Scouting and Sodomy
August 31, 2000
The
Department of the Interior is conducting an investigation of its
own ties to the Boy Scouts of America for the purpose of determining
whether the Scouts discriminate against homosexuals in any way that
President Clinton has forbidden by executive order. If so, the Scouts
could lose federal funding and other privileges.
Clinton, who as president is honorary head of the Boy
Scouts, has learned to use executive orders to skirt the need for
legislation. The relevant order in this case was issued a few months ago;
it lists “sexual orientation” along with race, religion, sex, et cetera,
as protected categories for “federally conducted education and training
programs.” Five days after Clinton issued the order, the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that New Jersey could not force the Scouts to accept
homosexual scoutmasters.
It’s a
tangled situation, the sort of mess that results when civil rights
comes to mean not freedom of association, but the reverse: compulsory
association. When we hear the term civil rights nowadays, we
instantly know we are in for more, not less, government power over our
private lives. Civil rights has become shorthand for state
coercion.
Homosexuals are
rapidly being added to the roster of victim categories who may use state
power to force others to accept them. “Civil rights,” in this baneful
sense, trumps all religious, moral, and other personal reservations. And
militant homosexuals have targeted the Boy Scouts for punishment because
the Scouts’ code of behavior upholds traditional Christian sexual
morality.
Clinton, the first
president to court the homosexual lobby, is ready, willing, and eager to
pressure private organizations to accept homosexuals. Once again we see in
action the principle that when the state moves in, religion must move out.
The liberal understanding of “the separation of church and state” means
that as the area of politics expands, the area of private freedom —
religious and otherwise — shrinks.
As you might expect, the Boy Scouts are vigorously
resisting the homosexual aggressions. They say that Clinton’s order won’t
affect them much, since they receive very little in the way of federal
benefits.
Let’s hope that’s
true. Any federal aid to the Scouts would be unconstitutional, as most
federal aid programs are. There is no warrant for making taxpayers
subsidize any Scouting activities.
But the case is a reminder that you start sucking the
federal udder at your own peril. Once you depend on the state for income,
the state will take advantage of your dependency to limit your freedom.
And it will serve you right. A public charge is in a weak position to
stand on his private freedom.
If the Scouts don’t receive substantial federal aid,
Clinton’s order probably won’t affect them much. They may be banned from
conducting their activities on federal property, but otherwise they will
remain free to apply their own moral code and to ignore the tyrannical
claims of “civil rights.”
Now
is the time for Senator Joe Lieberman to pipe up in defense of the Boy
Scouts. He has spoken eloquently on the need for religious values and
moral renewal in American life, but so far he has been vague as to how
this should come about. Here is a chance for him to vindicate the right of
a venerable private organization to maintain its traditional convictions
against secularizing pressures.
Will he do it? If he does, he will anger the homosexual
lobby his party has embraced. He has embraced it too. But if he can’t tell
that lobby where to get off, if he can’t draw a firm line in defense of
private groups devoted to an ancient moral code, we are entitled to be
skeptical of his pro-religion rhetoric.
Two years ago Lieberman made national headlines when he
reproached Clinton’s “immoral” behavior; but instead of following through
by calling on Clinton to resign the office he had disgraced, he resumed
his role as a loyal party man and voted for acquittal. Though an Orthodox
Jew, he has joined his party in supporting even late-term abortion. In
deference to his running mate Al Gore, he has renounced his positions
favoring school vouchers and Social Security reform.
So will he apply his professed concern for
morality by defending the Boy Scouts? Or will he once more, as a loyal
Democrat, “rise above principle”?
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