[Fwd: (want to be) Eagles in the news]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------1A63752ABB44C618AD2E4BA2
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Please, no flames to me. I'm really at a loss for words. When will
people read the directions before assembly. Or is this a case of ..not
applicable to me..
You decide. I forwarded this my Congressman and Senators.

--------------1A63752ABB44C618AD2E4BA2
Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

Received: from a.mx.execpc.com (a.mx.execpc.com [169.207.1.17])
by core0.mx.execpc.com (8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA29984 for <tshea@execpc.com>; Mon, 22 Dec 1997 20:54:27 -0600 (CST)
Return-Path: <mrf161@metalworkingsystems.com>
Received: from corewest-01 ([207.152.108.2]) by a.mx.execpc.com (8.8.8) id UAA21362 for <tshea@execpc.com>; Mon, 22 Dec 1997 20:54:25 -0600 (CST)
Received: from port36.wi.net (port36.wi.net [204.95.193.36]) by corewest-01 (NTMail 3.02.13) with ESMTP id ma013142 for <tshea@execpc.com>; Mon, 22 Dec 1997 20:59:18 -0600
From: "Timothy Falendysz" <mrf161@metalworkingsystems.com>
To: "Mike Cooper" <mcooper@execpc.com>,
"Scott Magee" <srmagee@students.wisc.edu>,
"Ed Raymond" <eraym282@uwsp.edu>, "Jim Rinnner" <rinnerfm@execpc.com>,
"Craig L Ziolkowski" <cziol826@uwsp.edu>,
"Tim Shea Sr" <tshea@execpc.com>, "John Topczewski" <jtop@execpc.com>,
"Glen Stelzer" <GlenStelzer@amcoengineering.com>,
"Scott Law" <scottlaw@csd.uwm.edu>, "Tim Grant" <tgrant@execpc.com>,
"Gary Falendysz" <gary0807@wi.net>, "Tim Wells Jr" <pinggggg@aol.com>,
"Aaron Weeks" <weeks@it.uwp.edu>, "Brian Saiia" <bsaiia@csd.uwm.edu>,
"Skip Manning" <goust@MetalWorkingSystems.com>,
"Chris Limburg" <climburg@sar.usf.edu>,
"Family Johnson" <themouse@wi.net>, "Family Kirkland" <kcrew@wi.net>,
"Darrell Kohlman" <DKohlman@alliedcg.com>,
"Erik Gierahn" <egierahn@students.wisc.edu>,
"Greg Meersman" <gmeer@bestbuy.com>,
"Matt Levandowski" <mattlevandowski@badgerelectronic.com>,
"Phil Kiley" <kiley@uwplatt.edu>,
"Rob Hart" <rthart@students.wisc.edu>,
"Ted Josten" <tjosten2921@vax2.winona.msus.edu>
Subject: (want to be) Eagles in the news
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 20:59:59 -0600
Message-ID: <01bd0f4e$db28ecc0$24c15fcc@MRF161.WI.NET>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3

ANAHEIM--At a tender age, twins William and Michael Randall believed in the
tooth fairy, in Santa Claus and even the Easter Bunny--but not in God.
After all, the other characters brought Christmas presents, chocolate
eggs and moola for teeth. If there was a God, they asked, where were the
goodies to prove it?
The twins' refusal to recite that part of the Boy Scout oath
acknowledging a duty to God, and their subsequent expulsion from their Cub
Scout pack, sparked a nationwide controversy in 1991.
An appeals court in Santa Ana sided with a Superior Court judge who had
ordered the Boy Scouts to readmit the twins, declaring that the youth
organization violated California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits
businesses from discriminating on the basis of religion.
Because other appeals courts have ruled differently--that the Boy
Scouts should not be considered a business establishment subject to the
Unruh Act--the California Supreme Court has decided to resolve the issue
once and for all.
On Jan. 5, state Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments in two
cases--that of the Randalls and another involving a Los Angeles Scout who
was barred from adult membership because he is gay.
The Supreme Court will be weighing the contradictory rulings in the two
cases just when the Randalls are expected to be considered for Eagle Scout
badges, Scouting's highest rank and the 16-year-old twins' ultimate goal.
If the justices eventually rule for them, the brothers say, their
six-year legal battle with the Boy Scouts--which has spanned more than
one-third of their lives--would have been worth it.
If they lose, the twins, and their parents, say the boys would be
crushed.
"A loss would be devastating," said James Grafton Randall, the twins'
father and attorney. "It would be like the loss of a limb. They've spent 11
years of their lives in [Scouting]. You might as well order up a casket and
hold a funeral, because they would have lost somebody."
Attorneys for the Boy Scouts say that having the twins in the Scouts
violates the organization's 1st Amendment right to freedom of association.
"This case deals with a core Scouting value," George Davidson, a New
York attorney for the Boy Scouts, said last week. "It's simple. The Boy
Scouts ask people to accept a requirement of undertaking a duty to God. If
they won't do that, they can't be Boy Scouts."
Davidson said a Supreme Court decision, expected by the end of March,
will affect "a vast number of associations [that serve] a defined segment of
the population, be it the aged, the young or people of a specific religious
belief, nationality, sex, ethnic descent or sexual preference."
The Boy Scouts is receiving support from an unlikely source, California
Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, the state's top civil rights enforcer. In a legal
brief, Lungren urged the court to rule in favor of the Scouting organization
and against the Anaheim twins.
The Unruh Act "cannot restrict the right of private groups from
expressing their own ideas," Lungren said, "and it cannot be used to force
them to alter the content of those beliefs by including those who do not
share them."
The boys and their parents disagree. They say they cannot disrupt the
Boy Scouts' operation simply by refusing to say "God."
* * *
The twins' refusal to pledge allegiance to a deity began when they were
only 6 years old and were members of a Cub Scout den in Culver City.
Without telling their parents, the twins would lip-sync through the
line that mentions God when they were asked to recite the Scouts' oath, just
as they would omit the words "under God" when they were asked to say the
Pledge of Allegiance.
When they moved to Anaheim Hills in 1990, a den mother who grew
suspicious about the boys' lack of religion told the twins that they could
not advance in rank if they did not profess a belief in God.
When the twins refused to say "God," Boy Scout officials suggested that
the matter could be overlooked if the parents would simply sign a document
saying their sons had completed the Scouts' religious requirement, James
Randall said.
When they refused to allow that to happen, the twins were told that
they could not be Cub Scouts, prompting a lawsuit by their attorney father.
In 1992, Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard O. Frazee Sr. ruled
that the state's Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits a business
establishment from discriminating on the basis of religion, applied in the
Randalls' case. He reasoned that the organization is a business because it
sells Scouting paraphernalia through stores operated for that purpose.
Frazee's decision was later upheld by the 4th District Court of Appeal in
Santa Ana.
Attorneys for the Boy Scouts filed an immediate appeal to the Supreme
Court, arguing that forcing the Boy Scouts to admit nonbelievers would cause
religious groups to drop their support of Scouting--something that would be
particularly harmful in Orange County, where half of Scouting groups are
sponsored by religious organizations.
* * *
But others have said that the Boy Scouts has been enhanced--not
harmed--by the Randalls' participation.
James F. Meade, a former leader of the Randalls' troop, described the
twins as "two of the finest young men that I had in that troop."
"They exemplify all of the Scouting virtues, as far as I'm concerned,"
said Meade, an attorney in the county counsel's office. "If every Scout was
like them, I'd have a lot less gray hair."
Since the case began, the brothers have grown from chubby youngsters
who shared a fondness for dinosaurs to stocky youths who, at 6 feet, 1 inch
and 240 pounds, now form part of the defensive line of Canyon High's varsity
football team.
During interviews last week, the boys sat next to a Christmas tree
sparsely decorated with rockets, spaceships and other high-tech trinkets.
The decorations mostly belong to Michael, who said he wants to pursue a
career in computers. William wants to be a lawyer like his father, whom he
calls "my hero."
But the twins said their immediate goal is to secure Eagle Scout
badges. "It's the top of the mountain," William said. "It'll be the apex in
my Scouting career," Michael chimed in.
Eagle Scout badges, the boys said, would attest to their leadership
skills and give them an advantage in college and job applications.
* * *
Both boys said they are "still deciding" about religion, adding that
the best way to describe them is "agnostic." They insisted that six years
after the case began, they are still undecided about God and still would not
know which God or gods to take an oath to, if any.
Michael said he still believes "the human body is far too complex for
one person to make up."
The boys declined to say what role their parents have played in their
religious beliefs, or lack thereof.
Their mother, Valerie Sue Randall, a medical transcriber, is a former
Methodist who now describes herself as a nonbeliever.
Their father, James Randall, had planned to become a Baptist minister
until he served as a medical lab technician during the Vietnam War.
"If there was a God, he wouldn't have allowed so many young boys to be
blown up and killed," James Randall said last week. "No God would allow that
kind of suffering to go on."
Since Judge Frazee's decision, the Randalls have been condemned in
Congress by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and by church groups
that held marches to protest decisions by Wells Fargo Bank, Levi Strauss and
other businesses to yank their financial support in protest over Boy Scout
policies relating to gays and nonreligious people.
One little-known fact in the case is how the legal battle has fractured
the relationship between James Randall and his own twin, John Randall III,
who holds an Eagle Scout badge.
In an interview last week, John Randall, a high school history teacher
in Menifee, Calif., said he believes that his twin brother has "a personal
vendetta" against the Boy Scouts because he "could never make it in
Scouting."
"Scouting has always been based on duty to God and country," John
Randall said. "The [twins] knew the rules going into Scouting, and their dad
did them a disservice by enrolling them.
"I'm vehemently oppose to the whole idea of his boys taking up Eagle
badges," John Randall said. "They do not deserve to wear it. If they get
away with this stunt, this scam, and get Eagle badges, I and everyone who
wears an Eagle badge would have been shamed."
James Randall insisted that the legal battle is being waged on behalf
of his sons--not him.
He said he is even prepared to break with the American Civil Liberties
Union, which co-wrote his legal brief to the Supreme Court, and suggest that
the justices could bar gays from Scouting and still rule for his sons.
"I'm selfish when it comes to my boys," James Randall said. "I want
them to become Eagle Scouts. I won't sacrifice what my sons have worked hard
for for 'the greater good.' "
"This is a conflict between honesty and mere words," James Randall
said. "It has nothing to do with me or religion. It's about two boys who
said we have to be honest and not say a bunch of words that have no meaning
to us."

--------------1A63752ABB44C618AD2E4BA2--

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Next message
• Previous message