THE NEW PURITANS ACLU LORDS ITS PRINCIPLES OVER THE BOY SCOUTS
John McCarron, Chicago Tribune Op-Ed
April 26, 1999
What with the unemployment rate so low, why
can't lawyers from the American Civil Liberties
Union find meaningful work?
Goodness knows there are plenty of un-righted
wrongs begging for the attention of impassioned
civil-rights lawyers with time on their hands.
The Chicago area, to name just one injustice, has
been documented to have the most racially
segregated housing market in the United States.
There's a smattering of integration here and there,
but more than any other metropolitan region, black
folks live in black neighborhoods and suburbs while
white folks live in white neighborhoods and
suburbs.
Extreme residential segregation is a pernicious
problem that underlies many of the Chicago
region's more obvious ones, from bad schools to
joblessness to crime. So you'd think ACLU
lawyers would be filing lawsuits right and left
against every real estate agent, suburban zoning
board and escaped-to-the-suburbs corporation
whose actions enforce this de facto apartheid.
But no. The ACLU has bigger fish to fry.
Its wing-tipped warriors are on a crusade to make
the public sector, especially our public schools, safe
for hate speech but off-limits to any mention of
religion. The ACLU wants to remove religious
symbols from government buildings, flags, seals and
stationary. And in its newest offensive, it wants to
kick the Boy Scouts out of all public schools,
public housing, military bases or wherever else a
tax-funded agency sponsors a troop.
Nothing like having your finger on the pulse of
America. But then, the ACLU never was long on
common sense. Its leaders are absolutists. And
with absolutists it's always the principle that counts,
never the outcome.
To the ACLU's way of thinking, schools like
Columbine High in Littleton, Colo., violate the
Constitution when or if they sponsor an Explorer
post. Or if they dare to interfere with the right of
fever-brained adolescents to dress up like ghouls
and go around shouting "Heil, Hitler!"
When the shooting starts, well, don't blame the
ACLU. It doesn't defend violence, just the aberrant
behavior that leads up to it.
Forgive me for this rant, but I've just read the legal
complaint that the ACLU and its class-action
plaintiffs filed earlier this month against Chicago
Public Schools and other government coddlers of
the Boy Scouts.
It argues that the five adult plaintiffs "have suffered
irreparable injury" because certain public schools
and other government agencies sponsor Scout
troops--an act that "both endorses religion and has
a predominantly religious effect."
This sounds odd because I, too, was once a Boy
Scout . . . even made first-class before hormones
and baseball drew me away to other pursuits. Even
though my troop held its meetings in the parish hall
of my Catholic church, I can't remember anything
religious about it. Cramming to memorize Morse
code, I remember. Building a boy-powered dog
sled to race at the winter jamboree at Herrick Lake
Forest Preserve, I remember. Learning my first
dirty words and getting an eye infection at summer
camp, I remember. Religion, I do not remember.
On second thought, there was the Scout oath:
"On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to
God and my country and to obey the Scout law;
To help other people at all times; to keep myself
physically strong, mentally awake and morally
straight."
But ah, there's the problem, according to Roger
Leishman, senior staff counsel at the ACLU's
Chicago office and the lead plaintiff's attorney on
Winkler vs. Chicago Public Schools.
"It's a fundamental issue of separation of church
and state," he explained. "The evil here is the idea
of a religious test. If you don't sign the pledge, if
you don't say the oath, you are kicked out."
So I asked Mr. Leishman if it's really all that evil for
a boy to recite a ceremonial pledge to which, being
a non-believer, he does not fully subscribe. It's
awkward, no question. But would it not be more of
an evil to kick Scouting, with all its educational and
character-building benefits, out of public schools
and housing projects that, in some neighborhoods,
are the only islands of safety and good order?
"The religion of one group in society," he
responded coolly, "should no longer be imposed on
others."
So there you have it. The American Civil Liberties
Union has surveyed conditions hereabouts at the
end of the 20th Century and determined that public
sponsorship of Boy Scout troops has got to go. So
now the schools must decide whether to spend
precious tax dollars fighting this lawsuit in federal
court or throw in the towel, as the City of Chicago
did last year when it was hit with a similar
complaint.
To my mind, though, it's the absolutists who've got
to go. They should go see what their ideological
purism produces in the real world. Let the 2nd
Amendment absolutists spend a shift or two in a
city emergency room observing the treatment of
gunshot wounds. Let the "establishment" (of
religion) absolutists, like Mr. Leishman, go to a
troop meeting or two and see if a Boy Scout's
pride in accomplishment is somehow diminished by
being in a public school gymnasium.
Then, sirs, if you really care about the communities
in which you live, go find some meaningful work.
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