As Americans, we cherish the freedom to associate. However, with
the freedom to associate comes the right to exclude those who do
not share our values and goals. What happens when the freedom of
association collides with the equally cherished principle that
every individual should be free from invidious discrimination? This
is precisely the question posed in "Boy Scouts of America v. James
Dale," a lawsuit that made its way through the courts over the
course of a decade, culminating in 2000 with a landmark ruling by
the U.S. Supreme Court. In "Judging the Boy Scouts of America,"
Richard J. Ellis tells the fascinating story of the Dale case,
placing it in the context of legal principles and precedents,
Scouts' policies, gay rights, and the "culture wars" in American
politics.
The story begins with James Dale, a nineteen-year old Eagle
Scout and assistant scoutmaster in New Jersey, who came out as a
gay man in the summer of 1990. The Boy Scouts, citing their policy
that denied membership to "avowed homosexuals," promptly terminated
Dale's membership. Homosexuality, the Boy Scout leadership
insisted, violated the Scouts' pledge to be "morally straight."
With the aid of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, Dale sued for
discrimination.
Ellis tracks the case from its initial filing in New Jersey
through the final decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of
the Scouts. In addition to examining the legal issues at stake,
including the effect of the Supreme Court's ruling on the law of
free association, Ellis also describes Dale's personal journey and
its intersection with an evolving gay rights movement. Throughout
he seeks to understand the puzzle of why the Boy Scouts would adopt
and adhere to a policy that jeopardized the organization's iconic
place in American culture--and, finally, explores how legal
challenges and cultural changes contributed to the Scouts' historic
policy reversal in May 2013 that ended the organization's ban on
gay youth (though not gay adults).
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