by Lou Chibbaro Jr.

U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) introduced an amendment this week that calls for cutting off federal education funds to any public school that denies equal access to meeting space for the Boy Scouts or other youth groups that "prohibit the acceptance of homosexuality."

In a speech on the Senate floor on Monday, May 14, Helms said his amendment to a federal education bill is aimed at public schools and public school districts "which are now being pressured to kick the Boy Scouts out" because the Boy Scouts organization refuses to accept Gay Scouts or Scout leaders.

The Senate was expected to vote on the Helms amendment sometime next week, and Capitol Hill observers said the amendment had a reasonably good chance of passing.

Rep. Van Hilleary (R-Tenn.) was expected to introduce an identical amendment in the House of Representatives.

Gay civil rights groups called the Helms amendment a form of political grandstanding that would have no legal significance because the U.S. Constitution and existing federal law already prohibit schools from denying meeting space to the Boy Scouts if they provide similar meeting facilities to other groups.

"This is just a political ploy to bash the Gay community and to falsely portray the Boy Scouts as victims," said Michael Adams, deputy legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a Gay litigation group in New York.

Adams said Gay activists have responded to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the Boy Scouts’ anti-Gay admission policy by calling on schools and other public and private institutions to discontinue what Adams called "preferential treatment" to Boy Scouts groups. According to Adams, many of the nation’s school districts have provided free meeting space to Boy Scouts troops while charging fees for other organizations seeking the same meeting facilities.

He said the First Amendment prohibits schools and other institutions, such as police stations and civic groups, from denying meeting space to Boy Scouts troops if they provide similar facilities to other organizations. But Adams said the First Amendment and existing anti-discrimination laws do not prevent schools or other institutions from discontinuing practices that offer "special privileges" to an individual organization such as the Boy Scouts.

Adams said the Helms amendment would not prohibit schools or school districts from discontinuing what activists have called "sweetheart deals" for the Boy Scouts as long as the schools or school districts offer the Boy Scouts the same access to facilities that they offer to other groups.

In his Senate speech, Helms noted that at least nine school districts throughout the country had taken steps to "publicly attack" the Boy Scouts by attempting the violate the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which upheld the Boy Scouts’ longstanding policy of banning Gay Scouts and Scout leaders. Adams said that out of this group of school districts, only one — the Broward County, Fla., school board — appears to have violated the law by passing an outright ban on Boy Scout meetings in school buildings. A U.S. District Court in Florida overturned the school board’s action.

"They made a mistake, even though we agree with their intent," said Adams. "We agree with the court in this case."

Helms said Gay activists, some of whom he described as "radical militants," were attempting to pressure the nation’s public schools and public school districts to "undermine" the Supreme Court ruling upholding the Boy Scouts’ right to discriminate against Gays.

Helms said that while Gay activists seek to oust the Boy Scouts from school buildings throughout the country, "those very same meeting places at schools remain open to more than 800 Gay-Straight Alliance clubs."

"These are homosexual school clubs that have been formed with the assistance of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which is a radical group committed to promoting immoral lifestyles in the school systems of America," Helms said.

Officials with the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, known as GLSEN, have said their organization seeks to end anti-Gay discrimination as well as anti-Gay violence and name-calling in the nation’s schools. GLSEN officials have said the Gay-Straight Alliance clubs are aimed at fostering understanding and tolerance of Gay youth within a school setting.

"Sadly, the old Jesse Helms is back, using his position of power to bully those with whom he disagrees," said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest Gay political group. "The Boy Scouts have always had, and still have, access to schools, so this is really nothing more than a punishment in search of a problem."

Capitol Hill observers say the Helms and Hilleary amendments have a chance of passing because many lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, fear critics would portray them as being hostile to the Boy Scouts and sympathetic to homosexuals if they vote against the amendments.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), coordinator of the debate on the overall education bill for Democratic Senators, strongly opposes the Helms amendment and is working on a strategy for defeating it, Kennedy spokesperson Jim Manley said. Sen. James Jeffords (R-Vt.), who chairs the Senate education committee and who is serving as floor manager for the education bill, has a record of support on Gay civil rights issues. Jeffords’s office did not return calls by Blade deadline seeking to determine Jeffords’s position on the Helms amendment.

The influential House Rules Committee, which has authority to clear or block amendments, voted Wednesday night to allow the Hilleary amendment to reach the House floor for a vote, a development that indicates the House Republican leadership supports the amendment.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said the Helms and Hilleary amendments "belie" the longstanding claims by their Republican sponsors that the federal government should not intrude into the affairs of local school districts. "This is the price we pay for a Republican majority in Congress," Frank said. "This would not be happening if the Democrats were in control."

The Helms amendment states that "no funds made available through the Department of Education shall be provided to any public elementary school, public secondary school, local educational agency, or state educational agency, if the school or a school served by the agency (1) has a designated open forum; and (2) denies equal access or a fair opportunity to meet to, or discriminates against, any group affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America or any other youth group that wishes to conduct a meeting within that designated open forum, on the basis of the membership or leadership criteria of the Boy Scouts of America or of the youth group that prohibit the acceptance of homosexuals, or individuals who reject the Boy Scouts’ or the youth group’s oath of allegiance to God and country, as members or leaders."

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This article appeared in the issue of:
May 18, 2001