UNITED WAY STANDS FIRM ON BOY SCOUT SUPPORT

The Area Wide United Way that serves the Cape Girardeau area will continue to fund the Boy Scouts. So said the organization's board of directors week before last, despite decisions from a few other United Way chapters across America to bypass the Scouts after a Supreme Court decision last June. Some are calling the decision, allowing the Boy Scouts of America to bar homosexual leaders, controversial.

By the narrowest of margins, the Supreme Court merely said that the Scouts have the right to declare their own standards for accepting leaders, including the right to exclude from leadership those who are openly homosexual. Essentially, the Scouts operate a version of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

The fact that this was a 5-4 court decision illustrates the importance of a little-discussed issue in this year's presidential campaign: the selection of judges who will rule on laws already passed, not create new law from the bench.

A Gore presidency means judges who will overturn this sound decision.