Each year when I fill out my Mesa United Way card, I always attach a note instructing them to not direct any of my payroll giving to the Boy Scouts of America. I simply state that as worthy as the Scouts work may be, I cannot condone their discrimination of homosexuals and atheists.I know full well that the Scouts will NOT get any less money, in the long run, because of my personal stand but its worth making a statement. For years, I have half-heartedly bought pancake breakfast tickets from the members of the troop at my church when theyve approached me, but I dont go out of my way to support their fund-raising. I have restrained myself from starting a conversation with a young Scout about the whole discrimination issue.I was not surprised or bothered by last weeks U.S. Supreme Courts choice not to hear the Scouts appeal of a California Supreme Court ruling. The Berkeley Sea Scouts had objected to the city of Berkeleys marina ending their free use of a public boat slip, or berth, even though other non-profit organizations were continuing to get spots free. Berkeley had allowed the Scouts free use since the 1930s. Berkeley is where free-speech protests first raged three decades ago. In 1997, the city adopted a nondiscriminatory policy regarding use of the marina that became the basis for the action against the scouts. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court came down on the side of the Boys Scouts saying it had the right to ban openly gay Scout leaders as part of their First Amendment rights of free assembly and its right to operate by its own codes of conduct. But in March, the California court decided unanimously that local governments have no obligation to give benefits to an organization that discriminates. New reports said the city told the Sea Scouts if they dropped their ties to the BSA or simply disavowed the nation groups position of discrimination against gays and atheists, they could get free berth space. But the Scouts refused. Its leader had been paying $500 a month to put one boat in the marina. Previously it had to remove two other boats because it could not afford the cost.The troops membership dropped from about 100 to 40 in the wake of the subsidy issue. After the Oct. 16 ruling, the progressive American Humanist Association applauded the high courts actions, saying public tax dollars ought not be extended to a group that discriminates on religious grounds. People are entitled to their own beliefs religious or otherwise but they are not entitled to public funds to support the discriminatory practices of those beliefs, said the Humanists executive director Roy Speckhardt.It was heartening that after the Supreme Courts 2000 ruling favoring the Scouts, a number of Scouts around the U.S. turned in their badges to protest the discriminatory policy. In the long run, the Scouts may have prevailed there, but it will continue to suffer fallout and setbacks like the Marina issue. In 2006, such an organization continues tied up in its own knots when it believes it can judge the character and content of boys and young men by how they regard God or how they were dealt their sexual orientation. As Speckhardt said, it is an outmoded and hurtful practice of exclusion that will dog the BSA until a new generation of enlightened leadership comes along.

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