Editorials: Scouts' honor
STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Executive Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Associate Editor: Daria Donnelly Production Editor: Tiina Aleman Senior...
...Single Copy, $2.50...
...Whether or not that influence was beneficial reof dictating an organization's position-an organization mains a question...
...Supreme Hayes...
...foreign, $87...
...Web: http://www.common- tant scoutmaster after making his homosexuality public...
...Given that rightness, his ready sense of humor, and his commitment fact, the public status of homosexuality should be worked to the church's social teachings...
...3,12, Franklin volvement with public institutions is broad, and Dale himself, a former Eagle McMahon...
...This continuing antagonism represents a loss for both communities, but it especially inhibits the church's ability to get a fair CARDINAL O'CONNOR, R.I.P...
...When he died earlier this month moral message, a message Cardinal O'Connor represented after a largely discreet battle with cancer, his passing was so well...
...Fax: (212) 662-4183...
...p. 23, Valerry...
...O'Connor's influence with the used to compel the private moral acceptance of homosex- pope, especially on the appointment of bishops, was subual conduct crosses a line...
...405, New York, NY 10115...
...POSTMASTER: send address changes to ganization, and therefore subject to the antidiscrimination law...
...to restrict membership to men...
...It puts the Court in the position stantial...
...The Court has previously ruled that groups whose primary man/© Punch...
...out in ways that demonstrate a maximum tolerance for Much has been written about O'Connor as a man who reasonable people on both (actually many) sides of what re- placed institutional loyalty at the center of his sense of mains a profoundly divisive question...
...Commonweal 6 May 19, 2000...
...Supreme Court, the Boy Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide to Scouts argued that they are a private group with an "expressive" moral purPeriodical Literature, Catholic Periodical pose, not a public accommodation like a restaurant or a theater...
...Perhaps, as the New Jer- the poor, the needy, and the sinner at the forefront of the sey court claims, Dale's sexual orientation does not in any church's mission...
...But that is a de- do far worse than to emulate O'Connor's example in that cision the Boy Scouts-or the church, as the case may be- regard...
...Illustrations: Cover design & art: On the face of it, Dale would seem to have a strong case...
...and monthly July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 475 River- crimination trump the Scouts' allegiance to "traditional" morality...
...Under at many libraries and research facilities on the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and free association, the Scouts CD-ROM and in electronic data bases...
...The court orCommonweal, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 405, New York, NY 10115...
...The trustees of the cathedral obliged...
...counterproductive efforts to curb dissent and impose disIn this case, the demand that antidiscrimination law be cipline within the church...
...Europe, $89...
...There Irish congregants on many issues, including the owner- is something anomalous about a church that exists in the ship of parishes and the appointment of priests...
...Or should the state's interest in battling dismas/New Year's...
...All Canadian and foreign sub- are deeply entangled with civic institutions...
...p. 3, Melissa Mosely...
...as a scoutmaster therefore did not endanger the purposes of the organization...
...In appealing the case to the U.S...
...New York is the cultural capital of the namosexuality they cannot in good conscience adopt as their tion, if not the world...
...The courts broaden O'Connor's legacy is in how he engages the world should not force the Boy Scouts to embrace a view of ho- of ideas and art...
...Instead, the U.S...
...p. 11, Moorpark College Reporter/LNS...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 0010-3330...
...Canada, $47...
...other parts of the partments...
...women and civil rights groups bar Ku Klux Klan mem- Navy, he became more and more outspoken on issues of bers...
...Commonweal articles also are available Scouts' famous oath, are an essential aspect of what Scouting is all about...
...He did not hesitate to call prochoice mosexuality are far from clear...
...Let them walk over me from the forces and people shaping that culture...
...The gospel places dered" nature of homosexuality...
...Do the Boy Scouts have the right to exclude openly homosexual perArts, is published biweekly except Christ- sons from leadership positions...
...The court also found that the Scouts' scriptions must be paid in U.S...
...Annual rates for cilities and that Scout troops are often sponsored by municipal police and fire deair-mail delivery outside U.S.: Western Hemisphere, $84...
...For example, the U.S...
...The full implications of the pro- ilar issues he was an unapologetic proponent of the found changes taking place in our understanding of ho- church's views...
...Yet even those who clashed question of basic sexual morality...
...The next archbishop of New York could way jeopardize the purposes of scouting...
...Periodi- think they should be allowed to determine for themselves who can be a Scout cals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and at leader...
...Other state courts working class, and the so-called man in the street...
...Special two-year rate: U.S...
...Estabin death...
...A ruling against the ly he did not shy away from the label "conservative," and Scouts, the libertarians argue, will put the self-selectivity of he was a firm supporter of Pope John Paul II's sometimes gay groups in peril...
...Much of the cultural elite in the own...
...Last year the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in Dale's favor, dePortland, ME 04106 (207) 799-4387, classified advertising correspondence to 475 Riverside termining that the Boy Scouts were a public accommodation and not a private orDr...
...large, nonselective group that frequently meets in schools and other public faCanada, $81...
...The mission of the Boy with the cardinal, such as former New York Governor Scouts, as now constituted in its own bylaws, is to shape the Mario Cuomo, were impressed with O'Connor's forthmoral character of children and adolescents...
...Supreme Commonweal 5 May 19, 2000 Court has said that the organizers of Boston's Saint Patrick's noted with sadness and praise by Catholic and non-Catholic Day parade have the right to determine who could partic- alike...
...STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Executive Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Associate Editor: Daria Donnelly Production Editor: Tiina Aleman Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt Editorial Assistant: Maurice Timothy Reidy Copy Editor: Susanne Washburn Business Manager: Gregory Wilpert Scouts' honor Poetry: Rosemary Deen Screen: Richard Alleva Stage/Media: Celia Wren Columnists: John Garvey, mericans are deeply divided over what the moral, public, and legal E.J...
...p. 8, Sax, Rothco...
...hearing in the larger culture...
...A vast majority thinks homosexuJo McGowan als should be accorded broad toleration as a privacy matter and should A Intern: Christopher Ruddy not be discriminated against on the job...
...p. 28, Cork...
...The Boy Scouts' inChristopher Young...
...Tolerance must work both ways on this difficult issue...
...columnist portraits, purposes are commercial, such as Jaycee and Rotary clubs, do not have the right Elaine Mills...
...E-mail: common- In 1990 James Dale, a Rutgers University student, was dismissed as an assisweal@msn.com...
...additional offices...
...bank...
...O'Connor was a stalwart champion of the poor, the ipate and thus may exclude gay groups...
...p. 31, Handels- tion and speech...
...Copyright © 2000 Commonweal Foundation...
...But most Americans are also Circulation Manager: Sandra Smith hesitant to remake traditional and morally freighted institutions, such as marriage, Staff Quanda Williams in order to grant homosexual citizens civil parity with the heterosexual majority...
...sincerity are not in question...
...An organization of gay libertarians has even filed a peace and skeptical about military spending...
...dered Dale reinstated...
...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 organization must be equally diverse is a society which has destroyed diversiN. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 and on ty," and that traditional moral strictures against homosexuality, implicit in the Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Wooster, OH 44691...
...However, Dale's abilities or 16, Baloo, Rothco...
...p. 21, Kerry tonomy because they are engaged in civic duties...
...Telephone: (212) 662-4200...
...Dubois's Though opposed on several neuralgic issues, the two comtenure as bishop was stormy, and he battled his mostly munities could make common cause on many others...
...In other words, the Scouts are not as exclusive as a private club and world, $99...
...They walked over me in life," Dubois is supposed to the vast majority of Catholics-and yet seems removed to have said about his burial plot...
...Often he smithy of modern culture-a culture whose appeal extends lost...
...Where the next leader of New York's church could must make in its own way and by its own lights...
...James Dale should himself as a priest and bishop...
...foreign, $50...
...7, Scout, was evidently an exemplary scoutmaster...
...Dionne, Jr., Sidney Callahan, William Pfaff, Daniel Callahan, status of homosexuality should be...
...But where an organization's purpose is not ecohttp://www.commonwealmagazine.org nomic, the right of free association is greater...
...He was have upheld the Boy Scouts' right to exclude atheists (an a fierce defender of labor unions, an advocate for AIDS explicit belief in God is part of the Scout oath) and girls, just victims, and a strong opponent of anti-Semitism...
...Nor should private organizations forfeit their aup. 18, Engleman, Rothco...
...dollars by International Money Order or by check on a opposition to homosexuality was nowhere explicitly stated and that Dale's role U.S...
...In the public debate about abortion, hothat acts on behalf of boys and their parents-about a much mosexuality, sex education, capital punishment, and simcontested moral issue...
...Furthermore, the Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest, and Book Review Index...
...For church to rethink its attitude about the "inherently disor- the most part, he had his priorities right...
...media, the universities, and the arts remain notoriously indifferent, if not openly hostile, to the church...
...Like O'Connor's generous overtures to the Jewish community and for ecumenism in John Dubois (1764-1842), the only non-Irish bishop to lead general, New York's next archbishop should work to break the church in New York, is buried beneath the entrance to down the stereotypes on both sides of this cultural divide...
...Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher Emeritus: Edward S. Skillin Last month the Supreme Court heard arguments in The Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, a case that touches on these public/private categories in all of their comCommonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the plexity...
...There is truth in that debe free to press his case with the Boy Scouts, just as gay scription, although it shortchanges the pastoral and evanCatholics should continue their efforts to persuade the gelical emphasis O'Connor brought to his ministry...
...For some the treatment of Catholic politicians to task for what he saw as the abanhomosexuals is a simple civil rights issue, for others it is a donment of Catholic principle...
...p. 26, Bacall, Court is likely to be more concerned with the Boy Scouts' rights of free associaRothco...
...Display advertising correspondence should be Scouts, arguing that New Jersey law bars discrimination on the basis of sexual sent to Ruth E. Taylor, 11 Graffam Rd., So...
...side Drive, Rm...
...Theologicalbrief in support of the Boy Scouts...
...ninety-year-old organization maintained that "a society in which each and every Microfilm from Vol...
...lishing a dialogue and mutual respect between CatholiCardinal John O'Connor, New York's outspoken arch- cism and New York's cultural institutions could go far to bishop for the last sixteen years, was not a man anyone improve the effectiveness of the church's countercultural was likely to walk over...
...In rejecting those claims, New Jersey's court had ruled that the Scouts are a Yearly subscriptions, U.S., $44...
...Old Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Lower Manhattan...
...Dale sued the Boy wealmagazine.org...
...After a as some feminist organizations restrict their membership to long and distinguished career as a chaplain in the U.S...
...orientation...
Vol. 127 • May 2000 • No. 10
