Gays Ask Schools to End Scout Affiliation

A gay-rights advocacy group plans to lobby school districts across the country to stop sponsoring Boy Scout troops unless the organization reverses its ban on gays.

The initiative is a centerpiece of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s annual conference, which began Friday in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights.

M. K. Cullen, the group’s public policy director, said the goal is to end the “unique and special access” the Boy Scouts get to schools.

“The Boy Scouts can present in someone’s homeroom, they can get the school lists of students, they can have posters in the halls,” she said. “It’s a very unique, special access that most other clubs do not enjoy, and at the same time they are a discriminatory club.”

The organization has been urging schools to shift support from the Boy Scouts to other youth groups, such as 4-H or the Boys and Girls Clubs.

The effort, to be presented Sunday, is in response to a Supreme Court ruling in June that upheld the Boy Scouts’ ban on gay troop leaders.

The Scouts, with 6.2 million leaders and participants in programs for boys and girls, contend that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the organization’s values.

“We recognize the right of people to disagree with us and disagree with our positions. We simply ask those people to have tolerance of our values and our beliefs even though they differ from theirs,” said Gregg Shields, national spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America.

Local Boy Scout troops merely ask for the same access to schools other charitable organizations receive, Shields said.

A few school districts already have severed relationships with the Scouts because of the ban on gays.

A New York City school board voted last week to bar its 42 schools from sponsoring troops.

The American Civil Liberties Union also is attempting to bar schools, military bases and other publicly funded groups from sponsoring Boy Scout troops.

The city of Chicago agreed to stop sponsoring troops in 1998 after being targeted by a similar ACLU lawsuit.