read as they passed by in their cars.

“It’s so backward for the Boy Scouts to have exclusion as a policy on the cusp of the 21st century,” said Edward Tabash, a Beverly Hills attorney, atheist and self-described “secular humanist.” “The way some Christians behave in this county, you’d almost believe Jesus was born in Fullerton.”

The coalition of atheistic and “free thought” groups chose Orange County as a protest site because of the showdown between the local Boy Scouts council and the Randall twins of Anaheim Hills.

The 16-year-old twins, professed agnostics, waged a seven-year legal battle to retain their Boy Scout membership, losing in a decision by the California Supreme Court in March.

Scouts and their families encountered the protesters as they entered Mile Square Regional Park. While many simply rolled up their windows and drove past, others waved away demonstrators who tried to approach them with fliers.

“We’re getting used to the rejection,” said protester Diane Bridgford of Los Angeles.

The protest had no effect inside the event as Scouts climbed, ran, played games and built towers and tepees out of wood and rope.

“Attacking the Boy Scouts--that is really sad,” said one Scout father who declined to give his name. “This is not appropriate at all.”

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Some parents said that they were uncomfortable with the criticism but that the protesters had a point.

“We wish there was another organization like this, an alternative we could try,” said Jacqueline Guzzetta of Irvine, who came with her husband, Lawrence, and their sons, ages 3 and 8.

“I was a Scout as a kid and was excited about my kids being Scouts,” Lawrence Guzzetta said. “Why the discrimination? Why any discrimination?

“I feel a little hypocritical having my sons involved in this, but there are so many positive things that Scouting does.”

The Orange County council of the Boy Scouts knew of the planned protest, which remained civil throughout the day and ended without serious confrontation. Scout leaders handed out their own literature to incoming Scouts and families, deploring the protest.

“As Scouts, we’re always tolerant of other people’s views as we celebrate diversity and seek to include all young people who want to better themselves and their community,” said the statement written by Ed Laird and Kent Gibbs, chairman and president of the Orange County Boy Scouts Council.

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But protesters questioned the Boy Scouts’ tolerance, saying the Randall twins were excluded for being honest--a Scouting value--about their religious views.

“Here are two very fine American boys, moral boys, very studious American boys,” Tabash said. “They are now being denied the opportunity to benefit from Scouting.”

Michael and William Randall, involved in Scouting since they were 7, carried their fight for their Eagle Scout badges and Boy Scout membership to the state Supreme Court, beginning a legal battle in 1991 after an attempt to eject them for refusing to take a religious oath.

An Orange County Superior Court judge sided with the twins, but the Boy Scouts appealed. A recommendation to award the Randalls the coveted Eagle Scout badge was pending when the state Supreme Court ruled in March that, as a private social organization, the Boy Scouts did not have to admit either agnostics or gays.

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Inside Scout-O-Rama, the protest had little discernible effect in the crush of boys and girls scrambling from booth to booth and game to game to try out new skills and challenges.

They traversed rope bridges and climbed sheer 24-foot-high walls. They floated in canoes in a makeshift lake and trundled down zip lines, clutching handles on pulley-guided carts.

Each of the rides and challenges was built and supervised by separate troops and packs.

“This is a great opportunity for Scouts from all over to get together and see what other Scouts in the county are doing,” said Tom Kupfrian, a leader of Cub Scout Pack 120 from Anaheim, where furious games of box hockey were in progress on wooden game boards built by Cub Scouts.

Nearby, Bob Obbards, a volunteer adult for Boy Scout Troop 316 in Santa Ana, oversaw a growing clamor for chances to ride the zip line, built of wood and steel cable by Scouts and a group of fathers that included a structural engineer and former longshoreman familiar with cable work.

“The real purpose here is to create a challenge or demonstrate a skill,” he said. “It’s what Scout-O-Rama is here for.”

The Scouts have more than 4 million members nationwide, with nearly 440,000 in California, including 94,000 in Orange County, officials said.