Rep. Van Hilleary said the measure would protect the Boy Scouts from discrimination by school districts which Hilleary said have been trying to penalize the organization for its anti-gay policy.

by Lou Chibbaro Jr.

In an unrecorded voice vote, the House of Representative on Wednesday, May 23, approved an amendment that calls for withholding federal education funds to public schools that deny equal access to meeting space for the Boy Scouts of America or other youth groups that "prohibit the acceptance of homosexuality."

Opponents of the amendment chose not to exercise their right to call for a recorded roll call vote. House members often seek to avoid a recorded vote when they fear it would show them losing by a lopsided margin.

"It was obvious that we were going to lose on this one," said Mark Agrast, the openly gay legislative director for Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), one of two House members who led the debate against the amendment.

Rep. Van Hilleary (R-Tenn.), the author of the amendment, said the measure was needed to protect the Boy Scouts from discrimination by school districts which Hilleary said have been trying to penalize the Boy Scouts organization for its refusal to accept gay Scouts or Scout leaders.

At Hilleary’s request, the House attached the amendment to an education bill proposed by President Bush. The House passed the education measure by a large margin.

Hilleary’s amendment is identical to an amendment introduced into the Senate last week by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). The Senate was expected to vote on the Helms amendment late this week or early next week.

Gay activists called the Hilleary and Helms amendments a political ploy aimed at embarrassing gays. Activists note that the amendments would have no legal effect because the U.S. Constitution and existing civil rights laws already prohibit schools from denying meeting space to the Boy Scouts if they provide similar meeting facilities to other groups.

Both Hilleary and Helms said they were responding to reports that as many as nine school districts in different parts of the country have taken steps to oust the Boy Scouts from their premises. Much of the school action concerning the Boy Scouts surfaced after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the Boy Scouts organization has a First Amendment right — as a private organization — to deny admission to gay Scouts and gay Scout leaders.

Michael Adams, deputy legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a gay litigation group in New York, said school districts are required under the Constitution to provide the Boy Scouts with the same access to school meeting rooms and other facilities that the schools make available to other groups. Adams said the Constitution and other local, state, or federal civil rights laws cannot force school districts to provide special privileges, such as free meeting space, to the Boy Scouts.

Lambda and other gay organizations have been urging gay-friendly schools and school districts to end what the groups call "sweetheart deals" with the Boy Scouts. These arrangements, many of which have been in place for years, give local Boy Scout troops school perks and privileges that other groups don’t receive.

"The reality is that this amendment isn’t really about the Boy Scouts," Delahunt told his House colleagues during the 10-minute time slot House Republican leaders allocated for debate on the Hilleary amendment. "It’s about a conservative social agenda that holds passionate views about sexual orientation," Delahunt said.

Hilleary acknowledged that existing law already prohibits school districts from discriminating against the Boy Scouts, but he said school districts were attempting to circumvent this prohibition.

"Too many schools around the country have tried or been pressured to lock out the Boy Scouts even though they let other groups on campus," Hilleary said. "This amendment effectively ensures that schools won’t be able to discriminate against the Scouts or force them to go to court to have their rights upheld," he said.

Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political group, said HRC is hopeful that the Senate will defeat the Helms amendment. If that happens, the fate of the amendment would be decided in a House-Senate conference committee.

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This article appeared in the issue of:
May 25, 2001