Are the Boy Scouts of America "permeated with discrimination"? They are, according to Oregon ACLU executive director David Fidanique. This month, an atheist woman represented by the ACLU lost her argument at the Oregon Supreme Court that it was unconstitutional for the Boy Scouts to recruit in Portland public schools. Mr. Fidanique himself is determined to discriminate against the Scouts by alleging of them an unlawful sort of discrimination.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of the Boy Scouts to determine their own membership in the 2000 case of BSA v. Dale. And just because the Boy Scouts require members to adhere to a code of ethics does not mean that the code is enforced on all students in the public schools in which it recruits. Perhaps more importantly, the Boy Scouts are a fundamentally inclusive organization whose very attempt to recruit suggests its openness. The Scouts only ask for boys and men who do their best to do their "duty to God" and keep "morally straight."
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But more than the fact that the Boy Scouts are inclusive justifies its interaction in the public square. It turns out that our enemies in the world of Islamic extremism have in mind to train their youth as terrorists, and they are using the Scouting model to do so.
The Imam al-Mahdi Scouts were founded in 1985 as a Shiite movement to develop young terrorists for Hezbollah. The symbol of the organization includes the traditional Scout fleur-de-lis with a motto in Arabic: "Obey!" According to a report from the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the Imam al-Madhi Scouts indoctrinate their members with an intense hatred of Israel and a determination to advance the despotic ideology of Iranian Supreme leader 'Ali Khomeini. There are 42,000 members between the ages of 8 and 16 in nearly 500 troops throughout Lebanon.
The Imam al-Mahdi Scouts provide reading material about Khomeini's Iranian Islamic revolution with titles like "The Jihad Youths" and "Sharon the Evil One." Scouts march in parades and participate in cultural events to raise awareness of Iranian history. They join together in social events, camps and militarized training.
As Egypt's Ruz al-Yusuf reported last month, the object of Imam al-Mahdi Scouts is to prepare a "high-caliber Islamic generation." The terrorists may not have the wealth and the weapons kept by the nations of the West (though they may have more than we think), but they most certainly have passion and purpose. Shiite parents in Lebanon raise their children to die as suicide bombers; they are aided in the conspiracy by Imam al-Mahdi Scouts.
"A nation whose children are willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of Allah is a victorious nation," said Hezbollah Deputy General Secretary Na'im Qassim on a recent broadcast. "Israel cannot overcome us … because we have sons … who in the future will rid the earth of the Zionist pollution which conquered it. …"
Imam al-Mahdi Scouts are trained to live, and to die, for Allah in their war against Israel, and we might add, against the free world. Over 120 former Imam al-Mahdi Scouts, suicide bombers among them, have died fighting against Israel.
Meanwhile, Mr. Fidanique of the Oregon ACLU is worried that the Boy Scouts of America are "permeated with discrimination."
The claim is not unlike the rhetorical question offered two years ago by the Philadelphia Daily News: "What is the difference between the Boy Scouts and the Taliban?" The Daily News went on to suggest that the Boy Scouts were a hate group in the same class as the Taliban.
In all seriousness, what is the difference between the Boy Scouts and the Taliban? Or better, what is the difference between the Boy Scouts and the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts? Trustworthy. Loyal. Helpful. Friendly. Courteous. Kind. Obedient. Cheerful. Thrifty. Brave. Clean. Reverent. As for the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts, we might borrow Fidanique's phrase: "permeated with discrimination."
On another level, there is a comparison to be made between the Boy Scouts and the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts. Both organizations are training the next generation of leaders for opposing sides in what President Bush last week called "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of our generation."
If we are to win this war, it is the ACLU, not the Boy Scouts, who must be expelled from the public square.
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