RULING ON SCOUTS DOESN'T CLEAR UP ALL THE MUD

Clubs and organizations across America took a great deal of interest in the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling regarding gay leaders in the Boy Scouts of America. Of particular interest was the notion that private organizations have a right to set their own rules. In this case, the BSA wanted to keep the right to prevent gays from becoming troop leaders.

To some, the court's decision will look like a shift, however small, in the lenient attitudes of recent years in which courts have generally sided with rights of minority groups and special classes of Americans. But don't believe for a minute that the high court currently sitting in Washington has suddenly decided to stand up for morality.

The issue for the court was not whether being gay is right or wrong, nor whether men who are gay ought or ought not to be Scout leaders. The issue, in its simplest form, is whether or not a private organization can make its own rules. In this case, the court said the Boy Scouts could establish those rules and enforce them.

Members of civic organizations will remember when that same issue was raised as all-men clubs were taken to court over the admission of women and lost. In those decisions, the court said the rights of women to participate in such organizations needed to be protected, because without such participation women would be at a disadvantage in the competitive world of business.

Again, the issue for the court wasn't whether it was a good idea to turn all-men clubs into organizations with both men and women, but whether women deserve special constitutional protection.

Trying to figure out how the Supreme Court will rule on issues like this makes for an interesting parlor game, but picking the clear winners in such cases isn't always that easy. Given the recent history of decisions, there was considerable expectation that the court might find in favor of gays who want to be troop leaders in an organization that doesn't want them.

Then there are all those other questions, some from grumblers who don't like this latest decision: Why can't the Scouts use the military's don't ask-don't tell policy? Aren't some of Scouting's best troop leaders gay men whose homosexuality isn't known to troop members, their parents or the BSA? Does this ruling make it any easier for Scouting to weed out gay troop leaders than keeping sexual deviants out of its leadership?

These questions -- and many more -- are likely to be raised as an unending string of lawsuits persists in testing every legal limit covering every possible situation. Students can't choose to have a public prayer before high school football games. And gays can't be Scout leaders. Somehow, those don't look like decisions from the same justices. What's next for the Supreme Court.