On Their Honor, They Will Try to Bend the Scout Law

In a tough neighborhood in the Bronx, back in the ‘40s, Howard Menzer thought that the Boy Scouts of America was forever. That his bond with the Scouts would be as strong as the knots that he and his buddies learned to tie. Buddies like Frankie, who invited him over for Christmas dinners and didn’t care that he was Jewish. And Barry, the chubby kid who turned into a tall, strapping Scout, and Lenny, who later would be openly gay. Together, they camped in the snow at the Delaware River and played curb ball in front of Sadies’ candy store.

Five decades later, Menzer still pins a Boy Scout emblem to his jacket every day before heading to work as a TV salesman at Sears in San Diego. The 63-year-old grandfather still carries a membership card in his wallet and, until recently, served as a Scouts volunteer. He still loves the Boy Scouts but says he can no longer volunteer for an organization that he sees as discriminatory.

For years, Menzer sat quietly as the Boy Scouts fought court battles to defend its ban on agnostics, gays and others who don’t meet membership standards. Then, in June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the organization’s right to exclude gays from its ranks. (By contrast, the Girl Scouts, a separate organization, does not exclude gays, a spokeswoman says.)

Enough, thought Menzer, a former Eagle Scout and 54-year Scouting member.

Since then, Menzer and a small but clamorous number of longtime Scouts supporters--including funders and public officials--have publicly rebuked the organization. Boy Scouts executives, meanwhile, underscore that they are a member-driven organization--and the numbers are up, despite the ongoing controversy. But some former Eagle Scouts, including gays and straights, have turned in their badges, renouncing the Scouts completely. Others, like Menzer, are deeply conflicted, torn between their conscience and their loyalty to a group that helped shape who they are.

“I’m ashamed of the policies, not the organization,� says Menzer, whose now-grown son was a Boy Scout. “It’s a great organization for boys. The only problem is when they start teaching hate. . . . I’m very proud of what I’ve done with the Boy Scouts. I’m very saddened by what it has become.�

Last week, wearing his old khaki Scout leader’s uniform, Menzer led an eight-person demonstration in San Diego, part of a nationwide protest against the Boy Scouts. Menzer decided to lead the local protest after hooking up with a nonprofit advocacy group, Scouting for All, which spearheaded the National Day of Protest rallies last week in 40 cities.

Nationwide, a fledgling movement against the Boy Scouts is picking up steam. In San Diego, for instance, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to force the city to oust the local Scouts from public property. In other fallout, major funders are reevaluating their support of the national organization.

So far, the financial impact has been minimal, but the symbolism is unmistakable--a group that has long been synonymous with all-American, apple pie righteousness is falling out of favor in key circles, including with at least 11 members of Congress who signed a letter to President Clinton urging him to resign as honorary head of the Boy Scouts. In what would be a symbolic gesture, Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey (D-Petaluma) has introduced legislation to revoke the Boy Scouts’ federal charter.

Also, some major companies, including Chase Manhattan Corp., are reviewing their financial support of the Scouts, and several local United Ways across the country have decided to withdraw funding. (The United Way of Greater Los Angeles is not among them).

“We recognize their right to do so,� says Gregg Shields, national spokesman for the Boy Scouts in Irving, Texas. “At the same time, in recent years, we’ve seen a tremendous increase in the number of members. We see this as a tremendous sign of support. . . . We believe parents want for their children, for their youth, the kinds of values and beliefs that the Boy Scouts is teaching.� In the past three years, Shields says, membership has grown 7% nationwide to 6.2 million. He says the Boy Scouts has no way of knowing how many members have quit in protest of the ban on gays.

In the Boy Scouts’ Los Angeles Area Council, no Scouts or troop leaders have dropped out in protest. But two or three of the 98 board and advisory board members have resigned since the Supreme Court’s decision, says Joey Robinson, the council’s spokesman. He would not divulge their names.

At the Boy Scouts’ Long Beach Area Council, Scouts executive Lee Martin says he has received several hundred calls in response to the Supreme Court’s decision, “100% of them in favor of it. No one--and this is the amazing thing--has been negative toward the gay community. The reaction is, ‘OK, it’s decided. Let’s get on with life.’ �

But, with enough pressure, some former Scouts believe, the organization will be forced to open its membership. In one form of protest, for instance, about two dozen Eagle Scouts--of 1.4 million--have turned in their badges to the organization’s Irving office, a Boy Scouts spokesman says. Another 22 Eagle Scouts nationwide have posted their names on a Web site list of those who have turned in their medals to Scouting for All. And, suggest Scouting for All members, if famous Eagle Scouts like Steven Spielberg would renounce their awards too. . . .

An Eagle Scout Protests for the First Time

Others, including David Horne, 24, of San Bernardino aren’t sure they want to give up their hard-won Eagle Scout honor. Horne wouldn’t even wear his old Scouts uniform to a protest he led at a regional Boy Scout office in Redlands, although one of two other protesters did. Horne knows the rule: The Scouts uniform is only for official functions.

“It would be disrespectful and dishonorable [otherwise],� says Horne, a second-grade teacher. “I still consider myself a Boy Scout. It’s part of my being and who I am, and I don’t want to disrespect the organization or the credentials I earned.�

He started out as a Cub Scout in Bloomington, Ind., because he liked the idea of getting up early and raising the U.S. flag at school. He and his dad, a factory worker and assistant Scoutmaster, worked together to shave down balsa-wood derby race cars. For his Eagle Scout project, Horne designed a playground for his church, working with contractors and raising money. These days, when he visits his parents in Bloomington, he sees kids playing on the slides and swings at the playground he helped build. And he remembers what it was like to feel at 16 that, with such a project under his belt, he was ready for anything.

He had never before protested against any cause or organization.

“I’m saddened, and I really don’t want them to be hurt in any way,� Horne says, “but if they’re going to discriminate, it’s just outright wrong.�

The Rev. Gene Huff decided that it wasn’t enough for him to join 50 other people at a demonstration in San Leandro.

So he returned to the Boy Scouts-- “one of the treasures of my life�--his Eagle Scout medal, which was pinned on his chest by his mother on the stage of a public park in Chickasha, Okla. As a Scout in the early 1940s, he rode in the back of a pickup truck and collected scrap iron for the war effort. Decades later, two of his sons would join the Scouts.

“We’re not against Scouting. We’re against this abominable policy,� says Huff, 72, a Presbyterian minister in San Francisco. “I would tell people to go ahead and be active in Scouting but express your protest. . . . I’m sure there will be some who will not want to be part of Scouting, and that’s the tragedy of it.�

Scott Imler, 42, and his dad still talk about their Scouting days together in St. Louis. Days spent floating on a river. Horseback riding in the woods. Skiing in Colorado.

Imler, now of West Hollywood, remembers how Scouting pumped up his self-esteem. He was a skinny weakling of a kid. But one day, at Boy Scout summer camp, he beat all the other kids in his troop in a mile swim--and he still has the award to prove it.

“I still get goose bumps thinking about all these things,� says Imler, director of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center, an organization that supports the medicinal use of marijuana. “I would hate to think that parents would pull their kids out because of the people in control of it now.�

In May 1972, after painting an old firehouse as his community service project, Imler got his Eagle Scout award. He’s not ready to give it back. “I’m not willing to write off the Boy Scouts, to think that it can’t be saved. The memories are too strong. It’s too much a part of who I am.�

He and other Scouts supporters in the West Hollywood area have met to discuss options, such as working with a local church to start a troop that would pass an antidiscrimination policy. (According to Scouting for All, several Scouts units have approved such policies, which means that they would not exclude gays. But Shields, the Boy Scouts spokesman, says he is unaware of any troops that have such a policy, and local units would not be allowed to ignore the ban on gays.)

Also in West Hollywood, in a rebuke to the Boy Scouts, the City Council is considering a resolution prohibiting the use of public buildings by groups that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Councilman Steve Martin, a former Eagle Scout, has been wearing his Eagle Scout badge with an attached pink triangle, a gay pride symbol. His individualized badge, he says, raises more awareness of the issue than he would by sending his Eagle Scout award back. Besides, says Martin, 46, “it’s easy to run away. As an Eagle Scout, the idea that you would run away is incomprehensible.�

Using Controversy to Talk About Prejudice

Parents of Scouts face tough choices if they believe the group’s values conflict with their own. But if they decide to pull their son out of Scouting, they can use the opportunity to talk about the importance of inclusion, without specifically mentioning gays, says psychologist Neil Ribner, director of the Family Services Center at Alliant University in San Diego.

“You can teach the general idea that you don’t like the idea that certain people, because of the way they think or feel, or their religion or skin color, are excluded from something,� Ribner says. As an example, he says, if the child has red hair, the parent can ask, would it be OK for a baseball team to say that redheaded kids can’t play?

Michael Pino, 42, and his wife, Julie, had a similar talk with their 11-year-old son, Dominic, flipping through the Boy Scout Handbook and discussing passages such as, being compassionate to all people is an important antidote to the poisons of hatred.

“We said, ‘When you ban people from something, it’s a form of prejudice.’ � says Michael Pino, a utility company supervisor in Ojai. They also told Dominic that it’s OK to disagree with an organization, even if you belong to it. As an example, they told him that as Catholics, they don’t always agree with the church. “But you don’t leave it,� says Pino, who recently accompanied his son on a weeklong Scouts camping trip near Yosemite. “You try to change what you don’t like.�

With a parent’s help, kids older than 12 or so can decide whether they want to stay in Scouts, even if they disagree with its policies, says Peter Nardi, professor of sociology at Pitzer College in Claremont. Parents can also encourage their kids to look into joining an organization that doesn’t discriminate.

Menzer, the 54-year Scouting veteran, says he would not mind if his grandson joined a Scout troop, as long as it was open to all males. “Do I love Scouting? Yes. Do I like what Scouting is doing? No. Do I love it enough to put my love on the line? Yes.�

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Renee Tawa can be reached [email protected].