Boy Scouts will be on the agenda at General Assembly Council meeting
The Layman Online, February 15, 2001
The relationship of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to the Boy Scouts of America will be discussed at the Feb. 18-24 General Assembly Council meeting in Louisville, Ky.
At a November meeting of the Congregational Ministries Division, the division’s committee voted to “discuss how recent court rulings concerning the Boy Scouts of America might deny Presbyterians full participation in the organization.”
The February meeting agenda calls for the committee to discuss the issue the morning of Feb. 22. During the plenary session Feb. 23-24, the full General Assembly Council will discuss any action committee members take.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 vote that the Boy Scouts of America can bar homosexuals from being troop leaders.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that for the court majority, applying a state public accommodations law to require the Boy Scouts to admit a gay troop leader violates the group’s constitutional right of expressive association.
He added, however, “We are not, as we must not be, guided by our views of whether the Boy Scouts’ teaching with respect to homosexual conduct is right or wrong.”
Rehnquist’s opinion was signed by Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer dissented.