September, 2002
www.defendscouting.com
An
Astonishing National Response to Our United Way Watch Project
Provides Valuable Lessons!
Dear Reader;
Since our last newsletter there have been some significant and somewhat
astonishing national developments related to our United Way Watch List of
local United Ways that have cut off funding the Scouts.
First, a little background. We are committed to making the Watch List as
complete and accurate as possible. As part of this effort, in July we
sent letters to all the United Ways we intended to include on the updated list
outlining the criteria we used and asking them to contact us if they thought
they should not be on the list. (The section below summarizes this and
subsequent correspondence and provides links to view the actual letters and memo.)
This simple request drew a totally unexpected response. The National
United Way office immediately sent a memo to all 1400 local United Ways
condemning our effort and directing the local organizations not to respond to
our inquiry. The memo informed the local chapters that part of their “initial
response” to this potentially embarrassing publicity was to get Roy Williams,
the Chief Scout Executive, to contact us and ask us to drop the Watch
List. Brian Gallegher, the President of United Way of America, the
national organization, also wrote to us protesting the Watch List and made a
not-so-veiled threat to sue us! (See below for our responses to both
these letters.)
As far as continuing with the Watch List, these reactions make us more
determined than ever to maintain it and publicize it even more widely.
But there are several significant lessons that Scouting supporters should draw
from these remarkable over-reactions to our simple request.
The first is that this clearly is an issue about which the United Way is very
sensitive, as they should be. (The executive director of a Scout council
whose local United Way had cut off funding his council but had to reverse its
decision when contributions dropped sharply as a result made an important observation:
“The people who run the United Way are social liberals, but most of those who
contribute are social conservatives.”) This reaction tells us that we are
absolutely on the right track in our effort to publicize those United Ways that
have cut off the Scouts. The result will be more direct contributions to
local councils in those areas where funding has been cut off and a deterrence
to those United Ways that may be considering cutting off funding. Local Scout
supporters must recognize and use this leverage they have.
The second lesson relates to the very difficult position the National United
Way put the Chief Scout Executive, Roy Williams, in. In the last year for
which numbers are available, United Ways around the country funneled over $85
million to the Scouts nationwide. If an organization with that kind of
financial clout contacts you and suggests that you do something to try to
prevent embarrassing publicity, what are you going to do? You
probably do what Williams did in his letter and try to make the case that we
should stop.
If you look at his argument, however, you will recognize that it is both weak
and wrong. Over the past couple of years since funding for the Scouts has
been under serious attack by homosexual activists, it has become increasingly
clear that the only way to get the attention of the “wannabe” social engineers
at many local United Ways is through a drop in contributions. Loss of
donations is the only thing that has forced several of them to reverse
decisions to cut off funding the Scouts and discouraged others from even
trying. . Roy Williams knows that, yet he clearly felt he had no choice
but to write the letter.
Which leads to the third lesson. We have known for some time that the
national United Way was providing legal advice to local United Ways that wanted
to cut off funding the Scouts. Gallegher’s home office memo to local
United Ways makes it clear that the home office supports the local units that
cut off the Scouts and his letter to us indicates that his real intention is to
hide the facts, not insure their accuracy. It is also clear from this
incident that the national office exerts more direct control over these local
United Ways than anyone outside the organization had previously known.
This means that the problem of reduced United Way funding to the Scouts will
continue to grow unless we can find more effective ways to protect it.
The fourth lesson is that local Scout councils in more “liberal” areas would be
wise to reduce their dependence on United Way funding. Many are moving in
that direction and Scouting supporters in vulnerable council areas should be
particularly supportive of these efforts. We will be highlighting some of
the ways they are doing this in future newsletters.
The final lesson is that this incident provides strong validation of the reason
we created the Scouting Legal Defense Fund. Ed Meese, Congressmen Dana
Rohrabacher and Chris Cannon, myself and others on our Board or Advisory
Committee who organized the Fund are Scouts (not “were”, because we were all
taught that once a Scout always a Scout.) In fact, Dana and I are Eagle
Scouts. In the wake of the Dale Supreme Court decision, it was
clear us that there would be things that dedicated Scouters can do to defend
Scouting that that Scouts cannot do as well themselves or not do at all.
This is a good example.
Thank you for all you are doing to defend Scouting. Let us learn these
lessons and redouble our efforts to apply them.
Sincerely,
Robert B. Carleson
Editor
P.S. Help us better defend Scouting by forwarding this on to others you think
will help. You can also help us by making a donation to
support our efforts.
Scouting
News From the Scouting Legal Defense Fund
A Simple Request Triggers Over-Reaction From National United Way
As part of our effort to made the United Way Watch List as accurate as
possible, the Scouting Legal Defense Fund (SLDF) wrote all the local United
Ways we planned to include in the latest update. We laid out the criteria
for being listed, told them that we had information that would put them into
one of the categories on the Watch List and asked them to contact us if they
thought they should not be listed. Click here to
see the text of this letter.
This simple request almost immediately triggered an unexpected response, one
that by any standard is an over-reaction. Within days, the national United Way
office issued a memorandum to all 1400 local United Way offices, directing them
not to cooperate with out request. (We had only written the 65 that we
had been able to identify!) The memo also said that as part of their “initial
response” to our efforts, the president of the United Way of America, Brian
Gallegher, had talked to Roy Williams, Chief Scout Executive. The memo claimed
that Williams agreed that the maintaining and publicizing the Watch List was
not helpful to the Scouts and that he would be contacting the SLDF with that
message. See a copy of this memo here .
Gallegher also wrote to the SLDF to express his “concern” about the Watch
List and request that we “discontinue” it. He argued that there may be
many reasons that local United Ways stopped funding their local Scouts and that
our characterization of these actions as discriminating against the Scouts “is
legally inaccurate and may be libelous.” He further threatened to “take
action to protect the interests of our members” if the SLDF published any
“misrepresentations” about local United Ways. Click here to see a copy of
this letter.
Robert Carleson, Chairman of the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU), the group
that sponsors the SLDF, wrote an extensive rebuttal of Gallegher’s
letter. He notes that the original letter was an effort to make the list
as accurate as possible. Providing the public with an accurate list
clearly is in the interest of all local United Ways, he points out. One
of the problems has been that local United Ways that were continuing to fund
the Scouts but are located in the vicinity of one that had cut off funding were
often hurt by the adverse publicity that results. An accurate list would
prevent that. He notes that the national office’s claimed support
of “diversity” is at odds with the discriminatory policy against the
Scouts. Responding specifically to the national office’s “initial strategy”
of getting the national Scout office to bring pressure on us, Carleson notes
that because United Way is a major source of funding for the Scouts, this
request raises a “disturbing” question of whether the Scouts are being unduly
pressured to take a position that may not be in their best interests. He
also notes that the directive in the memorandum to local United Ways not to
comply with the SLDF’s request raises questions about whether they are as
autonomous as is claimed. Carleson specifically asks for Gallegher’s response
to the issues and questions raised, but none has been received. See a
copy of his letter here
.
As Gallegher had requested, Roy Williams, the Chief Scout Executive, did write
the SLDF. In his very short letter, he makes a weak defense of the United
Way, noting that the Scouts believe it plays an important role as a
“coordinated community-wide charity.” He claims that maintaining and
publicizing the Watch List was resulting in less funding for the Scouts in some
areas, but offers no evidence or examples. His only request is that the
SLDF “cease this particular line of inquiry regarding the United Way of
America” (which, of course, was not the point of our inquiry, but rather the
offending local chapters). Significantly, while he does not specify which
United Ways had cut funding, he did verify that the number we have identified
was very close to their number (about 70). You can view a copy of
Williams’ letter here
.
In his response to Williams, Robert Carleson notes that it appears that
Gallegher had exerted “inappropriate pressure” on him to contact the SLDF and
request that we cease maintaining and publicizing the Watch List. It is
clear, Carleson says, that the national United Way is part of the growing
problem of United Ways discriminating against the Scouts in funding
decisions. He points out that the Scouts benefit from the Watch List in
two ways. In those areas where people realize that funds have been cut
off, direct contributions to the Scouts generally increase. In areas
where the local United Way continues to fund the Scouts, potential contributors
are reassured if there is an independent source of information such as the
Watch list that accurately monitors local United Ways on the Scout issue.
He assures Williams that the SLDF will intensify its efforts in behalf of the
Scouts, including maintaining the Watch List, and “will not be intimidated by
Brian Gallegher.” A copy of this letter is available here .
Scouting News From Around the Country
--Milwaukee Council Sidesteps Local United Way Sexual Orientation Policy
The Milwaukee Scout Council may have discovered a novel approach to the problem
many local Scout councils face when their local United Ways demand that they
sign pledges not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. The
Milwaukee Council simply crossed out the term “sexual orientation” in the list
of non-discrimination categories, signed it and returned it. The local
United Way has accepted it and the national Scout office says that they have no
problem with the council signing the pledge. Officials at the local council made
it clear that while they do not ask a person’s sexual orientation, if it became
known that a person was a homosexual he would be asked to leave Scouting.
A local homosexual activist called the development “discouraging and
disheartening.” The council received more than $650,000 in funds from the
United Way last year. From an Associated Press report in the Star
Tribune, no free article available.
--Judge Orders Oregon and Portland Schools To Pay Legal Fees In Atheist Case
In a Scout related case, an Oregon Judge has ordered the Oregon State Board of
Education and the Portland Public Schools to pay the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) $108,000 in legal fees for the “Powell” case which the ACLU
successfully argued in state court. In December, the same judge had ruled
that the Portland School District had violated a state law against religious
discrimination because it allowed the Scouts to recruit during school hours.
The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of a mother and her son who are atheists.
The state is appealing the ruling. No article available.
--Major Donor Pulls Funding Over Scout Policy
A major donor to the Ventura County (California) United Way has withdrawn
funding because he claims the organization was “not being truthful” in
reporting that it was cutting off allocated funding to the local Scout council
because of the Scouts’ position on excluding openly homosexual men from serving
as scoutmasters. Dennis Weinberg and his wife Allyson will now withhold
hundreds of thousands of dollars from the United Way and make contributions
directly to charities. The Weinberg said the did not think the local
United Way should be a “social and political organization and taking
sides. It is supposed to be helping people in need in your community.”
Article here
--Scout Award to Hawaii’s First Lady Raises Controversy
When Hawaii Gov. Ben Cayetano's wife, Vicky, was selected to receive the
Boy Scouts' Distinguished Citizen of the Year award, homosexual activists
pressured her to refuse it as a way of making a statement in opposition to the
Scouts’ policy of excluding openly homosexual men from serving as
scoutmasters. She accepted the award and did not raise the issue at
the ceremony but subsequently wrote a letter to the Honolulu newspaper saying
she hoped the Scouts would "open their arms and leadership positions to
all capable individuals." Reported in the Honolulu Advertiser,
August 11, 2002, no free article available.
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