7/05/00 10:45 a.m.
Sore Losers
If you don't win, demagogue.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate editor--------------------lopezk@ix.netcom.com

he Bill of Rights didn't have many victories at the close of the Supreme Court's spring session last week. The Boy Scouts case was one of the exceptions, the court ruling that the Scouts can restrict membership to those who espouse the Scout Oath and Law. And so, opponents of the Boy Scouts had to take to the media. The media, of course, happily obliges.

On the Associated Press wire this weekend appeared a dispatch from New York titled: "Boy Scouts May Face Uncertain Future."

In the story, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney says the BSA are "getting left behind where America is going" and predicts that "a nationwide movement — "'church by church, business by business, town by town' — will gradually cut community ties with the Scouts and edge them into the ranks of ideological, right-wing groups."

And yet, the Boys Scouts of America reports no drop in membership since the Boy Scouts v. Dale case was brought to court ten years ago. To the contrary, BSA claims the highest membership increases since the baby boom. This, despite politically correct Levi Strauss and Co. pulling financial support over the gay-scout-leader controversy.

While the AP reporter avoids malpractice by giving lip service to these facts, readers are warned that BSA may be destined to suffer the same fate of the Daughters of the American Revolution, "which lost stature and public support decades ago as it became identified with racial bias and conservative politics."

Imagine if the Boy Scouts had lost.