Lessons in courage.

Where do lesbian and gay scouts and service members find the guts to fight expulsion? In the Boy Scouts and in the military

Ah, Scouting, where boys are molded into fine young men by learning the all-American qualities of self-respect, leadership, and ... litigation? It may not be what Boy Scout leaders had in mind, but some of the people they'd like to kick out for being gay are now drawing on the very lessons and inner strengths that Scouting gave them. They are using these qualities to demand their right to remain in Scouting.

Many of the values the Boy Scouts of America tries to instill in young men could have been lifted from The Young Person's Guide to Gaydom, if there were such a book. The Scout law and oath, printed every year in millions of handbooks, teach boys to be open and honest, to treat everyone--including themselves--with dignity and respect, to stand up for what they believe in, and to stand up for themselves. It's a lesson many gay men learn in the military as well.

"Self-reliance is definitely one of the most important things I learned in Scouting," says James Dale, who in August won his case in the New Jersey supreme court against the Scouts, who want to prevent the 29-year-old gay Eagle scout from becoming a troop leader. (The Boy Scouts is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court). Adds Dale: "You've got to have a certain level of perseverance to take on a case like this. And that's something I definitely learned in Scouting."

In fact, Dale, like many young gay men, says he joined the Scouts precisely because the group provided a safe space for self-expression: "My troop was no cookie-cutter mold. It allowed for individuality. I was taught pride in myself, to do the things that make me unique." Hence the appeal of Scouting to gay people, especially young gays, who often aren't at their best in sports. "Scouting makes you feel good about yourself," Dale says. "I wasn't the best track star or football or soccer player. In Scouting I didn't have to be. They let me be myself."

In the case of Dale and other gay scouts, learning to be yourself also means coming out. Dale says he became involved with the gay student group at Rutgers University because "the Scouts taught me to be a leader." In 1990, shortly after a newspaper wrote about his election as copresident of the group, the Boy Scouts expelled him. But the Scouts' lessons lingered, he says. He credits the Boy Scouts for "always having taught me the value of community and the importance of giving something back. I joined ACT UP because of what I learned in Scouts."

Evan Wolfson, senior staff attorney at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is handling Dale's case, says the Boy Scouts' principles are "exactly the arguments we used to base the case upon. James is the embodiment and fulfillment of what the Boy Scouts preach. We made the argument that members come into the Scouts precisely in order to learn things like respecting differences, having integrity, fighting bigotry, and not lying."

What the Scouts should do is live up to their own standards rather than reinterpret them for gay scouts, Wolfson argues. He says neither Dale nor Lambda is "trying to get them to change their message. We're trying to keep them true to what their members already believed them to be."

Keith Richardson agrees. An Eagle scout who won an Illinois court ruling in August in his suit against the Scouts for refusing to hire him, Richardson says his suit was the direct result of his Scout training. "The irony of all this, of course, is that I did exactly what the Boy Scouts taught me to do," he says. "I stood up for what was right even if it wasn't the popular thing to do."

Indeed, Boy Scouts materials clearly state that young men should join the Scouts to learn the qualities that a gay person would need to take on any homophobic person or group. "The BSA endeavors to develop American citizens who are physically, mentally, and emotionally fit," the Scouts' Web site says. It adds that scouts should also "have a high degree of self-reliance as evidenced in such qualities as initiative, courage, and resourcefulness," have the "desire and skills to help others," understand the "principles of the American social, economic, and governmental systems," and, perhaps most important, have a "keen respect for the basic rights of all people."

The Scouts' handbook, meanwhile, says "relationships with others should be honest and open" and warns against teasing or harassing anyone who is different. "A scout knows there is no kindness or honor in such mean-spirited behavior," it states.

Richardson's attorney, Roger Leishman, director of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, says the Scouts actually ignored those principles. "The Boy Scouts, in defending these suits, has viciously attacked Keith," Leishman says. "Its strategy very often is to attack challengers, which is uncharitable and not consistent with Scout values."

Then there are those words in the oath, which teach that "a scout is morally straight." Some leaders of the Scouts would have people think that means sexually straight as well. But, of course, in 1911, when those words were written, straight carried no sexual connotation whatsoever. Instead, as Wolfson pointed out in the lawsuit, the handbook says that "in any consideration of moral fitness, a key word has to be courage. A boy's courage to do what his head and his heart tell him is right. And the courage to refuse to do what his heart and his head say is wrong."

Just as the Scouts help shape the values of many gay youth, the military serves a similar purpose for gay men and lesbians. But both institutions downplay their gay membership, says Margarethe Cammermeyer, a former Army National Guard colonel who challenged the military when it discharged her in 1992. "It's as if [learning to build] strong ties is supposed to be reserved for heterosexuals," she says. "Any [organization] that would give the same opportunities to someone gay is somehow undermining the values for society as a whole." In fact, the Scouts and the military share more than values. In August, leaders of the Rhode Island chapter of the Boy Scouts announced their own "don't ask, don't tell" policy after they quizzed a teenage scout about his sexual orientation.

While the Girl Scouts have no policy of barring lesbians, Cammermeyer says it's hard to believe that lesbian members do not have problems of their own. "There is a tendency to pretend that women don't exist, both in the military issue and now with the Scouts," she says. "It's as if we're above the issue or below the radar screen."

Steve May, an openly gay state legislator in Arizona and Army reservist is under investigation by the military for violating "don't ask, don't tell." [See story "Serving out loud."] May is an Eagle scout as well. And he credits Scouting for showing him the way to fight injustice. "The Boy Scouts actively train boys to be confident, to believe in themselves, to be honest, to have integrity," May says. He calls the Scouts' position on gay members "absolutely immoral, a slap in the face of the basic principles of Boy Scouts. It tells boys that gays are inferior and not deserving of the dignity and respect that should be afforded to all humans." And, as May notes, rumors abound that the founder of the Boy Scouts, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, was homosexual. "Give me a break," he says.

Former scouts say that by losing sight of the values that provided them with the strength to live as openly gay men, the organization is doing an injustice to its members, straight and gay. "The group is doing a ton of damage to gay and nongay kids," Dale says. "Any leader has to deal with diversity. Telling people they don't have to deal with those unlike themselves is not the way of the world."

Such bigotry is "definitely not Scout-like," says Steven Cozza, a 14-year-old Eagle scout from Petaluma, Calif., who with his father helps to head a group called Scouting for All, which aims to persuade the Scouts to rescind the antigay policy. "It's so ignorant," he says.

Cozza recalls a recent Scout jamboree at which some boys were playing a ball game called Smear the Queer. "A lot of scoutmasters were just sitting around watching," Cozza says. "The name didn't phase them. Then my scoutmaster jumped in and said, `Hey! What is this?' And he took the ball away and said, `I don't think so.' That was pretty cool. It showed the boys this wasn't right."

Cozza says he got involved in Scouting for All to do "what the Boy Scouts taught me: to help people at all times." Scott Cozza, Steven's father, notes that Matthew Shepard had been a Cub Scout. Russell Henderson, one of the young men who killed Shepard, however, is an Eagle scout. "I'm not trying to blame the Boy Scouts for the murder," the elder Cozza says. "But on a certain level they had some responsibility. That dehumanization of gay people was taught by someone, possibly a scoutmaster."

If that seems far-fetched, consider this: A scoutmaster in Rhode Island recently put a photo of James Dale on a bull's-eye and used it for pistol target practice, reportedly in the presence of his troop. He was thrown out of the Scouts. But it wasn't because of his antigay act. It was because he violated the guidelines of the National Rifle Association.

RELATED ARTICLE: Legal brief

Court challenges to the Scouts' ban on gays are coming from several different fronts

JAMES DALE'S LEGAL VICTORY over the Boy Scouts of America in August was a major leap forward for gay rights, but it also illustrates the difficulty in suing the organization one locale at a time. The New Jersey supreme court ruling striking down the group's ban on gay scoutmasters and members depended on that state's antidiscrimination law and therefore applies only within New Jersey. Similarly, in Illinois former Eagle scout Keith Richardson, who was denied consideration for employment by the Scouts in 1992 because he is gay, in August won a lawsuit against the Chicago-area Scouts when a federal judge ruled that local laws prohibit the organization from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation in hiring decisions.

Even in these eases, the fight is not over. The Chicago ruling is being appealed, and the Illinois appellate court has allowed the Scouts to continue with its antigay hiring policy until the appeal is decided. And the organization has sworn to appeal the New Jersey ruling in the only forum left to it: the U.S. Supreme Court.

Still, a Supreme Court ruling in Dale's favor would likely force the Scouts to abandon antigay hiring and membership policies only in New Jersey. It would, however, "force the Scouts to wrestle with how they're going to physically go about ending discrimination in New Jersey while continuing to discriminate in other states," says Evan Wolfson, senior staff attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is handling Dale's case. It would also "strengthen the hand of gay rights groups nationwide," he adds, and demonstrate that "gay youth exist and are entitled to inclusion [and] that gay adults are fit to participate and serve" in the organization.

On the other hand, a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Scouts could well hamper or even put an end to many similar cases in progress in other places with antidiscrimination laws--such as Chicago.

If the Supreme Court does hear the case--four of the nine justices must first agree to allow the appeal, a decision unlikely before next spring--the Scouts will probably argue that the organization is a quasireligious one that believes homosexuality to be inconsistent with its aims. State and local autidiscrimination statutes protecting gay people, the Scouts would claim, constitute an unconstitutional infringement on the group's First Amendment right to exercise its beliefs.

Seeking shelter for the Scouts behind a veil of religious freedom, however, is a strategy that could backfire, as the American Civil Liberties Union well knows. The ACLU is taking on the Scouts by targeting government entities that sponsor and subsidize the group, citing the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment--an approach the organization has previously used to fight discrimination against atheists and agnostics.

"When the government sponsors a Boy Scout troop, it becomes entwined in the organization," explains Matthew Coles, director of the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. "And when that happens, the government becomes a partner in discrimination. [We contend] that's constitutionally forbidden"--just as the constitution prohibits the government from supporting one religion over another.

In response to an ACLU lawsuit, the city of Chicago in 1998 agreed to stop sponsoring Scout troops as long as Scouting discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and religion. The ACLU has filed similar suits or threatened legal action in cities in Oregon and California, including San Diego. A legal victory in such cases could force the Scouts either to abandon discriminatory policies or to decline any money or support from government entities.--Bill Ghent

Kirby is a regular contributor to The New York Times.