BOY SCOUTS WRONG (RCJ July 2, 2001)

The Journal's recent Boy Scout editorial (June 22 Wall Street Journal Reprint) displays typical right-wing bigoted spin. No one is discriminating against the Boy Scouts.

To withhold support from an organization with which one disagrees is a basic right. The Boy Scouts have proclaimed themselves a private religious organization in order to protect their desire to discriminate based upon religion and sexual orientation. Based upon constitutional separation of church and state, they are no longer entitled to government support.

The core values promoted by the Boy Scouts are good and have helped a great many young men. But stating that simply because someone doesn't hold the same religious beliefs or happens to be homosexual, they can't hold those same core values is bigotry of the highest order. Bigotry is the singling out of a group or groups and declaring them to be morally or physically inferior based on who they are or what they believe.

That is not only wrong. It is un-American.

Being a private religious organization, the Boy Scouts can do whatever they want. It is their right.

But their current stand is harming what was once a great organization. And it is undermining the very values which have made it great.