FANNING THE FLAMES.

In battlegrounds across the U.S., the right wing is using the Boy Scout battle as a wedge against gay rights

Neil Giuliano is the popular mayor of Tempe, Ariz. As an openly gay Republican, he is a perfect fit for the city's combination of political moderation and "live and let live" philosophy. In last year's election, Giuliano won close to 70% of the vote, sailing to his fourth consecutive term. He's considered a rising young star in the GOP, often mentioned as a potential candidate for Congress.

But after Giuliano supported an attempt last year to block the local Boy Scouts of America council from receiving money from city employees through United Way contributions because of the Scouts' antigay policy, opponents of the mayor launched an angry recall drive. Now, even though the proposed cutoff did not take place, he finds himself facing a special election in September.

"The folks running the recall campaign against me swear on a stack of Bibles that it has nothing to do with the Boy Scouts," Giuliano says. "But it's simply a fact that without the emotionalism of the Boy Scout issue, they could not have forced me to a special election. The mayors of Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, who have all taken on the Scout ban in a legitimate public policy debate, have not been targeted. Those mayors are not gay."

The conservative groups have yet to find a credible challenger to Giuliano, and his campaign is bolstered by a $70,000 war chest. But the mayor, who hopes to raise another $50,000, isn't taking any chances. "A recall election is an attempt to throw someone out of office because they have done something wrong. I haven't been charged with any high crimes or misdemeanors. But no matter how unfair it is, this is politics. In politics you don't take anything lightly."

From Tempe to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., religious-right activists are using the strong grassroots backlash against the BSA's policy to pursue previously unattainable political goals. Yet by wading into the swamp of morality and politics, they raise the stakes of the campaigns and force an even broader debate about an already divisive issue.

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in June 2000 that the BSA has the right to determine its membership criteria, the battle moved from the legal to

the political arena. Nearly a year later, neither side can claim decisive victory. Dozens of corporations, local governments, and United Way chapters have withdrawn funds and meetings spaces from the Scouts. The organization and its supporters, predominantly conservative religious denominations such as Southern Baptists and Mormons, have countered by reaching out to right-wing groups and individuals for funding and political cover.

Because the BSA closely guards membership numbers and financial records, it is difficult to judge the effect of the battle on the organization. But according to an internal report obtained by The Advocate, the protests have begun to take a toll. In the Scouts' Northeast region, where opposition to the policy is most heated, for instance, total youth membership declined by a whopping 7.9% between February 2000 and February 2001. The Western region suffered a smaller drop of 1%, while membership in the South increased 2.1%. Nationally, youth membership declined 1.2%

"I imagine that the people in the Irving, Tex., headquarters are going crazy looking at these numbers," says Dave Rice, a former Scout leader who is now vice president and cofounder of Scouting for All, a pro-gay group. "They have been digging in their heels, claiming to do the principled thing, and now it turns out that Americans don't buy it. They must be wondering what the hell to do next."

"Though we may have lost the Supreme Court case 5-4, the gay community is winning the cause," insists Evan Wolfson, the attorney who argued Dale v. Boy Scouts of America before the high court. "The proof is that the battle has shifted from gays protesting the Boy Scouts to nongay people--including people who love scouting--protesting rather than turning away in silence. These protesters are taking action on behalf of gay adults who want to work with kids and on the part of gay youths. They are upset because nongay kids are harmed by a message that it's OK to look down on people who are different. This is a revolutionary development."

That revolution has not stopped Boy Scouts supporters from fighting gay rights. In Broward County, Fla., which includes Fort Lauderdale, the campaign is the latest twist in a long battle over gay rights that started in 1977, when voters in nearby Dade County repealed a gay rights law after a bitter campaign led by Anita Bryant. Shortly after Broward's county commission voted to prohibit Scout troops from using school property, an organization called Equal Rights Not Special Rights launched a petition drive for a ballot measure that would delete sexual orientation from the county's human rights ordinance. The group is required to collect 62,000 signatures--7% of the electorate--to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

Terry DeCarlo, vice chair of Americans for Equality: Empower Broward, a gay political action committee, says religious conservatives are using the cultural war over the BSA's ban as a wedge to press for a rollback of gay rights guarantees that had already been approved by voters and elected officials. "It's clear that the group's real modus operandi is not about getting money back for the Scouts but to get sexual orientation removed" from the human rights ordinance, which became law in 1995, DeCarlo says. "Scouting is so emotional among parents that they see an opportunity for their kids that might not have been there otherwise. Gays are blamed for taking it away."

And at least one conservative legislator has used the backlash to reprise canards about homosexuality and child sex abuse. In an interview with the CBS News program 60 Minutes on April 1, California Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher, cochairman of the Congressional Scouting Caucus and himself an Eagle Scout, told Lesley Stahl there is a "practical reason" for the antigay policy that even Scout officials are "afraid" to articulate. "An adult male who is attracted to other males should not be out camping as their adult supervisor, going into the pup tents, sleeping overnight with them, washing off with them, [with] teenage boys," he said. "It makes no more sense for that to happen than it does to have an adult [heterosexual] male who's attracted to women running around with teenage girls and being their adult supervisor."

A spokesman for Rohrabacher, Ricardo Bernal, says CBS quoted the representative out of context. "The congressman does not believe that gay people are any more prone to molesting children than heterosexuals," Bernal tells The Advocate. "CBS took two or three comments out of a long interview. It doesn't completely represent his thinking on the issue. This is a confusing time for adolescents in general, and he doesn't believe you should put young people in difficult situations."

Boy Scouts spokesman Gregg Shields did not return phone calls seeking comment, but the group long ago abandoned the molestation rationale for the policy in light of studies that found no correlation between sexual orientation and child abuse. During the Supreme Court oral arguments in Dale v. Boy Scouts, for instance, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor twice asked the Scouts' attorney if fear of child abuse was a rationale for the ban. Both times, the attorney said no.

The pro-Scouts cause has had its embarrassments. Joel Hawksley, head of Equal Rights Not Special Rights, resigned from his post April 9 after The Miami Herald revealed that Hawksley had been charged 1999 with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl. The charge was dropped last year, and Hawksley maintains his innocence.

The charge against Hawksley hasn't deterred right-wing activists, who have tried to portray Hawksley as a martyr to his beliefs. "I'm afraid people are getting the impression that every time someone stands up for scouting, they get at tacked," DeCarlo says. "They are turning Hawksley into the victim rather than the gay kids who are hurt by this policy. They want people to believe that Christian right organizations can do no wrong. But what this episode shows is that everyone has faults. There are no perfect people in this world."

Find the latest news about the battles over the Boy Scout's antigay policy at www.advocate.com