Los Angeles Cuts Ties with Boy Scouts Over Gay Issue
By Sarah Tippit
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday voted 11 to 0 to cut the city's ties with the Boy Scouts of America, saying the group's exclusion of homosexuals and atheists was discriminatory.
The vote followed similar moves by municipalities, police departments and groups across the country to show displeasure at a Supreme Court decision last June that upheld the Boy Scouts right to exclude homosexuals. The court, by a 5 to 4 vote, said the Scouts had the right to set its own moral code and espouse its own viewpoint.
But City Council members said Los Angeles law prevents relationships with organizations that discriminate. ``We don't have a choice legally. Both the spirit and the content of existing city law is very clear: the city shouldn't participate in a discriminatory practice or policy,'' Councilman Mike Feuer said.
He added: ``Nobody, including the Boy Scouts ... has articulated what the difference is between discriminating on the basis of race, on the one hand, which they would agree ought never happen, and discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.''
A Boy Scouts spokesman declined to comment on the vote Tuesday. ``It came so quick we're just looking at our options as to just exactly what we are facing here,'' Boy Scouts spokesman Joey Robinson said.
Police Department To Dismantle Its Explorer Unit
Under terms of the measure, the Los Angeles Police Department will be asked to dismantle its Explorers unit, a Boy Scouts-affiliated police cadet training program for young people, within 90 days, and create an alternative, said Laura Esquivel, assistant to Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, a gay rights activist who heads the city's personnel committee and was a major backer of the measure.
All other city departments will be audited to determine whether other contractual relationships exist with Boy Scouts affiliates, and all city contracts will be examined to ensure they contain non-discriminatory clauses, and are in compliance with city code, Esquivel said.
In addition, the city's department of Parks and Recreation will, in the future, charge the Boy Scouts a fee to use its facilities for camping and other activities, Esquivel said.
``They had been in the practice of waiving fees for certain scout activities. We pointed out that their criteria should be consistent with the city's non-discrimination policy. The Boy Scouts no longer qualify to be subsidized by taxpayer money because we have an obligation not to subsidize organizations that discriminate,'' Esquivel said.
The Boy Scouts exclude ``avowed homosexuals'' from its ranks, maintaining they violate the Scouting oath to be ``morally straight'' and the Scouting law to be ``clean.''
The Scouts has recently initiated a separate, non-discriminatory values education program to be used in public schools, hospitals, fire departments and police cadet programs called ``Learning For Life'' which has no membership rules and is open to girls and homosexuals, spokesman Robinson said.
More than 90 million Americans have joined the Boy Scouts since the organization was founded in 1910. It now has nearly 5 million members between the ages of 11 and 17 and nearly 1.3 million adult leaders. |
