Last night I participated in a local Scout recognition dinner for former Ambassador Ron Weiser. One of the presenters was Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Clifford W. Taylor. His remarks, I think, are particularly important not just about our honoree but about the need for Scouting in this country. I asked him if I could share with you and he gladly said yes.

Remarks of Chief Justice Clifford W. Taylor to the Great Sauk Trail Council Boy Scouts of America 14^th Annual Washtenaw County Distinguished Citizen of the Year Award Recipient Ambassador Ron Weiser

Good evening.  It’s a great personal pleasure to join all of you this evening in honoring Ron Weiser.  The expression “patriot” has fallen out of fashion, largely because of the media’s and entertainment industry’s repeated efforts over the decades to portray patriots and patriotism as laughable at best, sinister at worst.  But I persist in thinking of Ron and people like him as “patriots”;  that is, “great Americans.”  The term will always fit men and women who, like Ron, have given unstintingly of their best to this country.

You all know Ron’s record:  a great business success in Michigan, ambassador to the Slovak Republic under President Bush; board member of numerous companies and nonprofits; champion of education and the arts.  He has received the Slovak Republic’s White Double Cross, the highest honor that government can bestow on a non-Slovak, and the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service, to name but two of his many honors.  We rightly laud Ron for his accomplishments tonight, for all his contributions to this community, this state, our country.  However, I have particular reason to have affection for him.  He has personally befriended me in my various campaigns for the Supreme Court and through those efforts I have gotten to know his wonderful character and dedication.  He is one of the great assets in my life.  I hold him in the highest esteem  Yet, I would like to look past this moment, reflect a bit on Scouting’s current situation and from that consider what all this means as to this country producing men like Ron in the future.

This is no light question.  Take, for example, the depressing findings of the Josephson Institute for Youth Ethics, which has been surveying the ethics of American youth since 1998.  The 2008 report, based on a survey of nearly 30,000 high school students across the United States, found that 30 percent admitted stealing from a store within the past year.  Twenty-three percent said they stole something from a parent or other relative within the same time frame.  Forty-two percent admitted to lying to save money; 83 percent admitted to lying to parents about something significant.  Sixty-four percent reported cheating on a test during the past year, with 38 percent doing so two or more times.

With that being the case, you’d think that a youth organization that seeks to instill such values as trustworthiness would be a much-needed remedy for the cultural and ethical vacuum in which so many young people grow up.  At least you would not expect such an organization to be under attack.  And yet, that’s precisely what’s going on with the Boy Scouts.  As the journalist and author William Tucker, a former Scoutmaster himself, pointed out in an article for the National Review, entitled “Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Persecuted,” the Boy Scouts have, in his words, “been dragged onto the front lines of the culture wars.”  Who knew that the thrifty, brave, clean and reverent could become “controversial,” which is media-speak for “unpopular with the left”?  Who would have imagined that an institution that urges its members to be trustworthy, loyal, friendly and courteous would be under assault by the American Civil Liberties Union?  And what parents, until about 20 years ago, could have forseen that organization dedicated to teaching their sons kindness, obedience, cheerfulness and thrift would be engaged in a struggle to not be whipped from the public square?

If you doubt that there’s a concerted effort going on to either destroy or remake the Scouts to suit the left’s agenda, consider this.  You may recall how in 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court, in Boy Scouts of America v Dale, ruled that the Scouts’ First Amendment right of free association meant that they could keep homosexuals from serving as Scoutmasters.  Since then, the ACLU and its allies have used the Scouts’ position in that lawsuit to argue that the Scouts are a kind of church or religion, and hence are not entitled to public benefits such as the use of public schools, military facilities, and the like.

The ACLU has used the religious organization argument to push Scout councils out of property that they have leased from public entities.  Take, for example, the ACLU suit against the city of San Diego over property that the Scouts leased from the city, and had developed into parks and run for decades.  The Scouts spent millions of their own money developing these properties, with both parks being open to the public.  But the ACLU filed suit, arguing that the leases violated the Establishment clause because the Scouts were a religious organization.  Similarly, in Philadelphia, the Scouts have leased a half-acre property from the city for $1 per year since 1928, and have built a 7,500-square-foot headquarters at their own expense.  The Philadelphia city council first tried to evict the Scouts from this property and then demanded $200,000 a year in rent; litigation is still pending.           

Other forms of support are at risk as well.  In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a Boy Scout appeal of a Connecticut decision to target the Scouts for exclusion from a list of 900 charities that were part of a state worker voluntary giving plan.  Under the pressure from gay rights advocates, the United Way has stopped supporting the Scouts in dozens of cities.

In short, we are in the situation that a person my age surely could have never thought would develop:  the Scouts’ very existence may well be seen increasingly as antagonistic to our nation’s aspirations.

Should this eventuate, the primary victims would be the nation’s boys, particularly those from poor families because the urban programs of the Scouts, the ones that are the most needed, are the hardest hit when the Scouts lose public support.  Yet, to speak of this in financial terms misses the point:  what price tag can we put on millions of boys learning discipline, responsibility, unselfishness?  What’s the worth of a stable male role model to a boy who has none?  What price character?

The Scouts are, make no mistake embroiled in a battle of epic proportions.  Their opponents seek to either destroy them or cow the Scouts into becoming an organization that satisfies its critics’ secularist agendas.  The relevance of a dinner such as this one is to make us pause to consider that it is not beyond us to stand up and salute the Boy Scouts unashamedly.  And, while doing so, to also salute this fine man who has allowed us to recognize him this evening, all in the greater service of an America where the values of the Boy Scout Oath are not murmured softly by persons of character but are proudly proclaimed to be the very essence of this country that Lincoln so well described as the last best hope for mankind.           

Thank you, Ron, for the life you have led and the model you have provided.  With countless events such as this, across America honoring prominent citizens in their communities, and the many Scouting events in our communities across our land in this and the years to come, we can be hopeful that the seeds will continue to be planted so that men of your caliber will arise.  This great institution that has served our nation so well for a century is a national treasure.  It is my hope that it will continue to prosper and assist in giving meaning to the lives of boys who will, as men, be patriots just as Ron Weiser  is.