Boy Scouts Suffer At The Hands Of Zealous Leadership

Isn't it a shame that even the Boy Scouts have been overrun by religious zealots? It's a shame that their beliefs are so detrimental to the development of current members and offensive to member of the past.

My experiences with the scouting program were nothing but positive and I have tons of great memories. I guess I was too little to understand what was going on at a higher level. Or maybe this is recent? I was a scout back in the 70s when these types of things never seemed to be discussed. The Boy Scouts were all about building community, camping, getting everyone involved, hanging out with friends, having fun, and learning things.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a unanimous ruling by the California Supreme Court that the city of Berkeley may treat the Berkeley Sea Scouts differently from other nonprofit organizations because of the Scouts' membership policies. Berkeley revoked the Scouts free use of a public marina because the Boy Scouts bar atheists and gays.

The U.S. Supreme Court previously refused to hear a case from Connecticut where the Boy Scouts were dropped from a list of charities receiving donations from state employees, and a Philadelphia decision requiring the Boy Scouts to pay rent unless they changed their policy on gays.

The Scouts won the battle of exclusion in the courts, but it doesn't seem as though they'll win the war. And the kids suffer.