10/25/00 1:00 p.m.
“All for Scouting”
A small victory for the Boy Scouts.

By Melissa Seckora, NR editorial associate

ape St. Claire, Md., is a quiet community outside Annapolis that is best known for its beach and Sandy Pointe Park. It is also the home of Cub Scout Pack #707. Like other Scout troops across the country, Pack #707 has been under attack since the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America is a private organization that has the right to exclude gays from serving as Scoutmasters.

In July, initial reports of the pack becoming the first in the Baltimore region to lose its local sponsorship (by the Cape St. Claire Improvement Association) outraged parents in the community and started a parent campaign, headed by Citizens for Parents Rights (a local group for parents who are committed to raising their children without outside interference), to support the policy and activities of the Boy Scouts of America. Last spring, the Improvement Association's Board of Governors attempted to end the 30-year charter relationship it had with the Scouts. Cape resident Mike Travers wrote a petition letter, enlisting the help of his neighbors to communicate to the board that the will of the community was to support the Scouts. The Board's members, he wrote, "persist in pursuing their own private agenda to deny the Scouts community sponsorship," despite the extensive protests they have received in the form of phone calls, letters, faxes, and e-mails.

"I ask your help to encourage [the Board] to act in accordance with community wishes, not their own personal biases," wrote Travers. "I ask you to tell them to immediately stop distracting themselves with the Scout issue and resolve to continue the community's long-standing sponsorship of Cub Scout Pack #707."

Parents went door to door encouraging homeowners to vote against the Board of Governors' plan to drop their charter relationship with the Scouts. Tres Kerns, founder of Citizens for Parents Rights, says that 90 percent of those asked to sign the petition to support the Scouts signed it. Last night, the most important issue on the Board's quarterly membership meeting agenda (aside from mosquito-control techniques) was the Boy Scout vote. While approximately 300 area supporters rallied in support of Pack #707 at the Cape St. Claire Main Community Beach (more people than at all the local anti-Scouts protests combined), the Board debated the charter relationship for over an hour. The community then voted 625-75 to restore the charter relationship with the Scouts.

While major corporations, United Way chapters, and cities are withdrawing their funding and support from the Scouts, it looks like the grassroots defenders of the Scouts outnumber the Scout-bashers — and that if the ordinary citizen becomes energized, the Scouts can start winning, from coast to coast.