| Pfc.Green |
10-30-2002 07:45 PM |
Atheist Boy Scout fights decision to boot him
The Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts has given Eagle Scout Darrell Lambert about a week to decide "in his heart" if he's truly an atheist. If he insists on sticking to his belief that there is no God, the Council will terminate his membership.
"No way" is he going to change his beliefs, says Lambert, who has been in scouting since he was 9 years old. "It'd be like me asking them to change their belief. It's not going to happen."
His beliefs, if unchanged, give the Scouts no choice, says Brad Farmer, council's Scout executive in Seattle.
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Boy Scouts' right as a private organization to ban certain members. The Scouts exclude atheists.
The 19-year-old has earned 37 merit badges, been a quartermaster and three-time senior patrol leader, and now he's an assistant Scoutmaster and a field leader in training as part of the Search and Rescue Program. In his senior year in high school, he racked up more than 1,000 hours of community service.
He doesn't believe in smoking or taking illegal drugs. His mom offered to take him out for a drink when he turns 21. But he doesn't believe in drinking alcohol.
And he doesn't believe in God — not since the ninth grade. And even before then he was unsure.
"You need to have a recognition of a supreme being," said Farmer. "We as the Boy Scouts do not define what that is, but you need to have a recognition."
Every Boy Scout and adult leader must attest to that belief on an application in order to join. It can be part of subscribing to a structured religion — such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam or Hinduism — or a more amorphous faith in some presence greater than ourselves, Farmer explained.
The issue has garnered national attention over the years. In 1998, 16-year-old twins Michael and William Randall, who refused to take an oath to God, won a seven-year legal battle with the council in Orange County, Calif., and were awarded Eagle badges, Scouting's top award.
Whether Lambert will be allowed to stay remains in doubt, but last night he explained his predicament to the parents of the kids in his Port Orchard troop, Troop 1531. He laid out the choices and asked for their support.
His mom, who is Scoutmaster, and his dad stood by his side. He told the parents that the troop could watch him get kicked out, which he said he would regret because "I couldn't teach merit badges, which is something I absolutely love to do." Or, he said, they could stand up to the Boy Scout Council and say, "It's wrong."
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