Philly Boy Scouts Policy Conflicts with Fair Practices Ordinance

Philadelphia's Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts Council entered talks last week with city officials, concerned that the organization's anti-gay position violates the city's Fair Practices ordinance that forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation. The nation's third largest Boy Scouts Council, which serves 87,000 youths in Philadelphia, Delaware and Montgomery Counties, has had free use of city-owned property located at 22nd and Winter streets since 1928. William T. Dwyer III, executive director of the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts Council, told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "There's no easy answers here. We're getting calls from the right not to give in to the radical left. There is no middle ground. You wouldn't believe the magnitude of homophobic bigotry out there." Meetings are expected to continue this week.

Last May, the Cradle of Liberty council voted unanimously to add sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy. However, the new policy was rescinded after the national council threatened to revoke its charter. Less than one month later, Life Scout Greg Lattera was ousted from the organization after he admitted being gay at the Boy Scouts national conference.

Since the 2000 Supreme Court decision, ruling that the Boy Scouts-a private organization-was free to set its member selection criteria, even if it discriminated against homosexuals, several national donors to the Boy Scouts have reduced and/or eliminated contributions, including the Pew Charitable Trusts, regional chapters of the United Way.

To clear up any confusion, Mr. Dwyer is the Scout Executive of Cradle of Liberty Council. As such, he is a professional Scouter. Professional Scouters are trained by National Council, BSA, and then certified by them to be eligible to be hired by BSA Local Councils for professional positions such as District Executive and Scout (Council) Executive. They also comprise the management of staffs of Regional and Council offices and various other BSA establishments, where the BSA does the hiring. As a Local Council Executive, however, it's the local Council's Executive Board, a body composed of local business and community leaders, that hire and fire the Council's professional staff. If they're not happy, he's out of a job once his contract is up. Most professional Scouters spend their entire careers going from local Council to local Council, being hired and evaluated by various local Council boards and never getting hired by the BSA itself.

I'm sure there are no easy answers here (telling the City of Philadelphia to stuff it and move out of the HQ may be the right answer, but it's not easy and will cost much $). And while the statement about "homophobic bigotry" seems over the top, I'll wager that among the calls and e-mails he gets are some entirely unreasonable "kill all the faggots" messages. And some messages saying "kill all the right-wing fag-haters" as well.

Prior to this, most Scouters would have thought that becoming Scout Executive of the nation's 3rd largest Council would be seen as a big step up towards a spot in Regional or National; even possible consideration as the next Chief Scout Executive. Not now.

Life Scout Greg Lattera was ousted from the organization after he admitted being gay at the Boy Scouts national conference.

Interesting spin. Usually, "admitted" is taken to mean that you divulged information against your own interest, with reluctance, upon being questioned. But the BSA's policy forbids questioning Scouts or Scouters about their sexual orientation, and they have enforced this by restoring to his position one Scout (a summer camp counselor) who was questioned about his orientation and then fired when he answered honestly that he was gay.

Whereas Greg Lattera wasn't questioned by the BSA about his orientation; he called a press conference with the express reason of revealing his orientation in an attempt to force the BSA to respond. This fits the definition of "avowed homosexual". Thus, in accordance with policy that he was well aware of and deliberately defied, his registration was revoked.

Me too, as well as a considerable amount of my time (I totaled it up in 2000 - came out to 1000 hours that year, but I credit myself with 24 hours/day when I'm on a campout on the theory that if some kid wakes up with illness or whatever in the middle of the night, I'm on call).

But when the UW is mentioned, numerous people have about as much understanding of how it works as they have of how the BSA works, so I think that the 1550+ UW chapters that have chosen to continue to support the BSA should at least get my verbal thanks and acknowledgement, if not my money.

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