The following position paper was written by Steven Greene (greene@choice.princeton.edu) and distributed at a meeting with his local United Way's Boy Scouts Task Force in 1992. It's included here to help those of you who are trying to convince other organizations or groups from contributing to the boy scouts. -------------------------------------------------------------------- The United Way should cease funding the local chapter of the Boy Scouts of America because the BSA discriminates against gays and atheists. BSA does not deny this contention, and, in fact, has gone to court in at least three cases to defend their discriminatory policies. (See below.) The by-laws of the United Way state that among the "guiding principles of the organization will be...to promote, comply with, and require all applicable standards of non-discrimination as to availability of services, employment, and participation." The by-laws do not state what standards shall be deemed "applicable"; however, the Application for Certification for funding by the United Way asks whether the applicant organization has "a Board approved policy regarding discrimination by age, race, sex and religion." Because the BSA unequivocally discriminate on two of these four characteristics, one can conclude that either the BSA was evasive in its answer to this question, or the United Way overlooked its own policies. In either case, it is time for the United Way to enforce those policies. The United Way should include the phrase "sexual orientation" in the list of characteristics for which it requires non-discrimination policies, in recognition of the fact that New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination has recently been amended to prohibit discrimination on that basis. In addition, Princeton University should require that organizations to which it donates money, materials, or services should enforce non-discrimination policies at least as broad as the University's own. The University should not provide assistance to organizations that support discrimination, directly or indirectly. Two arguments have been put forward to justify continued funding of the BSA by the United Way. One argument is that the BSA does a lot of good work for the boys it does serve, so there's no point in punishing them just because the BSA won't serve a larger population. There are two flaws in this argument. First, it treats invidious discrimination as morally neutral. The policy of the BSA is morally objectionable on its face and should not be ignored. The United Way would not fund a summer camp for poor white boys from Trenton based on the argument that it's at least doing them some good. Discrimination per se is wrong. The second problem with this argument is that it assumes that the discrimination is acceptable because it is not harming anyone beyond a failure to provide services. In fact, the opposite is true. The BSA's policy contributes to a social environment in which 30 percent of teen suicides are committed by gay and lesbian youth, according to a 1989 report by the Department of Health and Human Services. Gay male teens are up to six times as likely as their heterosexual peers to attempt suicide. When BSA spokesman Blake Lewis says, "We don't believe homosexuals provide a role model consistent with [traditional] family values," he sends out a message to all gay teens that their lives are less worthy than the lives of heterosexuals. The discriminatory policy by itself tells children, gay or straight, that gays are an inferior group, just as the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board that segregated schools are inherently unequal because of the message conveyed by segregation. (See Anna Quindlen's column from the New York Times, 5/27/92, attached, for an eloquent description of the harm done by anti-gay bigotry.) The other argument that has been made to defend discrimination by the BSA is that courts have upheld their right as a private organization to choose their members. In fact, the courts have been divided on this issue. A Federal Court in Illinois ruled that the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit BSA from discriminating against atheists. No specific state statute was at issue. In California, two state trial courts have reached conflicting opinions concerning whether the BSA is barred from discriminating by the state's Unruh Civil Rights Act. Appeals courts will have to resolve the issue. In New Jersey, although no case has as yet been brought against the BSA, the law is much clearer. A 1974 case, National Organization for Women, Essex County Chapter v. Little League Baseball, Inc., which went all the way to the state Supreme Court, established clearly that organizations to which "the public at large is invited" are subject to New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination. Little League, like the BSA, has a federal charter, but the court held that did not exempt them from state law. The United Way of the (San Francisco) Bay Area has announced it will not provide funds to local BSA chapters until the BSA changes its discriminatory policies. In recent weeks, Levi Strauss & Company, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo Bank have also announced that they will no longer donate to the BSA. In announcing its decision, a Bank of America spokesperson said, "Regrettably, our nondiscrimination policy precludes us from continuing our financial support of the organization due to its decision to bar scouts and scout leaders based on sexual preference rather than personal conduct."