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July 11, 2005
Union
of Orthodox Jewish Congregations
Critiques Federal Court Ruling Against Defense Dept. Assistance
to Boy Scouts Jamboree, Welcomes
Dismissal of ACLU
Attempts to Void other
Government Grants
Today, the Union of
Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, through its Institute
for Public Affairs, criticized a federal district court ruling
that the federal government would violate the Establishment Clause
of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution if the government
assists the Boy Scouts in mounting their quadrennial National Boy
Scout Jamboree – slated for Fort A.P. Hill in Fredericksburg,
Virginia later this summer. (The court entered an injunction
against the government’s assistance for future Jamborees, leaving
this year’s undisturbed.)
The case, Winkler v. Chicago School Reform Board Trustees, was
filed by the ACLU in 1999 against the Department of Defense and
Department of Housing and Urban Development, among others. (Boy
Scouts of America is not a party to the case.) As the DOD told the
court, the National Scout Jamboree is a unique training event for
the military because it requires the construction, maintenance,
and disassembly of a “tent city” capable of supporting many
thousands for a week or longer. The military’s logistical and
security support during the National Scout Jamboree has been an
incomparable opportunity for training our armed forces. The
district court, however, invalidated the statute authorizing such
support as unconstitutional because Scouting has a nonsectarian
“duty to God” requirement. The district court relied on an
unprecedented trial court decision from San Diego, Barnes-Wallace
v. Boy Scouts of America, which also was filed by the ACLU and
currently is on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit. Boy Scouts of America and numerous amici curiae
- including the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division -
believe that this aspect of the case was wrongly decided.
Importantly, the trial court denied the ACLU’s attempt to
invalidate valuable programs offered by Boy Scouts of America with
the support of HUD. Boy Scouts of America uses support from the
Public Housing Drug Elimination Program and Community Development
Block Grant program to benefit low-income youth. The district
court dismissed the ACLU’s claims seeking to cancel that support.
The court held that, even on its own terms that the Boy Scouts is
a religious, though not pervasively sectarian, organization, it
may receive government grants on religiously neutral terms to
provide social welfare services.
Nathan J. Diament, director of public policy for the Union, issued
the following statement:
The trial court’s ruling in this case and its interpretation of
the Establishment Clause are very troubling. With regard to the
Boy Scouts’ partnership with the Dept. of Defense, the court
accepted the ACLU’s misinterpretation of the mainstream
understanding of the Establishment Clause (an understanding which,
ironically, the ACLU has opposed in many court cases) that it
requires governmental neutrality toward religious entities, as
opposed to discrimination against religious entities as advocates
for a “strict separation” of religion and state often demand. The
Boy Scouts is clearly a non-sectarian organization which welcomes
participants of diverse faiths and backgrounds; many Orthodox
synagogues sponsor Boy Scout troops and their needs are
accommodated at the Jamboree. In its services related to the
Jamboree, the Defense Department is gaining a secular benefit for
itself – training its personnel in certain tasks, and providing a
service to an organization which is nonsectarian. Such assistance
is government neutrality toward religion and thus appropriate and
constitutional under the Establishment Clause. We are encouraged
by the trial court’s dismissal of the ACLU’s specious attacks on
the Boy Scouts’ receipt of HUD and CDBG grants.
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