Thursday, February 20, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Eagle grounded

Atheist Boy Scout challenges officials over expulsion

By Lynnette Curtis

Darrell Lambert is the kind of teenager most parents wish they'd raised. An Eagle Scout and assistant scoutmaster in his hometown of Port Orchard, Wash., Lambert is a college freshman with plans to pursue a career in medicine. During summer vacations, he works as a volunteer firefighter all over the West. He's intelligent, articulate and politically minded. And he considers himself to be a good citizen.

So why would the Boy Scouts of America revoke Lambert's membership, return his registration dues and tell him he's no longer allowed to wear his uniform or participate in any Scouting-related activities?

No, not because he's gay--though that, too, likely would put an end to his career in the Scouts. Instead, the BSA believes Lambert violated one of the Boy Scout Law's main tenets: to be "reverent." He was kicked out of the organization in November 2002 because he's an atheist. Since then, his story has appeared in newspapers all over the world, on National Public Radio and on the NBC Nightly News.

Lambert, who has been a Boy Scout since he was 9 years old, was in Las Vegas Sunday to speak about his expulsion and its accompanying media blitz at a meeting of the local chapter of the American Humanist Association.

"I love the Boy Scouts," he says. "I don't want to defame the Boy Scouts. But when it hit the papers, it all just blew up in my face."

Lambert's troubles with the BSA began last year when he casually discussed his religious beliefs with another Scout leader at a leadership training seminar. The other leader told him atheists should not be allowed in the Boy Scouts. About a week later, Lambert received an ultimatum from Scouting officials. He was given one week to reconsider his beliefs, or he would be kicked out of the Boy Scouts.

"I conveyed [to them] that my beliefs were not going to change," Lambert says. BSA Chief Seattle Council Scout Executive Bradley Farmer then sent Lambert a letter telling him he must completely disassociate himself from the Boy Scouts. "This letter hurt me more than anything ever has before in my life," Lambert says.

In the letter, Farmer writes that the BSA must revoke Lambert's registration because he is "unwilling to observe Scouting's duty to God," and has "rejected that principle quite publicly." Farmer also calls BSA membership a "privilege and not automatic. We reserve the right to refuse or revoke registration whenever there is a concern that an individual may not meet the high standards of membership that the Boy Scouts of America seeks."

The BSA has every legal right to discriminate against atheists, gays or anyone else it deems unfit to be a member. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the organization can set its own standards for membership. But Lambert says the ruling is unfair because BSA is endorsed by the federal government, meets in public buildings, receives public funding and is allowed to recruit new members in the public school system. "Atheist kids are required to be there," he says.

Further, Lambert says his atheism wasn't an issue when he was interviewed by Scouting leaders before receiving his Eagle award. "I told my Eagle Scout board that I was an atheist. They commended me on my honesty and courage for saying so of my own free will."

BSA national spokesman Gregg Shields says the organization doesn't ask any person to compromise his or her beliefs. But he calls it a "disservice to the millions of Scouts and their families to allow individuals to selectively obey or ignore elements of the Scout Law."

"Our core value is a belief in a supreme being, a God," says Shields. "It's in the first line of the Boy Scout Oath. We simply think a spiritual influence is important to a young person's development." Shields says the BSA has received more than 1,000 e-mails expressing support for its decision to revoke Lambert's membership.

Lambert says he will continue to fight for the BSA to change its discriminatory policies by making public appearances and speaking out about his views. Scouting, he says, taught him to stand up for his beliefs. "If it weren't for the values Scouts taught me, I wouldn't be standing up for my rights of freedom right now. I know other atheist Scouts. I know gay Scouts. I can't stand to see friends being told they are `unworthy' to be Scouts. That's the reason to stand up."

Lambert continues to serve as assistant scoutmaster of a Scout troop--with the blessing of the troop members' parents--and attends district meetings even though he knows the BSA doesn't approve. "I will always consider myself a Boy Scout," he says.