I swear to God, every year that passes makes me hate the Boy Scouts more and more. I really could not have cared less up until two years ago. Before that, I just thought they were a bunch of annoying, antiquated geeks who liked to prance around the woods pretending to be Indians. I didn’t even think anybody cool was still into them. Most of the ones I knew back in the day grew up to be drug dealers, bicycle thieves or corporate lawyers anyway. Then some 7,000 of these rude, foul-mouthed little punks came to Ames back in the summer of 1998 for the Order of the National Arrow Conference and any remaining respect I might have had for them was drained from me. Not dealing with them in normal life, I could accept at face value that they were all about teaching young men to be courteous and upstanding citizens. And even though we have managed to destroy our national resources in this country, you never know when you might be trapped in the woods outside your cell phone’s calling area, in dire need of roasting a weenie over an open flame or make a birthday card for your grandmother out of macaroni. Not only was this group of 7,000 kids, parents and scout leaders hideously rude, disruptive and disrespectful to the local population, our campus and our way of life, in one case they even vandalized the Union to take down a gay-rights display they found offensive. Granted the display had been put up to front them, but so what? That’s life in America, boys, and when you come into somebody else’s house talking trash and wearing your colors, expect some heat. But then Scout Law doesn’t apply when you REALLY hate people, does it? Now, as a former member myself, I feel particularly entitled to criticize the Boy Scouts of America for their most recent example of homophobic bigotry. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday to overturn a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that said the dismissal of gay Scout leader James Dale in 1990 had been illegal under New Jersey’s anti-discrimination law. I don’t understand how any organization that actually encourages its membership to wear those little, brown shorts, strip and pretend to be Indians, and sew can have a problem with homosexuality. It is one of the great mysteries of life that human beings can hold such contradictory thoughts in their minds at once. Like people who hate unions and socialists yet love Woody Guthrie or people who can eat potato salad yet be baffled at how anyone can dip fries in mayo. It’s like my grandmother used to say: “People are so god damn stupid, it really is ridiculous ridiculous! Get me a beer, tubby!” I mean, really, if you want to chase homosexuals from your ranks, take off the face paint and put on some pants. Slap the average citizen down in the middle of the Boy Scout Jamboree, and they would be hard-pressed to say they weren’t already at a gay-pride festival. The Boys Scouts were so pleased with the decision, they wasted no time in updating their little fascist Web site (www.bsa.scouting.org/press/000628/index.html). “We are very pleased with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Dale case. This decision affirms our standing as a private association with the right to set its own standards for membership and leadership. “This decision allows us to continue our mission of providing character-building experiences for young people, which has been our chartered purpose since our founding. “For more than 20 years, the Boy Scouts of America has defended its membership standards. We went to the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, in order to do so. “The Boy Scouts of America, as a private organization, must have the right to establish its own standards of membership if it is to continue to instill the values of the Scout Oath and Law in boys. Thanks to our legal victories, our standards of membership have been sustained. “We believe an avowed homosexual is not a role model for the values espoused in the Scout Oath and Law.” Really? Well, let’s take a look at that oath shall we? “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” Nothing in there about not being gay. Oh, some might argue, as the Scouts did and the Supreme Court upheld, that “morally straight” is where the crux of the argument falls. The Boy Scouts, as a private organization, have been granted the right to exclude certain types of people it wants to label as immoral a priori. Thank God for ambiguity, the last refuge of morally callow bigots. Thank you, Supreme Court, for proving once again that conservative politics can still short circuit anti-discrimination legislation on the state level. If the Boy Scouts want to set a standard for morality that excludes homosexuals from leadership roles, it has the right to do so, like a church, country club or the Freemasons. But what about the Scout Law, you ask? This decision ultimately falls on the guiding principles of Scout Law, which states: “A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.” But not gay, right boys? Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that forcing the Scouts to admit gays would violate their right to expressive association, then he followed it up with this gem, according to CNN. “We are not, as we must not be, guided by our views of whether the Boy Scouts’ teaching with respect to homosexual conduct are right or wrong,” Rehnquist said. Thanks for the bone, Bill, now how about pretending it’s the 21st century and put your money where your mouth is? At this point in time, gay rights sit at the same place as the civil-rights movement did in the ’60s. By constantly placing homosexuality back in the realm of a chosen behavior, we make it easy for these outmoded organizations to discriminate. Homosexuality is not about a chosen lifestyle. Men and women do not choose to be gay. By and large, coming out means coming to terms with something homosexuals fight against for years. The process can be a nightmare, and that needs to change at the highest levels. The Supreme Court could have taken a great step forward Wednesday, but it chose another route. It did not uphold the rights of the Boy Scouts of America to expressive association; it pulled the rug out from under the civil-rights movement of this decade.

Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily. He quit the Scouts under protest and not because he hated hiking.