ARTICLES

True Colors Bared

Did Boy Scouts Win Pyrrhic Victory?

By Allyson Smith

The Boy Scouts of America won a hollow victory on December 4 when the San Diego City Council voted to renew the Scout lease in Balboa Park for an additional 25 years. Despite their 6-3 vote to extend the lease, eight out of nine councilmembers -- including San Diego mayor Dick Murphy and District 8 representative Ralph Inzunza -- repudiated the Scout national policy banning avowed homosexuals and atheists from membership. Inzunza joined homosexual councilmember Toni Atkins (District 3) and Donna Frye (District 6) in casting the three dissenting votes.

Dan McAllister, volunteer president of the Boy Scout Desert Pacific Council, which includes San Diego and Imperial Counties, also expressed opposition to the national policy. In his remarks before the council and on subsequent local radio talk shows, McAllister castigated conservatives who spoke out against homosexuality during the meeting.

At issue was the fact that the Boy Scouts, as a private organization that prohibits open homosexuals and atheists, occupy a 15.6-acre parcel of taxpayer-funded public land in Balboa Park called Camp Balboa. The vote occurred because the Scouts asked for an early renewal of the current 50-year lease, due to expire in 2007, in order to raise funds for facility improvements. Under the terms of the new lease, which includes a city option for 15 more years, the Scouts will pay $1 per year plus an additional $2,500 in yearly administrative fees, with $1.7 million in park improvements to be made over the next seven years. A similar lease for the Girl Scouts, who occupy a parcel adjoining the Boy Scouts, was unanimously approved earlier the same day without any opposition from leftists because the Girl Scouts already allow lesbian and atheist members.

According to the Los Angeles Times, more than 1000 citizens attended the meeting, which lasted over 10 hours at the downtown Charles Dail Concourse Plaza Hall.

Members of San Diego's homosexual and atheist communities turned out in full force to oppose the lease renewal, where they accused the Scouts of discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and religion and of violating the city's Human Dignity ordinance. Many wore Boy Scout uniforms and stickers that said "Merit Badge, Embracing Equality."

Lease opponents were joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, which in August 2000 filed a federal lawsuit asking the city to evict the Scouts from the property unless they change their national policy. A court hearing has been tentatively scheduled for March 2003. The newly approved lease renewal contains provisions for early termination should the ACLU prevail.

The city argues that municipal law and policy do not apply to the Scouts' membership policies because Camp Balboa is open to everyone as long as the Scouts are not using it and that the Human Dignity ordinance is considered a policy, not a law. In an article in the San Diego Daily Transcript on December 6, head deputy city attorney Frank Devaney said, "It's a policy call. It's not a legal call. There's nothing unlawful about the lease."

Desert Pacific Council attorney Matt Peterson gave the opening presentation for the Boy Scouts. He talked about the fact that Camp Balboa serves over 25,000 boys and other groups per year, and named the ACLU and Lesbian and Gay Men's Center among organizations that have been invited to use the urban campground. Peterson did not discuss the moral implications of the Scouts allowing openly homosexual members. Afterward, he presented the council with an approximately 4-inch tall stack of letters from citizen supporters.

At the start of the public comment period, Mayor Murphy stipulated a two-hour time limit for each group and allowed lease opponents to speak first. During their speeches, opponents accused the Boy Scouts of discrimination, hatred, bigotry, racism, and intolerance.

Among those who spoke on behalf of the homosexual and atheists community were state assemblymember Christine Kehoe, ACLU attorney Dale Kelly Bankhead, California Western School of Law associate dean Barbara Cox, and Philip Paulson, a member of the San Diego Humanist Association and "godless atheist," who in 1989 co-initiated the lawsuit against the Mt. Soledad cross.

In his speech before the council, Dignity San Diego president Tom Kirkman identified himself as "a former Boy Scout [and] a former member of the Order of the Arrow.... Dignity was founded in San Diego and was organized not only to be a voice of change within the Catholic Church, but also as a beacon of light for all who seek justice and equality," he said. "I stand before you today to say that the Dignity organization is strongly opposed to any form of discrimination, and that includes discrimination against young men who are gay and who are nonbelievers."

Jess Durfee, president of the San Diego Democratic Club, told the council, "Today you likely have the votes to continue institutionalized discrimination on city land. A year from now, I'm willing to bet you won't."

During their speeches, most lease supporters emphasized the positive aspects of Boy Scouting. State assemblymember Charlene Zettel (R-75) identified herself as "the wife of an Eagle Scout and mother of two Eagle Scouts" and said that her sons now use the leadership skills they learned in scouting to advocate for the poor and the unempowered.

Homosexuals booed and hissed at James Fogarty, a grandfather and former Scout, when he said, "Atheists [have] taken prayers out of our schools, and the homosexuals have given us AIDS. When I was a young man starting at the age of five, I was sexually attacked by homosexuals, several times, and I know there are groups presently in existence of adult homosexuals that rape heterosexual boys. Why is the tail, this one percent, wagging the dog? Why are we exalting homosexuals and atheists when we know that homosexuals are an abomination to God, and God does exist? Why should the Boy Scouts of America be forced to move when the facilities are already available to other people? The key thing is, as a father and grandfather, I want my son, my grandson, and their sons to have a place to go, and grow, without being sexually assaulted or having their belief in God mocked."

Lynn Roland of San Diego told the council, "This is simply an issue of the values of homosexuality versus the values of the Boy Scouts, and if you vote against the Boy Scouts, what you are telling the citizens of this county is that the values of the homosexuals are more important to you than the values of the Boy Scouts. I hope you don't do that. But if you do, let me remind you that you will have to explain to the voters of this city why you feel that the values of one guy screwing another guy is more important to you than the values of the Boy Scouts. Thank you very much. Oh, by the way -- use as much of my tax money to support the Boy Scouts as you care to."

This writer also addressed the council, saying "I did a little bit of research this weekend and I found out that the Lesbian and Gay Men's center in Hillcrest is receiving nearly $1 million dollars in community development block grant funds for renovations. I also found out that the center is registered as a public benefit corporation under the name of The Center for Social Services. If this is true, then all San Diegans should benefit from the center's use of our taxpayer funds. But will we?

"If past experience is any indicator, here are some of the public benefits we can expect from the center: one would be town hall meetings that plan ways to overturn the vote of the people on Proposition 22 such as the one that occurred August 1 for AB 1338; accommodations for sadomasochist and fetish groups such as Club X and LASH that advocate consensual sexual violence including master-slave relationships; meetings with San Diego police department officers to 'educate' them about the problems' of unfair undercover surveillance and lewd conduct arrests in Balboa and Presidio Parks."

Afterward, McAllister apologized to Atkins for the anti-homosexual speeches. "I don't stand for discrimination, and I don't stand for intolerance ... and maybe it's a little bit afield, but I was personally offended by several of the comments that were made earlier by people who advocated for our side of this issue today."

In remarks just before the vote, Mayor Murphy said: "I myself was a Cub Scout for three years. I myself was a Boy Scout for three years. I was a senior patrol leader. I was a member of the Order of the Arrow. I was a Star Scout ... and I was a champion snipe hunter in my youth.

"On the other hand, I need to say that I agree with many of my colleagues I do not agree with the national Boy Scout policy regarding gays. However, I do support extending the Boy Scout lease in Balboa Park, and the bottom line is this: I support the Boy Scout lease because I am unwilling to punish 25,000 San Diego Boy Scouts by prohibiting them from using Balboa Park in order to send a protest to national Scout leaders in Texas. That would be unfair to San Diego children and I will not do that."

Councilmember Inzunza prefaced his refusal to vote for the lease renewal by expressing his acceptance of homosexuality and strong practice of his Catholic faith. "When I see Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts here that have done so much for their community, and happen to be gay, I think that's okay," he said. "I am someone who grew up in a very large Catholic family, and I believe in Catholicism, and I believe in my Christianity. But I take a very unique approach to my religious faith in that my wife and I do it quietly. We go to St. Joseph's Cathedral here in downtown, 5:15 or 6:30 Mass every Sunday, and we do it quietly, we do it privately, and we try not to impose our religious beliefs on others. I think that is the American way."

Inzunza continued, "My wife is four months pregnant, and I have to tell you right now, we don't know the sex of our baby just yet, we will know later this month. And right now, as someone who grew up in San Diego all his life, if we have a daughter, she'll join the Girl Scouts, and if we had a boy at this time, I would have to hold reservation (applause), and I would do that because I want my child to grow up in an atmosphere where he is willing to understand different approaches and different cultures, and people who have different religious backgrounds, different sexual orientation. That's part of who we are as Americans, and it's part of what I believe makes us a better country."

District 1 councilmember Scott Peters, who had been expected to oppose the lease, surprised leftists by voting for it due to overwhelming constituent support. However, he expressed his distaste for some of the pro-Scout speeches and called for a formal council resolution condemning the Scout national policy.

The only councilmember to voice unqualified support for the Scout moral stance was District 4 representative George Stevens. Addressing the irreconcilable difference in worldviews between the two camps, Stevens said, "It's two different frequencies on the same radio. One is AM and one is FM. You've got one line going down the dial and one knob that turns that line. And as long as that radio's on FM, you can turn it back and forth, but you will only get FM; you will not get AM on that station. Those are the frequencies that we're on in America and you need to stop trying to get us on the same frequency because it has two frequencies. It's not going to happen.

"Am I a Jesus freak?" Stevens asked. "Yes, you've got a councilmember who's a Jesus freak and I'm not going to change that. I'll respect you where you are as an individual, and you should respect me where I am as an individual. But don't expect me to agree with everything you want to do."

On his radio show December 5, Roger Hedgecock said of Atkins: "People in that district should know that if they are not gay, you are not represented.... Atkins was trying to get the council members to put off and continue the matter to another date to allow the ACLU lawsuit [to go through because she feels] the Boy Scouts ought to be thrown off public land altogether.... The Atkins attempt to get the council to duck and a continuance failed. George Stevens was the only one who stood up to her."

Hedgecock continued, "The scout supporters outnumbered the [homosexual] activists 2 to 1. While Mayor Murphy bent over to allow the gay activists more time, I actually thank him for doing it, because the more they talked, the less sense they made to more and more people.... Contrast that to the way the Union-Tribune played this issue. You would have thought that all these reasonable people showed up."

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