When I was in elementary school, the local Cub Scout pack would send an occasional pile of recruitment literature to my teacher for distribution. The brochure would make it home to my parents with a stack of graded spelling quizzes and weekly progress reports. I didn't actually join the Scouts until I was older, but many of my friends signed up to be Cub Scouts as a result of the literature they took home.

Last week, Steven Wagenhoffer of Portland, Ore., filed a complaint against his sons' elementary school for its continued distribution of Boy Scout promotional flyers. The homosexual "father" claims that the school violates the First Amendment by offering his sons an opportunity to swear, "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country" and to remain "morally straight."

On Wednesday, Oct. 8, Oregon's Portland public schools' Community and Staff Relations Committee will meet to discuss proposals to prohibit the Boy Scouts of America from distributing literature to Portland elementary school students.

In an alert to the militant anti-Scout pressure group Scouting for All, Wagenhoffer said that the committee will be "reviewing the District's position related to non-school group activities in its buildings. In particular, the Boy Scout issue will be an item on the agenda." Wagenhoffer encouraged activists in Portland's homosexual and atheist communities to bring protest signs with such slogans as "Out the Scouts," "On my honor I will do my duty to Boot the Scouts from the Schools," and "Scouts Dishonor."

For over a decade, the Portland Public Schools have been barraged by pressure from opponents of Boy Scout recruitment in classrooms.

In 1996, Portland Cub Scout parents decided to hand out wrist-bands reading, "Come Join Cub Scout Pack 16! Round-Up for New Cub Scouts for Boys in Grades 1-5." First Grader Remington Powell went home excited to join the Cub Scouts with his friends. But his mother, atheist Nancy Powell, told him he could not join because he was forbidden to believe in God. Ms. Powell spent the next two years harassing school-district administrators at every level.

In 1998, Ms. Powell called on the American Civil Liberties Union to file a lawsuit against the Portland schools, alleging discrimination against her son. On the Tom Leykis radio talk show, Ms. Powell fumed: "I, personally, am on a campaign – again, personally on a campaign to avoid the Boy Scouts in every possible way … the Boy Scouts of America don't belong in public schools. They are a religious organization, and we have separation of church and state."

After a court told the Portland schools that Scouts could continue to recruit in classrooms, Powell and the ACLU appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court where the suit remains pending today.

Obviously, the Boy Scouts are not the only organization that sends recruiters and promotional material to Portland schools. College and university admissions officers, military recruiters and volunteer service solicitors are frequent fixtures in public high schools anywhere. So why aren't Steven Wagenhoffer and Nancy Powell concerned about the presence of recruiters from controversial places like Multnomah Bible College, Planned Parenthood (which works with sex education programs in half of Portland's high schools and was co-directed by Julia Brim-Edwards, a member of the school board Community and Staff Relations Committee), or the U.S. Marine Corps?

In 1995, the Portland schools became the only school district in the country to ban military recruiters from high schools. With the implementation of No Child Left Behind in September 2002, Portland was forced to reverse its policy and allow the armed forces recruiters back into cafeterias and career centers.

There have long been pacifists and anti-war advocates concerned about military recruiting in schools. But until recently, the Boy Scouts' public presence had never been perceived as a threat to the public domain.

When the Boy Scouts was founded in 1910, school administrators and leaders of the National Education Association celebrated the organization as a solution to youth social problems like boredom, substance abuse and gang activity. Today, the Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and Tiger Cubs continue to provide crucial after-school activities to inner-city children, character development for boys with crumbling families, and practical life skills for typical adolescents seeking a cause larger than their own self-interest.

Despite the inability of Ms. Powell to persuade the Portland schools that Boy Scouts are detrimental to children, the school board Community and Staff Relations Committee appears to be renewing discussion of the Boy Scouts issue with Mr. Wagenhoffer. This Wednesday, radical atheist and homosexual activists will take time off of work to lobby the committee to exclude the Boy Scouts from on-campus recruitment.

Portland citizens who support the Boy Scouts can also attend the meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 8, at noon, at Portland's Blanchard Education Services Building (501 North Dixon Street).