Boy Scouts should study religious freedom, not just gays

By Meg Riley

September 29, 1999

Heartfelt congratulations to the Boy Scouts of America on the organization's decision to launch a yearlong study about "the scientific and medical basis for the determination of sexual orientation."

We can only hope it is a first step toward an inclusive and nondiscriminatory policy. But the 12 members of the panel might learn even more if they also studied religious views on homosexuality and discrimination, or for that matter, religious freedom in the United States.

It was religion and not science, after all, that prompted the Boy Scouts to forbid my own denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association, from presenting our Boy Scouts, be they gay, straight or undecided, with our Unitarian Universalist Religion in Life Awards.

We were told in no uncertain terms that our beliefs, which prompt us to stand up and object loudly to discrimination against gays and lesbians, were religiously unacceptable. We were told our religion, not our science, makes our boys ineligible to become Eagle Scouts.

We were actually booted out for two reasons: our strong stand against homophobia, and our inclusiveness of a very broad base of religious beliefs among our members. Our commitment to freedom of religion means those in our ranks include Christians, pagans, atheists, Buddhists, Jews and humanists.

Unitarian Universalists are a study in living together with a variety of viewpoints: we are a microcosm of our larger culture's struggles on how to agree to disagree about complex moral issues.

Religious freedom is much more at the heart of the Boy Scouts' disagreement with the Unitarian Universalists than are our differences of opinion about homophobia. Simply put, we believe religious people have the right to disagree on controversial issues, and still be respected and included as people of good faith. The Boy Scouts have decreed there is only one acceptable religious belief on homosexuality, or the use of the word "God" to describe expression of religious values, and it is theirs.

We believe religious impulse itself is a spiritual practice of accepting diversity, change and the pain a new truth might bring. For the more advanced among us, not just accepting, but embracing these as messengers of Life Itself.

It is true Unitarian Universalists are very vocal on behalf of gays and lesbians. We're one of the few denominations who will declare outright that homophobia, not homosexuality, is a sin. But the Boy Scouts' discriminatory practices are also rankling Methodists, Lutherans, Jews, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, the United Church of Christ and many other mainstream folks.

Indeed, more than 40 religious groups are currently working hard for the passage of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, for example. The act would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, including religions that themselves discriminate against gays and lesbians in employment, because almost all religious people differentiate between civil and religious law.

Still, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act has a generous exemption for religious organizations, an exemption for which Unitarian Universalists fought to include because of our convictions about the importance of freedom of religion in this country, even when we vehemently disagree with others' religious viewpoints.

Freedom of religion, with all of the wrinkles about exactly what it means in American life, is a hot matter of discussion these days in Congress, in the courts, and in the civil rights community. Let us hope it is also being discussed at the highest levels of leadership of the Boy Scouts of America. From my own, very unscientific, 20-year perusal of the literature on the medical basis of sexual orientation, here's my bet on what the Scouts' panel will eventually proclaim: There's no consensus about it yet. There are a lot of theories and discoveries kicking around, but this is not yet medically solved.

Given the lack of medical consensus on the subject, the moral issues are even more compelling: What is our moral responsibility to stay engaged with people about whom we are uncomfortable because of their religion, their sexual orientation, their race, their physical ability, their opinions? Some of us might even ask the question, as we have heard it asked in a Book we love to read, "But who is my neighbor (that I should love as myself)?"

(The Rev. Meg Riley directs the Washington Office for Faith in Action for the Unitarian Universalist Association and is co-chair of Equal Partners in Faith, a multifaith network promoting positive values of religion in society.)

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