Boy Scouts pull out of agreement with Unitarians

from The Religion News Service

May 21, 1999
by Holly J. Lebowitz

BOSTON -- The Boy Scouts of America has rescinded an offer to reauthorize the Unitarian Universalist Association to issue its Religion in Life award to Unitarian scouts, adding a new wave of contention to a battle that many felt had been fought and settled.

The Boy Scouts' decision was conveyed to the UUA, a progressive church with roots going back to colonial times, on Tuesday (May 18), just weeks after UUA President John A. Buehrens declared in a letter to his denomination: "It pleases me to tell you that this conflict has been resolved."

At issue are disagreements between the BSA and the Boston-based UUA over whether homosexuals should be allowed to participate as Scouts or Scout leaders, and whether and in what form Scouts should be required to profess a belief in God. A UUA plan to distribute its own materials on the issues to Unitarian Scouts working toward the award prompted the latest BSA action.

The yearlong conflict began in May 1998, when a Boy Scouts representative approached the UUA about its Religion in Life manual, which Scouts read to earn the award. The award is a badge that designates a Scout's proficiency in the tenets of his faith.

The UUA responded with a claim that the BSA was not entitled to place political or theological restraints on Scouts who are members of the denomination, which rejects most orthodox Christian tenets and allows its members broad freedom of belief.

Almost one year later, in late April, after months of negotiations, a compromise was reached -- or so it appeared.

The UUA agreed to revise their Religion in Life manual, removing language that criticized the BSA's policies on homosexuality and belief in God.

The introduction to the 1993 edition of the manual "expressed (the UUA's) dismay at the efforts of the Boy Scout's national leadership to forbid boys who are gay or atheists from participating in Scouting activities."

The BSA wrote to the UUA that it "believes that this expression of disapproval has no place in a Boy Scouting/Exploring youth religious award manual."

With the removal of the objectionable statements from the manual, the BSA agreed to reinstate the Religion in Life award for Unitarian Scouts.

"I am very happy to report that the committee has unanimously expressed their endorsement of this new material," said Thomas Deimler, director of the relationships division of the BSA in a late-April letter to the UUA.

But one week later, on May 7, Lawrence Ray Smith, chairman of the BSA's religious relationships committee, rescinded the agreement.

Smith said in a brief letter to Buehrens that the BSA could not reinstate the Religion in Life award for Unitarians because of UUA plans to distribute its own materials on homosexuality and religious beliefs to Unitarian Scouts working toward the award.

"The new edition of Religion in Life will be available from the UUA bookstore this summer," Buehrens wrote in his April letter to the denomination. "Along with each copy, the Association will separately provide a letter from me, along with resources appropriate to dealing with issues of homophobia and religious discrimination," the letter said.

That was unacceptable to BSA, Smith said.

"Unfortunately," he wrote, "this simply reopens the entire issue of using boys as a venue to air your differences with the policies of the Boy Scouts of America."

Buehrens maintained that the UUA was forthright with the BSA about its plans to distribute additional materials throughout the negotiations.

The 222,000-member denomination's new curriculum under development on the topic of human sexuality, "Our Whole Lives," was to be the resource for the pamphlet on homosexuality and the UUA's affirmation of "the worth and dignity of every person."

Buehrens himself authored a second pamphlet, titled "When Others (or You) Say `God'," which he told the denomination was "designed to help young people from a pluralistic religious tradition understand some of the multiple ways in which the word `God' is and can be understood."

Smith insisted that the BSA was not informed of the UUA's intention to disseminate the material.

"These circumstances were not contemplated when Mr. Deimler wrote his letter," Smith said. "Therefore, Boy Scouts of America is not in a position to authorize the awarding of the Religion in Life emblem to Scouts and the wearing of that emblem on a Scout uniform."

The UUA called the entire experience one of religious discrimination.

"My question is this: Does the BSA really mean to say that our teaching must stop where it makes them uncomfortable?", wrote Buehrens in a letter responding to the BSA's decision.

The letter expressed a concern that the BSA would discriminate against other faith groups as well. "After all, prejudice, once it takes hold in one's soul and is rationalized against one group can easily spread to include other objects of prejudice. Evidently Unitarian Universalists have now become such objects for the BSA," Buehrens wrote.

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