Attorney Says Boy Scouts Are Just Activist Courts' Latest Victim

by Jenni Parker
March 9, 2004

(AgapePress) - An attorney with a national public-interest law firm based in Michigan says yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court's decision in a case involving the Boy Scouts of America signals a disturbing anti-Christian trend in the nation's federal courts.

On Monday the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the BSA, arguing that it is being discriminated against for its ban on homosexuals. The court's rejection of the appeal in effect upholds the State of Connecticut's removal of the Boy Scouts of America from a list of charities eligible to receive donations from state workers.

According to Reuters news reports, Connecticut State Employee Campaign Committee removed the BSA from the list after the committee determined that, because of the Scouts' ban on homosexuals, its inclusion violated a Connecticut law prohibiting the state from "becoming a party to any agreement, arrangement or plan which has the effect of sanctioning discrimination." The BSA has followed its policy of excluding "known or avowed homosexuals" as "professional scouters or in other capacities" for more than two decades, and its right to do so was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2000.

The Connecticut workplace charity campaign allows employees to make voluntary donations to more than 900 charities, including community service, advocacy, religious, and homosexual rights organizations, such as the Lambda Legal Defense Fund. The Boy Scouts was one of many private organizations allowed to participate in the state charitable program, and had done so for 30 years prior to being removed from the list of eligible organizations.

Last year, when the BSA took legal action to protest its removal from the list, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state had not violated the Scouts' constitutional rights. The group then appealed to the Supreme Court. But this time, rather than the constitutionality of the Scouts' policy being in question, the issue was whether or not states could treat the BSA differently from other organizations because of its stand on homosexuality.

Lawyers for Connecticut argued that there was no need for further review of the case and no basis for the Scouts' claim of discrimination. The Supreme Court justices agreed, rejecting the BSA's appeal and ruling that the Scouts had failed to prove Connecticut had applied its anti-discrimination statute in a discriminatory way.

A Disturbing Trend
But an attorney with the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, feels that is exactly what happened. He believes the BSA matter is a case of court-sanctioned discrimination -- and he says it is by no means the first of its kind.

In fact, Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, can cite a very recent example. He points to the case of Davey v. Locke, in which the Supreme Court just last month ruled that it was no violation of the Constitution for the State of Washington to withdraw scholarship money from a Christian college student because he chose to major in theology.

Thompson says that ruling, like the high court's decision in the Boy Scouts of America v. Wyman case, was disappointing. And he feels that each outcome offers that much more proof that the federal judiciary in America has ceased to be impartial.

"The Court's refusal to hear the Boy Scouts appeal, coming on the heels of its recent decision approving state discrimination against a Christian theology student, is evidence of a disturbing anti-Christian trend in the federal courts," Thompson says. "It suggests that the Supreme Court has taken sides in the Culture War facing our nation."

The Thomas More Law Center filed amicus briefs in both cases. In the Boy Scouts case, the Law Center contended that the lower court's ruling was not only a threat to the First Amendment rights and freedom of association rights of the Boy Scouts, but also had "far reaching implications that could threaten the constitutional rights of religious-based organizations that seek to promote and preserve their organizational values, particularly with regard to the issue of homosexuality."

Thompson has criticized Connecticut officials for what he calls their "pandering to the homosexual agenda by punishing the Scouts for exercising their constitutional rights." Thomas More's chief counsel says the Supreme Court, by allowing the lower court's decision to stand in the BSA case, is in effect permitting governments "to legally extort organizations and individuals" in attempts to make them give up their basic beliefs.