Boy Scouts was wrong to expel atheist member for unbelief

The Boy Scouts of America is busy again. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that 19-year-old Eagle Scout Darrell Lambert of Port Orchard, Wash. has been kicked out of the Scouts for refusing to embrace a belief in God. The organization is no stranger to expelling nonconforming members. In "Boy Scouts of America v. Dale" (2000), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Scouts' right to exclude homosexuals. The decision rested on the Boy Scouts' status as a private organization; as such, it is free to exclude whomever it wants for whatever reason it concocts. That said, it is reprehensible that in the year 2002, an organization so central to our national identity has to split hairs about its members' private lives. When Lambert's atheism was discovered, a regional council gave him an ultimatum to acknowledge God's existence or be kicked out in a week; Lambert chose the latter. The Scouts is supposed to shape boys into strong leaders who make good decisions. It's hard to see how these policies of browbeating, coercion and discrimination will serve that purpose. Besides that, since the so-called "Leave No Child Behind Act" of 2001, any U.S. public school that will not cooperate with the Boy Scouts can lose its federal funding. In other words, Congress has blackmailed schools into supporting an organization that discriminates against schools' own non-Christian and non-straight students. As such, the Boy Scouts is not truly a private organization. It is protected by the federal government, and as a U.S. citizen, Lambert is being denied a constitutional citizenship right to enjoy the benefits of an organization his government supports. The Boy Scouts should let Lambert back in. If they don't, he needs to take his case to the courts.