Scouting Warned Explorer Program Faces Cancellation

The Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday turned up the pressure on the Boy Scouts of America over its discrimination against gays and lesbians by signaling it might drop the venerable, Scout-affiliated Explorer police cadet program.

The commission called on the national Scouting organization to end its discriminatory practices when its governing board meets in mid-February. If the Police Commission is not satisfied with that meeting’s outcome, it will take up the issue of the Explorers’ affiliation again at its March 6 meeting and consider alternatives to the program, which for more than 30 years has placed youths interested in law enforcement careers in police stations throughout the city.

Tuesday’s meeting, which featured testimony from Boy Scout officials and from leaders of gay and lesbian rights organizations, reflected the growing controversy over the Scouts’ ban on gay and lesbian volunteers, employees and members.

“It is regrettable that the Boy Scouts of America, which had been such a significant, positive force in our society, has chosen recently to take such discriminatory positions toward gays and lesbians,” wrote Commissioner Dean Hansell in the motion urging the organization to change its policy.

Hansell said he had enjoyed Scouting as a boy and had achieved the organization’s highest ranking, Eagle Scout.

Since June, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the private organization’s policy of barring gays, a number of school districts and cities across the nation have prohibited troops from meeting in public facilities, and some police departments, including San Diego, have severed their ties with the Explorer program.

In November, Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca met with Boy Scout representatives in efforts to get them to change their policy. The Los Angeles City Council recently directed that all city departments review their affiliations with Boy Scouts of America. The city attorney’s office told the council that any existing city contracts with the organization are illegal because of city antidiscrimination laws.

The Explorer program, which operates in 18 city police stations and serves largely minority youths ages 14 to 21, is run by Learning for Life, which does not have a policy banning gays.

Although Boy Scout representatives said Learning for Life is a separate organization, they acknowledged Tuesday that it is closely affiliated with their organization and is staffed in some cases by Scouting employees.

Police Commissioner Raquelle de la Rocha focused on Learning for Life, saying that the Police Department might be allowed to keep its Explorer program, if commissioners could be assured that its oversight organization was truly separate from the Boy Scouts. Hansell said he wanted to be sure such an arrangement was not just a “shell game.”

Commissioner Bert Boeckmann defended the Scouts, saying “it embraces everything we want in young people. . . . I have a real problem in the way we’re going at this.”

But the other commissioners indicated that they had concerns and would consider replacing the Explorer posts with other youth programs if the Boys Scouts persists in banning gays.

“The commission, or at least a majority of the commission, has expressed its hope that the Boy Scouts would change their discriminatory policies,” Commission President Gerald L. Chaleff said after the meeting.