James_Dale

At age 19 James Dale had spent nearly his entire life as a member of the Boy Scouts of America. He achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, worked at summer camp and volunteered as an Assistant Scoutmaster. All that came to an end in 1990, when he was expelled because he was openly gay.

At the time Dale was a Rutgers University sophomore and co-president of the gay student union. Days after he appeared in a local newspaper discussing the needs of gay teens, the Boy Scouts expelled him because he was a known “homosexual.” Although only 19 years old, Dale followed his core principle of fairness and challenged the Scout’s discrimination.

In 1995 a judge called Dale a "sodomite" while declaring homosexuality "criminal and immoral" in a decision siding with the Scouts. Then, in 1998, that ruling was overturned by a state appeals court. The following year the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Boy Scouts violated state law.

In 2000 the Boy Scouts appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, stating that they had a First Amendment right to communicate to their members that gays are “immoral” and “unclean." Two months later a divided Court (5 to 4), sided with the Boy Scouts. In Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), the single-vote majority stated that the Boy Scouts of America have a right to "free association" and to exclude gay boys and adults.

Since the Supreme Court decision in 2000, youth membership has dropped 21 percent, volunteer adult membership has fallen by 14 percent, and the number of Boy Scout troops has dropped by 12.6 percent, all while foundations, corporations, schools and individual citizens continue to distance themselves from the Boy Scouts of America and their discrimination, proving their Supreme Court case to be a short-sighted, Pyrrhic victory.