Questions and Answer about the Supreme Court's decision

Q1. Why did Boy Scouts bring this case to the Supreme Court?

A1. After 30 years of participating in the state employees’ campaign, Connecticut singled out and excluded the Boy Scouts councils solely because the exercised their First Amendment rights. At the same time, Connecticut allows a wide variety of other groups to participate—including gay and lesbian groups and numerous organizations which limit services to a particular sex, ethnicity, age group, or sexual orientation. That is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination against Boy Scouts.

Just three years ago, Boy Scouts sought and won protection from the Supreme Court after the State of New Jerseyviolated Boy Scouts’ First Amendment rights. Now, because Boy Scouts won at the Supreme Court, the State of Connecticut punished Boy Scouts and again violated the First Amendment.

Q2. What will happen now that the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case?

A2. The U.S. Supreme Court decided simply not to hear the case; it did not rule one way or the other on the underlying issues. The decision we asked the Supreme Court to review affects only Connecticut. Boy Scouts councils in Connecticutwill continue to work for the benefit of the children of Connecticut. They will still endeavor to provide inner-city youth with Scouting’s character- and leadership-building programs. Boy Scouts councils in Connecticut will simply have to find alternative ways to reach citizens who want to contribute to support these efforts.

Q3. How much money is at stake here?

A3. State employees contributed about $10,000 per year to Connecticut Boy Scout councils through the charitable campaign.

Q4. Are Boy Scouts suing to keep government funding? Are Boy Scouts trying to use the courts to force government to donate to them or facilitate donations to them?

A4. No. The State is not funding or subsidizing or donating to Boy Scouts in any way. Instead, the State is preventing Boy Scouts from access to private funds sought to be donated to the Scouts through the private decisions of employees acting in their private capacities.

Q5. Didn’t Boy Scouts of America already win its First Amendment rights in the Supreme Court? How can Boy Scouts insist on being a private organization and also insist on being part of a public program?

A5. In Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000), the U.S. Supreme Court held that states could not apply antidiscrimination statutes so as to interfere with Boy Scouts leadership decisions which are protected by the First Amendment. The lower courts in the Wyman case disagreed, however, and said that states can interfere with those decisions by excluding Boy Scouts from a charitable campaign. That is why we asked the United States Supreme Court to hear the case. We believe that, under Dale, the State of Connecticut cannot use Boy Scouts’ leadership decisions as justification for excluding Boy Scouts from a charitable campaign open to 900 other charities.

Q6. Don’t Boy Scouts discriminate against gays and atheists?

A6. Boy Scouts of America is one of the most diverse youth groups in the country, serving boys of every ethnicity, religion, and economic circumstance and having programs for older teens of both sexes. That Boy Scouts also has traditional values, like requiring youth to do their “duty to God” and be “morally straight” is nothing to be ashamed of and should not be controversial. No court case has ever held that Boy Scouts discriminates unlawfully, and it is unfortunate here that anyone would characterize Boy Scouts’ constitutionally protected right to hold traditional values as “discriminatory.” That is just name-calling.

Q7. Aren’t Boy Scouts different from other organizations because they exclude gays and atheists?

A7. No. Many of the 900 charities that participate in Connecticut’s campaign focus their services or limit their membership on the basis of sex, age, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. The campaign includes ethnic and religious associations, advocacy groups, groups devoted to the special interests of various categories of persons, and traditional service organizations. With so many groups and subject matters included, it is unconstitutional for the State to single out Boy Scout councils to be excluded because of Boy Scouts’ viewpoint. The State has no business penalizing Boy Scouts because of how they define what it is to lead a “morally straight” life.