Court Weighs Barring Judges From Scouting

At the urging of Los Angeles and San Francisco bar association leaders, the California Supreme Court will consider whether state judges should be ethically barred from belonging to the Boys Scouts of America because the organization discriminates against homosexuals.

California Chief Justice Ronald M. George said Friday that he met with San Francisco bar leaders for an hour earlier this month to discuss their request to amend the California Code of Judicial Ethics to ban membership in the Scouts.

“I heard them out,” George said. “And I made a commitment only to discuss it with my colleagues.”

In reintroducing the issue, George said he was responding to requests from three local bar groups and heightened interest among some lawyers.

“I thought we should have a fair airing of the issue,” he said.

Two years ago, after the U.S. Supreme Court held that the national Boy Scout organization had a constitutional right to discriminate, the state Supreme Court reviewed the section of the judicial ethics code that allows association with Boy Scouts, and took no action to change it.

But Los Angeles bar leaders said in a Dec. 11 letter to George that the state high court should reconsider its position in light of the Judicial Council’s 2001 “Report on Sexual Orientation Fairness in California.”

The report found, among other things, that half of the gay and lesbian court-users surveyed believe that the state court system was not providing fair and unbiased treatment of those groups.

The Los Angeles bar joined the bar associations in San Francisco and Santa Clara counties in asking the state Supreme Court to delete the Boy Scout exception in the judicial ethics code.

Canon 2C prohibits judges from belonging to organizations that practice “invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin or sexual orientation.” But it makes an exception for “nonprofit youth organizations.”

“Such actions raise serious and legitimate questions in the public’s mind about the ability of courts to render fair and unbiased justice,” wrote Miriam Aroni Krinksy, president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.

George said Friday that the court would spend the next few months researching the issues and circulating memorandums among the justices. The justices may amend the rules, refer the issue to an advisory committee or take no action.

Opponents say such a ban would violate their freedom of association and prevent them from participating in Scouting activities with their children.

Under the current code, “judges are put in the individual position of deciding for themselves” whether membership in the Boy Scouts is unethical, George said.

The state Supreme Court has had sole power to adopt and amend the judicial ethics code since 1995. George said all changes to the code have been made by consensus among the seven justices.

Earlier this year, judges in San Francisco Superior Court adopted a ban on membership in Scouting chapters unless those chapters had disavowed the national organization’s policy on homosexuals.