PARENTS TOLD TO END BOY SCOUT TIES

NEW YORK (AP) - January 5, 2001 - Reform Jewish leaders have recommended that parents withdraw their children from Boy Scout chapters and that synagogues end their sponsorship of Scout troops because of the group's exclusion of gays. The Boy Scouts of America's stance on gays is "incompatible with our consistent belief that every individual - regardless of his or her sexual orientation - is created in the image of God and is deserving of equal treatment," the Joint Commission on Social Action said in a Jan. 5 letter to Reform movement congregations. Congregations also should publicize their reason for cutting ties with the Boy Scouts to help educate the public, the commission said. The advisory was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling in June that upheld the group's exclusion of gay leaders and members.

QUEENS SCHOOL BOARD REBUFFS CHANCELLOR'S BARRING SCHOOL SYSTEM FROM SUPPORTING THE BOY SCOUTS, PASSES RESOLUTION PRAISING BOY SCOUTS

Baptist Press, December 6, 2000 - NEW YORK (BP)--Only days after Chancellor Harold O. Levy barred the school system from supporting the Boy Scouts because of their policy against gay troop leaders, school board members in a Queens district are staging something of a rebellion, according to a report in the New York Times.

Frank Borzellieri, a member of the school board of District 24, which embraces Ridgewood, Elmhurst and other blue-collar and middle-class areas of Queens, said he had written a resolution calling the Scouts "a bedrock of moral values," and urging his board's "continued sponsorship of Boy Scouts of America activities." Borzellieri and another board member said yesterday that they believed the resolution had majority support on their board.

"Chancellor Levy is an absolute disgrace for his position against Boy Scouts," Borzellieri, a columnist for a chain of newspapers in Queens, said yesterday. "The idea that this appointed hack in Manhattan elected by no one is going to stick his dirty fingers into Queens and overrule our school board in something affecting our district, let him do it."

On Dec. 1, Levy issued an order saying that the policy of the Boy Scouts of America that gays are not proper role models violated Board of Education rules prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. He barred city schools from sponsoring Scout troops and Cub packs and forbade the Scouts to recruit during school hours.

He also barred the Scouts from bidding on contracts with the system. But he said they could still meet in schools after hours, because schools are open to the public then.

Mary Crowley Grogan, another member of Board 24, said she supported the continuation of all Scout programs in the district, including those barred by Mr. Levy, like recruitment during school hours.

"I don't think the purpose of it is to anger the chancellor," Grogan, a registered nurse, said of the resolution. The point, she said, was to express the views of the board's constituents: parents of students in the Queens public schools.

"Levy doesn't support school boards," she said. "The city will be in big trouble if there are no school boards and locals don't have a say in the public school system. That day, if it ever comes, will be a sad day."

Levy dismissed the views of the District 24 board as irrelevant yesterday, saying that its authority to affect policy was severely circumscribed under a 1996 state law that shifted power from the community boards to the chancellor.

"I think their view on this is beside the point," Levy told the Times. "The authority to make this decision and to set the policy of a system rests with the Board of Education and the chancellor, and I've made my decision."

A New York spokesman for the Boy Scouts said yesterday that while the Scouts appreciated the support of District 24, their goal was to avoid divisiveness and confrontation.

"We're not telling people what to do," said Patrick Stuhlman, spokesman for the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts of America. "We just feel that we know that Chancellor Levy made his decision, and we will abide by it."

[Source: Baptist Press for Wednesday, December 6, 2000 Crosswalk.com - newsletters@crosswalk.com ]

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