Nancy Powell had to tell her kids, "they don't like our kind." Boy Scout and other programs encouraged by the local school district require a religious test -- and discriminate against non-believers

ancy Powell is like a lot of mothers in Portland, Oregon. She's got a couple of kids enrolled at the local public elementary school; son Remington, at 7, sports a Nike tee-shirt and was curious about the local Boy Scouting program. Nancy's other child, Kat, is age-6 and enrolled, along with her brother, at the Scott Elementary School in Northeast Portland. A few more years, and Nancy joins the ranks of American mothers which focus group watchers like to call "soccer moms," but with an important exception. -- Nancy and her family are atheists.

    And she is standing firm in opposing the Portland public school's policy of permitting organizations like the Boy Scouts and the Little League which require an oath of religious belief, to recruit. Last week, Ms. Powell filed the first complaint ever received by the State of Oregon about the Boy Scouts having access to public schools; she argues that the practice constitutes a clear violation of state-church separation, and violates state and federal laws, as well as the local school district's own regulations. "I had to tell my sobbing son, 'I'm sorry, but our kind is not welcome'," Powell recounted last week to the Portland, Oregonian newspaper.

   Many organizations, including the Boy Scouts, enjoy official or quasi-official status as the result of special chartering recognition by the Congress, and their relationship with public entities. Powell's case in Oregon is not the first time that atheists and others have challenged that relationship, charging that the government has no business promoting groups that discriminate against non-belief.

RELIGION AND THE SCOUTS...

"I promise to love God, my family, and my country and to learn about the world." -- Tiger Cub Promise

"I (name) promise to do my best, to do my duty to God and my country, to help other people, and to obey the Law of the Pack." -- Cub Scout Promise

"Leadership is restricted to qualified adults who subscribe to the Declaration of Religious Principle, the Scout Oath, and the Scout Law..." -- from BSA "methods and practices" advisory for parents.

    Margaret Downey, a Philadelphia area freethinker, protested the Scout policy under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act. As part of a terms of settlement agreement, the BSA offered her the opportunity to apply as an adult volunteer without requiring her to acknowledge a belief in any god. In Illinois, Atheist activist Rob Sherman has challenged the Scouts on several grounds, pointing out that the governments shouldn't be providing facilities to the discriminatory organization.

    The Scouts are clear about where they stand on the matter of religious belief -- a fact which Nancy Powell documents with stacks of Scouting materials, including pamphlets and membership applications where were distributed at the local public school and brought home by her children. Last spring, Remy was given a pamphlet at school inviting him to become a Cub Scout. To join, however, he would be required to swear an oath of his "duty to God." Powell told local media, "My son has had to experience a vicious kind of discrimination in the very place I send him every day with the assumption that school staff is there supporting him and not joining in the religious hatred." She adds that "We believe in science, not in supernatural beings. I find it offensive to be told we're not good Americans because we don't believe in God."

    Powell is careful to distinguish between positive aspects of the Scouting program, and the fact that they discriminate against non-believers, and are supported by government institutions like the public schools. In Portland as in many communities throughout the country, the Boy Scouts program receives free access to school facilities with the provision that any activities "shall not include religious instruction, religious services or political efforts." Even so, Powell points out that a requirement for membership in the Boy Scouts and several other groups is a belief in a god. "My beef isn't with the Boy Scouts," she notes, "but with discrimination. The Boy Scouts has a right to be as narrow-minded and discriminatory as it chooses, but not on school property."

    Last Thursday, Nancy Powell and her family held a press conference in front of the Portland Public Schools office on Dixon Street. In her handout to the media, Powell notes that the Boy Scouts of America require a belief in a deity for all members, who must sign the "Declaration of Religious Principles," and the fact that the Scouting oath begins with "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country..." Even the application for the Cub Scout packs has religious tests. The "Tiger Cub Promise" reads, "I promise to love God, my family and my country, and to learn about the world." And a BSA manual warns parents that "Leadership is restricted to qualified adults who subscribe to the Declaration of Religious Principle..." and "The Boy Scouts of America recognizes the importance of religious faith and duty..." Ms. Powell also told the media that the aggressive solicitation carried out by the scouts in the schools during schools hours,violated State and City law.

    Ms. Powell and her family have been fighting the discriminatory policy of the local schools for several months. In April, 1997, she contacted officials including the Superintendent of the Portland Public Schools, John Bierwirth and addressed a meeting of the local School Board. She was well prepared, and produced numerous exhibits including applications for the various scouting groups (all requiring a religious test for membership), copies of legal statutes, and resolutions by groups condemning the discriminatory policy of the BSA by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Unitarians and others. "It is incontrovertible," said Powell, "that BSA discriminates both on the bases of requiring a god belief and practicing an anti-homosexual bias." Either practice, she insists, should disqualify the scouts or any other similar group from recruiting through the school system.

    The Boy Scouts aren't the only offenders in discriminating against atheists, and receiving the support of local public school authorities. Powell found out that the Little League has a prayer -- something she discovered when she volunteered as a parent-coach. "I was just shocked," she said. The prayer dates back to the beginning of the League more than a half-century ago, and says, "I trust in God. I love my country, and will respect its laws. I will play fair and strive to win. But win or lose, I will always do my best." Another group Powell points to is the YMCA, which declares in its mission statement that it wants "to put Christian principles into action through programs that build a healthy spirit, mind and body for all."

    To some, Nancy Powell's concerns about the Boy Scouts may seem misplaced. But she notes that promoting the Scouts, at least in the local schools, involved more than just giving kids flyers to bring home to their parents. On October 16, 1996, a non removable wrist bracelet was placed on son Remington's arm by a "Child Development Specialist" at Scott Elementary School, urging that all first grade boys join the local cub scout pack. Nancy still keeps the bracelet as evidence of the more aggressive proselytizing going on inside the schools.

    The Powell family's concerns over discriminatory, religious groups recruiting in schools, and with the assistance and encouragement of local authorities, underscores the growing cultural debate over the separation of church and state. Religious groups are curtailed by law from proselytizing on campuses during official hours; religious groups have organized September 17 as "Meet Me At The Flagpole Day," where they will urge students, teachers and others to congregate and pray. And legislation in Washington, D.C. would, if enacted, mean a greater role for religious exercise in public life and the nation's schools. The Religious Equality Amendment, for instance, would permit a wide range of "student initiated" prayer; critics fear that it would essentially eviscerate meaningful state-church separation in America and further erode the rights of atheists, other non-believers and even religious minorities.

    In the meantime, Nancy Powell is maintaining the pressure for an answer from school authorities to her charges of discrimination. "No mother should ever again be put in the position of telling her sobbing 6-year-old son on the steps of his own school that 'our kind,' non-believers in the supernatural, are not welcome," she says. And with school about to begin in Portland, the Powells are still awaiting their answer.

[text only]