By Allie Martin
January 25, 2001

(AgapePress) - A California legal defense group is rounding up support for the Boy Scouts.

Late last year the City of Los Angeles adopted a policy that prevented the Boy Scouts from taking part in the city’s Scouts Explorer program. The city’s policy may also prevent the Boy Scouts from using public facilities for meetings. That prompted the Scouts Alumni Association to take action.

Brad Dacus is President of the Pacific Justice Institute, which is helping the Alumni Association in its bid to convince Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca to reconsider the policy.

“We’re helping them draft and we’ve already drafted a petition for citizens across the country to sign in support of the Boy Scouts and in opposition to the L.A. City Council’s recent decision to punish the Boy Scouts by not allowing them to participate in police internship programs,” Dacus says.

City officials made the decision after the Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts had the right to exclude homosexuals from leadership positions.

“The bottom line is that the city of Los Angeles and several other communities, particularly on the West Coast, are attempting to -- in the name of tolerance -- engage in grotesque intolerance of one of the most serving parts our community -- the Boy Scouts of America,” Dacus says.

Police and sheriff’s departments often recruit from Explorer chapters.

Eighty-three years ago yesterday, the first Boy Scout troop was organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell. The Boy Scouts of America were incorporated in 1910 and chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1916.

© 2001 AgapePress all rights reserved.

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