I joined the Boy Scouts—today, known as Scouting America—when I was 8 years old.
In 1990, days before my 20th birthday, the organization told me I was no longer welcome.
I had earned the Eagle Scout rank. I had spent my youth giving back. My childhood felt like a lie.
Their reason: Scouts must be “morally straight.” They argued that being gay was incompatible with the Scout oath to lead with “honesty, to be clean in your speech and actions, and to be a person of strong character.”
I sued. Lambda Legal took my case. For 10 years, we fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2000, the Court ruled against me, five to four. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote for the majority that the Boy Scouts of America, as a private organization, had a constitutional right to set its own membership standards, even when those standards meant excluding someone like me.
I lost.
Now, 25 years later, the federal government is doing exactly what the Supreme Court said the government cannot do: pressuring a private organization over who belongs in its program. In my case, New Jersey had passed a law requiring the Scouts to include me. But the Court said the state had no such power.
Today, there is no law. And yet, the Department of War is threatening to pull military support unless Scouting America changes its membership rules. That is not a legal argument. It is an authoritarian overreach of a private organization.
What Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is doing is not a vindication of Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. It is a dismissal of it.
The core idea of the Supreme Court’s ruling was simple: private associations get to define their own message, and the government cannot force that choice. The Court sided with the Scouts in 2000 because it said the organization had a right to speak through its membership decisions without federal interference. I hated that ruling. I still do. But at least it was consistent.
What is happening now is not.
James Dale outside of the Supreme Court in 2000. —Stephen Boitano—Sygma/Getty Images
Secretary Hegseth announced that Scouting America had agreed to base membership on “biological sex at birth and not gender identity.” Scouting America says that claim is false. Roger Krone, the organization’s president and CEO, was blunt: “We have transgender people in our program, and we’ll have transgender people in our program going forward.” Scouting also refused two demands that would have been existential: reverting its name to Boy Scouts and removing its girl members. It did neither.
Here is what actually happened: Hegseth declared victory over a policy Scouting says it never agreed to.
Yes, some changes were made to preserve the military partnership. A merit badge for those who “realize the benefits of diversity, equity, inclusion, and ethical leadership” was dropped. And children of active duty military have free registration. The Secretary of War may call those triumphs, but they do not rewrite the soul of Scouting—nor any legal precedent.
When I lost my case, the Supreme Court handed the Scouts a constitutional shield: the right to define their own membership free from government interference. Hegseth isn’t misreading that decision. He’s ignoring it when it gets in his way.
Now the federal government is using base access, military installation support, and logistical backing for the National Jamboree as leverage over Scouting’s internal rules. Lawyers call this the Doctrine of Unconstitutional Conditions: the government cannot condition a benefit on the requirement that a person or group waive a constitutional right. The rest of us call it a shakedown.
I grew up in Scouting. The values were real to me then, and I spent decades fighting to hold the organization to them. That is why I know that the Scout Oath’s emphasis on being “morally straight” was never about biology or politics. It is about courage, honesty, and integrity under pressure.
Scouting America held its name. It continues to welcome girls. According to its own leadership, it is keeping its transgender members, too.
In 2000, the Court said the Scouts had the right to be exclusive. Today, that same right protects their choice to be inclusive.
I have been waiting 25 years for Scouting America to get here.
And because of the Supreme Court, Scouting America won’t be going back.