Change comes in baby steps. And when tradition meets the unfamiliar, change can slow to a crawl.
Take the case of the Boy Scouts and gay America.
In the early 1990s, gay activists made a lot of noise when the Scouts announced that homosexuals were not welcome around the campfire. The proclamation – decidedly unfriendly, uncourteous and unkind – was made after the club booted out a New Jersey eagle scout when leaders discovered he was gay. The young man, an assistant scoutmaster with 30 merit badges, sued for discrimination.
In Milwaukee, the activist group Queer Nation pressured one of the Scouts’ top sponsors, United Way of Greater Milwaukee, to stop its funding. United Way refused. Its fundraising campaign fell short of its goal by nearly $3 million following the controversy, and Queer Nation claimed a small measure of victory, but nothing was resolved.
It took 10 years for the eagle scout’s discrimination case to wend its way through the courts, reaching the U.S. Supreme Court last July, when the high court ruled that it was okay for the Boy Scouts of America to bar openly gay members and leaders.
And so here we are again, stuck in the ’90s and mired in narrow-mindedness.
The Scouts continue to justify their bigotry by saying that accepting homosexuals would violate their oath to be “morally straight.” “We believe an avowed homosexual is not a role model for the values espoused in the Scout Oath and Law,” says the Scouts’ national Web site.
Beneath the closed-door policy and behind the term “avowed homosexual” is the insinuation that homosexuality is learned or chosen, that gays for some reason decide to become one of the most reviled minority groups in the land, declaring their sexual orientation like they would declare their favorite color.
But choosing to be homosexual is as easy as choosing the color of your eyes. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the root of homosexuality has biological and genetic components. Researchers are closing in on identification of a so-called gay gene in humans, which would bear out theories that sexual orientation is determined before birth.
Sexual orientation is complex, and defined by more than sexual behavior. But implied in the Scout’s anti-gay stance is the misplaced suspicion that homosexual Scout leaders would prey on boys and persuade them to become homosexuals.
It’s the old recruitment myth that gays have endured for years – that most gay men are sexual predators and pedo-philes. Truth is, the vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by heterosexuals, usually men molesting girls and often fathers molesting their own daughters, according to a study by psychologist Eli Coleman, director of the human sexuality program at the University of Minnesota.
But much of this is lost on the Boy Scouts, who dismiss the facts and use the court ruling as permission to discriminate, as a right to exclude. Like the superficially wholesome images by Norman Rockwell that once graced the cover of the Boy Scout Handbook, the Scouts have slipped behind the times. Their image and ideals once were admirable and pioneering. The Scouts taught environmentalism, encouraged energy conservation and condemned cruelty to animals decades before it was politically correct to do so. Yet today, they sanction a bias against a select group of people.
Since last summer, across the country, baby steps of progress have been made in an attempt to sway the Scouts’ policy. Medtronics Inc., one of Minnesota’s largest employers, instructed United Way of Minneapolis not to use its corporate gift of $1 million to fund Boy Scout programs. Closer to home, United Way Fox Cities voted to pull its funding in 2002, agreeing that the Scouts’ policy conflicted with United Way’s diversity guidelines. In Racine and Dane counties, United Way added sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination clauses, setting the stage for a showdown on funding the Scouts.
In Milwaukee, the time is right for making change. Last year, United Way gave $668,000 to the Boy Scouts’ Milwaukee County Council. A United Way task force has been gathering input on its funding of the Scouts, and in June, its board of directors will decide whether to continue that funding.
In the name of progress, here is what should be done: United Way of Greater Milwaukee should revise its nondiscrimination policy to include sexual orientation. If the Boy Scouts refuse to drop the ban against gays, United Way should cut its funding to the Scouts in half for the next fiscal year and continue to halve it unless the Scouts make a change.
Meanwhile, United Way should also begin funding gay groups in Milwaukee, matching dollar-for-dollar the grant money it gives to the Scouts. One priority would be the Milwaukee Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in Walker’s Point.
Elna Hickson’s father was a scoutmaster. Her brother was an eagle scout and her son was a cub scout. Her son is also gay.
“United Way has got to deal with the issue and not be afraid of the potential consequences,” says Hickson, a coordinator with Milwaukee PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). “There’s a risk of taking action, but to not take a stand does more harm.”
Do the right thing, she says to United Way. Tell the Boy Scouts that homophobia is wrong. Do something any good Boy Scout would do: Commit an act of bravery.
