Howard Stern Versus Scouts
by Hans Zeiger

Howard Stern posed last month in Newsweek as a Boy Scout. Holding forth the three-fingered Scout sign with an American flag backdrop, Stern wore an antique Scout hat, blue neckerchief, First Class rank, and the troop number "1906." The photo suggested what the enemies of the Boy Scouts have for many years declared: that one's refusal to live by the Scout Oath and Law is no disqualifier from wearing the uniform.

Cloaking decadence in mainstream culture, Stern aims to move America beyond the moral antiquations of 1906.

Berkeley, California has the same idea. Four years ago, the Berkeley City Council barred a delegation of Japanese Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts from having a scheduled meeting with the mayor in City Hall. They said that they didn't want to signal any support for the Boy Scouts of America, which excludes homosexuals, even though the Japanese Scouts have no policy about sexual orientation.

Once upon a time, Berkeley supported the Boy Scouts of America. In the 1930s, the City of Berkeley began allowing the Sea Scouts to dock their boats at the public marina free of charge to the group. For sixty years, the Sea Scouts continued this arrangement with the City of Berkeley.

But in 1998, the City Council threatened to withdraw subsidies to the Scouts that enabled them to avoid paying the berthing fee for three boats, unless the local Sea Scouts forswore their allegiance to the Boy Scouts of America or agreed to admit homosexual and atheist members and leaders. The Sea Scouts kept their honor and lost their berthing arrangement with the City of Berkeley. Today, the Sea Scouts have cut their fleet to one boat, since they cannot afford to pay more than the $500 monthly fee for a single dock.

Meanwhile, two other nonprofit organizations, the Cal Sailing Club and the Berkeley Yacht Club, continue to enjoy free docking services at Berkeley Marina.

The Sea Scouts sued the City of Berkeley, alleging discrimination. A lower court sided with the City of Berkeley, as did a state appellate court. So the Sea Scouts have taken their case to the California Supreme Court, supported in their appeal by the Pacific Legal Foundation along with the Boy Scouts of America, the American Civil Rights Union's Scouting Legal Defense Fund, and several religious organizations.

"Berkeley has disregarded the constitutional principle that government cannot retaliate against citizens for associating with an organization simply because government does not like that organization," said Harold Johnson, the Pacific Legal Foundation attorney representing the Sea Scouts.

Joining Berkeley in attacking the Scouts is (as always) the American Civil Liberties Union, the City of San Francisco, the Anti-Defamation League, and California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

The California Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments soon. It is an important case in what Newsweek has called the "struggle for the soul of the Boy Scouts." It will determine whether the Sea Scouts are able to enjoy equal access in the community, or whether they are to be further marginalized and weakened in their public role.

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of the Boy Scouts of America to establish their own membership policies. The City of Berkeley need not endorse those policies, or pass resolutions applauding the Scouts each year, or grant exclusive privileges to the Scouts. But it ought to continue its old tradition of granting equal access to the Sea Scouts at the Berkeley Marina. If nothing else, at least the City ought to give standard treatment to the Sea Scouts. What the City has done is far from standard; it is cruel and unjust discrimination.

For nearly a century, the Boy Scouts of America has impressed lessons of honor and character to our nation's boys and young men, provided community service, and taught valuable life skills. Scouting deserves the admiration, not the censure, of our communities. Of Berkeley, we cannot expect a red carpet for the Scouts, but we should demand fairness.

Unless the Scouts are allowed equal access to do their good turn daily, the market for bad turns will continue to grow. Howard Stern will become the poster boy for the Boy Scouts of the future who will by then have submitted to cultural pressure and abandoned its Oath and Law.

Hans Zeiger, a junior at Hillsdale College, is author of Get Off My Honor: The Assault on the Boy Scouts of America, and a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. www.hanszeiger.net

Email the Editor