Court Hears Gay Scout's Case

In the last case it will hear this term, the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday weighed the civil rights arguments of a gay New Jersey man versus the first amendment claims of the organization he sued for expelling him, the Boy Scouts of America.

CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports the court must decide whether the Boy Scouts of America—whose members pledge to keep themselves "morally straight"—can set their own moral code and associate with whomever they please, or whether they must adhere to civil rights rules preventing discrimination against gays.

In a similar case five years ago, the court unanimously gave a group in south Boston the right to bar gays from their parade. Like the victorious party in that 1995 case, the Boy Scouts of America say homosexuality contradicts their organizational principles.

But the case of James Dale, an Eagle Scout who became an assistant Scoutmaster, is different. He was booted when his superiors saw a newspaper article about his work with a gay advocacy group.

He sued and appealed his case to the New Jersey Supreme Court, which ruled in August, 1999, that the BSA is a "public accommodation," partly because the Scouts recruit publicly and they accept sponsorships from public organizations.

Gay rights activists argue that a national organization five million strong can't pick and choose which public laws it obeys.

"When the Boy Scouts say they are open to all boys, it means all, and all includes gay youth as well as non-gay youth," said Evan Wolfson of the Lamba Legal Defense Fund.

But George Davidson, an attorney for the Boy Scouts, argued the group, closely identified with traditional moral values, had the right to decide who could serve as role models.

"In your view, a Catholic organization has to admit Jews" and "a Jewish organization has to admit Catholics," Justice Stephen G. Breyer told Wolfson.

Sandra Day O'Connor and David H. Souter asked Wolfson whether the Scouts could be required to admit girls.

Justice Antonin Scalia said, "They think that homosexuality is immoral," he said, asking why the Scouts must accept as a leader "someone who embodies a contradiction of their message?"

In a friend of the court brief, the American Civil Liberties Union, siding with Dale, argued that the BSA "has no more right to discriminate in violation of state law than the Rotary Club or Jaycees… whose earlier efforts to evade the civil rights laws were soundly rejected by this Court.”

"I have always loved the Boy Scouts of America. It is a program I hold dear to my heart and I hope one day to be able to be back in the program," said Dale, who attended Wednesday's hearing.

The case arose in 1990 when the youth organization—based in Irving, Texas—expelled assistant Dale after discovering he was co-president of a college gay and lesbian group in New Jersey.

On CBS News' The Early Show, senior director of legal studies for the Family Research Council, Janet LaRue, said that Dale's choice to express his sexual orientation is wrong, according to the Boy Scouts' belief that homosexuality is not morally straight.

"And for that reason, his beliefs and conduct are inconsistent with the Boy Scouts' beliefs they've held for over 90 years," LaRue said.

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision in the case by the end of June.