Below are newspaper articles about the Merino case from 1992 through 1997. Most are from either the Los Angeles Times or the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Boy Scouts Ask Gay Man to Sever Ties With Group
Los Angeles Times - THURSDAY September 10, 1992
By: From Associated Press

The Boy Scouts have asked an El Cajon police officer who served as an adviser to his department's Explorer program to sever his ties with Scouting because he is homosexual.
The Boy Scouts of America's local council moved to suspend Officer Chuck Merino after he publicly discussed his homosexuality at a community meeting in San Diego. El Cajon Police Chief Jack Smith described Merino as a "superb" officer and said the council's decision is "extremely uncalled-for and very unfortunate. "Merino, 37, said the letter asking him to sever his ties with Scouting came as "a shock and great disappointment."
"I'm preparing a response now that asks why I no longer fit their 'acceptable standards,' " he said. "I'd like to know what exactly has changed."
Merino says he publicly declared his sexual orientation several months ago at a community meeting in Hillcrest held to discuss hate crimes against homosexuals. He thinks word of that meeting traveled back to local Scouting officials.
The Aug. 25 letter from local Boy Scout Council President Ronald Brundage told Merino he no longer meets "the high standards of membership which the Boy Scouts of America seeks to provide for American youth."
Brundage declined Tuesday to speak specifically about the letter, but he said national Boy Scouts policy prohibits "anyone who professes to be a homosexual" from working in Scouting.
The letter says Merino can appeal the local council's decision to the Boy Scouts' national office. Merino said he plans to do that after consulting his lawyer.

City Will Decide If Boy Scouts Broke Law in Gay's Suspension
Los Angeles Times - FRIDAY September 18, 1992
By: From Associated Press

San Diego city officials said they were investigating whether the Boy Scouts of America violated a human dignity ordinance by suspending the leader of a police youth group who publicly revealed that he is homosexual.
In a memorandum sent this week to City Manager Jack McGrory, Councilman John Hartley asked the city staff to examine whether the city, to comply with its policy of non-discrimination, could evict the Scouts from city property that the organization leases in Balboa and Mission Bay parks.
Hartley said he asked McGrory to place the issue on the City Council's agenda as soon as possible.
Christiann L. Klein, an attorney and executive director of the city Human Relations Commission, said the city's policy bars discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex or sexual orientation.
Police Officer Chuck Merino, an adviser for the past five years to the El Cajon Police Department's Explorer program, was recently suspended from Scouting activities. Merino, 37, said he publicly declared his homosexuality several months ago at a community meeting that focused on hate crimes against gays.
Merino said he has empowered his attorney to decide whether to file a lawsuit against the Scouts.
Ron Brundage, president of the Boy Scout council, the official who suspended Merino, denied that the action was discriminatory. He said he did not believe the Scouts had violated the city's human dignity ordinance.
Brundage said he had no choice but to suspend Merino after he revealed his sexual preference because the Boy Scouts' national policy states that anyone who is a professed homosexual cannot be a troop leader.
The Scout council recently renewed its lease at $1 a year for a campground of about 12 acres and administrative offices in Balboa Park. In June, the Scouts opened a $2.5-million aquatic center on Fiesta Island in Mission Bay Park.

San Diego Urged to Cut Ties to Scouts Over Gay Bias
Los Angeles Times - THURSDAY October 22, 1992
By: JOHN H. LEE; TIMES STAFF WRITER

The San Diego Human Relations Commission on Wednesday issued a harsh censure of the Boy Scouts of America, calling for the city to terminate its lease agreements with the local Scout council because it discriminates against gay members and troop leaders.
The action came a day after San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen severed ties with the Boy Scouts of America because the group had suspended an Explorer Scout adviser in the El Cajon Police Department after the officer disclosed publicly that he is gay.
The California Highway Patrol also announced Wednesday that it was reviewing its affiliation with the Boy Scouts in light of the El Cajon officer's suspension, said CHP Commissioner Maury Hannigan.
Blake Lewis, a national spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America, was quoted in news reports Wednesday saying that despite mounting criticism of the National Boy Scouts of America's gay exclusion policy, it is unlikely the group would change its membership standards after 82 years.
"Frankly we do not believe a homosexual person provides a role model that's consistent with what parents expect of our program," Lewis said.
A spokesman for the San Diego Boy Scouts Council declined to comment Wednesday.
The Human Relations Commission also urged the United Way to cease its funding of the local Scout group. United Way chapters in Northern California have threatened to cease Scout funding over the anti-gay policy.
The commission is an advisory body to the City Council and city manager's office, and has no policy-setting authority.
The resolution is expected to be presented today to City Manager Jack McGrory, and it will likely be reviewed by the City Council.

Gay Scout Adviser Sues to Get Post Back
Courts: El Cajon police officer says if he's not reinstated, he wants the Scouts kicked off city-owned property in San Diego.
Los Angeles Times () - TUESDAY December 15, 1992
By: MARK PLATTE; TIMES STAFF WRITER

An El Cajon police officer expelled from his adviser's post with the Boy Scouts of America because he is a homosexual has sued to be reinstated.
If he is not reinstated, he wants the Scouts kicked off city-owned property in San Diego.
Chuck Merino, a 37-year-old officer who organized an Explorers post with the Boy Scouts through the El Cajon Police Department in 1988, was told in September that "a homosexual role model" was not welcome as a member of the Scouts' San Diego County chapter.
The news prompted San Diego's police chief to sever that department's 25-year-old ties with the Boy Scouts and brought a sharp rebuke by the San Diego Human Relations Commission, which called on the city to terminate its leases with the Scouts immediately.
At a press conference Monday, Merino said he was pained to have to sue the Scouts and seek their expulsion from the group's city-leased headquarters in Balboa Park and property on Fiesta Island, but believed he had been personally attacked.

Ousted Gay Scout Adviser Sues to Be Reinstated
Los Angeles Times - TUESDAY December 15, 1992
By: MARK PLATTE; TIMES STAFF WRITER

SAN DIEGO - An El Cajon police officer expelled from his adviser's post with the Boy Scouts of America because he is a homosexual has sued to be reinstated.
If he is not reinstated to the unpaid post, he wants the Scouts kicked off city-owned property in San Diego.
Chuck Merino, 37, who organized an Explorers post with the Boy Scouts through the El Cajon Police Department in 1988, was told in September that "a homosexual role model" was not welcome as a member of the Scouts' San Diego County chapter.
The decision prompted San Diego's police chief to sever that department's 25-year-old ties with the Boy Scouts and brought a sharp rebuke by the San Diego Human Relations Commission.
"I wish I could return back to the way it was before I got the suspension letter," said Merino, who joined the El Cajon police force in 1977, at a news conference Monday. "But I feel I've been picked on and discriminated against. They basically said I'm not fit to be an adult leader who can work with kids."
Ron Brundage, president of the San Diego County chapter of the Boy Scouts of America, said he would not comment on the lawsuit, which was filed Friday in Superior Court, until he had seen its contents.
John Kaheny, an assistant city attorney in San Diego, said he was expecting Merino's lawsuit, which will probably force the issue of whether the Scouts can remain at their headquarters in Balboa Park for $1-a-year
and continue operating an aquatic center on Fiesta Island in Mission Bay without payment to the city.
The lawsuit also asks that the Boy Scouts reinstate Merino as the head of the El Cajon Explorer Post and that the organization's policy of excluding gays be held unlawful.
If Boy Scout officials change their policy and allow Merino back into the group, the El Cajon police officer said he will drop the lawsuit and any efforts to have the Scouts removed from city property.
Scout leaders probably discovered that Merino was gay about a year ago when he helped organize a citizens patrol of the San Diego neighborhood of Hillcrest where there had been a number of assaults on gays, Merino said.
The Boy Scouts sent Merino a letter in August, telling him that his registration with the Scouts had been suspended.

Landmark Case Pits Gay Officer Against Boy Scouts
Civil rights: The fired San Diego troop leader's suit is the first to invoke new state law that outlaws job discrimination against homosexuals.
Los Angeles Times - MONDAY January 11, 1993
By: TONY PERRY; TIMES STAFF WRITER

SAN DIEGO - Suddenly this conservative and often strait-laced city is center stage in the clash between gay rights and the Boy Scouts of America. It began last summer when a police officer from suburban El Cajon was dismissed as a Boy Scout leader when it was learned he is gay. The national policy of the Boy Scouts prohibits gays from being Scout leaders on the belief that gays are inappropriate role models.
In rapid-fire order, the dispute over the Boy Scouts' dismissal of Officer Chuck Merino spread to the San Diego Police Department, the San Diego City Council, the County Sheriff's Department, United Way and now the San Diego school board, which on Tuesday will debate whether to boot the Boy Scouts off school property because of the group's anti-gay policy.
Key to the civic tumult is Merino's lawsuit against the Boy Scouts to regain his volunteer role with the Explorer Post that he organized.
Although there have been other lawsuits against the Boy Scouts' policy, Merino's suit could have statewide, even national, effect because it is the first to invoke the California law that, effective Jan. 1, outlaws job discrimination against homosexuals.
Merino said he never meant to be the catalyst of an emotional dispute that has split the community. "A lot of my concerns are for my rights and if that turns out to be gay rights, so be it," he said.
On the other side, the head of the local Boy Scouts Council accuses Merino and his supporters of "holding 40,000 Boy Scouts and their families hostage so they can pursue their own political aims in furthering their lifestyle."
Soon after Merino was dismissed, the San Diego Police Department responded by severing ties with the Boy Scouts, citing a city ordinance that bans discrimination against gays.
Gay activists, led by Queer Nation/San Diego, have repeatedly demanded that the City Council remove the Boy Scouts from city property in Balboa Park and the Fiesta Island portion of the Mission Bay aquatic park. The council has refused to respond to the demands, with most council members hoping that the politically explosive issue will go away quietly, which it shows no signs of doing.
In the latest skirmish, the San Diego school board is scheduled Tuesday to debate whether to ban the Boy Scouts from using school grounds for a program that reaches 3,000 teen-age boys, many of them in inner-city, low-income schools.
Boy Scouts officials, at first stunned and put on the defensive by the controversy, have begun a counteroffensive, attempting to rally Boy Scout parents and to remind the press and public of the good deeds done by Scouting. One of the area's better-known public relations specialists is aiding the cause.
A hastily arranged "Tribute to Scouting" rally three days after Christmas drew a cheering crowd of 700, including a county supervisor and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado). More rallies are planned, and Scouting boosters have been urged to pepper school officials throughout the county with letters and phone calls to forestall any attempts to remove Scouting from school property in other districts.
"Somebody has to stand up and be counted," said Louis J. Garday, chairman of the Boy Scouts' San Diego County Council, which oversees Scouting in San Diego and Imperial counties.
Garday argues that if the schools oust the Boy Scouts, it will hurt the boys who most need the kind of guidance that only Scouting can provide: boys without fathers, boys drawn to the streets and the lure of drugs and gangs.
Supt. Tom Payzant, a former Scout and former board member of the Boy Scouts Council, said his mail is running 3 to 1 against his recommendation that the Scouts no longer be allowed to run school -day programs in 11 schools "I support what the Boy Scouts stand for," he said, "but what I can't accept is the underlying assumption that if somebody is gay or lesbian, then there is a greater chance of irresponsibility in terms of improper behavior toward young people."
Garday responds that Payzant and the school board should wait until the courts resolve the issue of whether the Boy Scouts have the right to ban gays as volunteer leaders.
That argument proved persuasive with the San Diego chapter of United Way, which provides about $400,000 a year to the Boy Scouts. The chapter had been petitioned by gay activists to follow the example of United Way in the San Francisco Bay Area and cut off funding to the Boy Scouts until the anti-gay policy is dropped.
The San Diego United Way board declined. "The Scouts have not had an opportunity to defend themselves," said John Liarakos, vice president of United Way in San Diego. "We feel it would be inappropriate to take any action at this point before the courts decide."
Merino's court case will follow a 1991 decision by an Orange County Superior Court that ruled in favor of the Boy Scouts in a similar controversy. Key legal points include whether a nonprofit group such as the Boy Scouts should be treated differently than a business organization and whether an unpaid post such as that held by Merino deserves the same anti-discrimination protection as a full-time, paid job.
The controversy has split local law enforcement. San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen, a former Scouting board member, cut the 25-year-old ties between his department and the Scouts, likening the anti-gay policy to the old Jim Crow policies of the South.
In contrast, County Sheriff Jim Roache, who is an elected official, decided not to cut Scouting adrift. His undersheriff, Jay LaSeur, was among the organizers of the "Tribute to Scouting" rally.
Not surprisingly, the issue has galvanized the San Diego's gay community, which is growing in political clout.
Michael Portantino, publisher of San Diego's Gay & Lesbian Times newspaper, said the Boy Scouts, in rallying public support, are fanning bigoted notions of gays as sexual predators.
"It's easy to build fear around the idea of homosexuals trying to take control of our kids and teach them homosexual behavior," Portantino said.
Garday, president of a real estate investment trust company, denies that the Boy Scouts' policy is homophobic. He notes that the Boy Scouts do not discriminate against gays in hiring staff members, only in selecting leaders for "boys who are of an impressionable age."
"There is no gay-bashing going on in Scouting," Garday said. "We teach boys to respect people. The alternative lifestyle community is one the boys should respect, but they don't necessarily have to look to it for role models."
Despite the controversy swirling around him, the 37-year-old Merino, a 15-year veteran of the El Cajon Police Department who started an Explorers Post with the Scouts in 1988, remains soft-spoken but determined. He has given few interviews.
Although Merino's police chief had long known that Merino is gay, Scouting officials only learned of his sexual orientation after he mentioned it while off duty and attending a community meeting in Hillcrest, the San Diego neighborhood where he lives.
The meeting had been called to discuss a series of gay-bashing attacks in Hillcrest, a center of San Diego's gay community. Merino was part of a neighborhood patrol organized to deter those attacks and, in that context, mentioned that he is gay.
How word of Merino's low-key comment got to the Scouting hierarchy is unclear. But without so much as questioning him, the Scouts sent a letter to Merino immediately banning him from any role with the Explorers.
"I think Scouts are doing a fantastic thing for the youth of America," Merino said. "But a lot of the policy-makers at the national level have policies that date back to the 1920s. It's time for them to join mainstream America."

Homosexuality called Scout violation
ED JAHN
San Diego Union-Tribune
30-Jan-1993 Saturday

El Cajon Police Officer Chuck Merino is unfit to be a leader in the Boy Scouts because his homosexuality violates Scouting's requirements that its members be morally straight and clean, according to legal papers filed this week.
"It means clean in thought, word and deed," Ron Brundage, executive of the San Diego County Council of the Boy Scouts, said in explaining the group's position.
Being clean is one of 12 points in the Scout Law. Being morally straight is a requirement in the Scout Oath.
Merino filed suit against the Scouts last month after he was dismissed for being homosexual. He is seeking to remove the Scouts from the group's city-owned Balboa Park headquarters and a Fiesta Island aquatics facility unless he is reinstated and the Scouts organization changes its national policy forbidding gays.
His suit contends that the Scout policy on homosexuals violates San Diego's human dignity ordinance. A year ago, Merino publicly declared his sexual orientation when he organized community patrols in Hillcrest to combat hate crimes against gays.
In August, he was expelled from the Explorer leadership position he had held since 1988. Brundage said the Boy Scout organization has used its oath and law in defending its actions in similar legal cases elsewhere in the country.
Merino, his lawyer and the attorney representing the local Boy Scout council were unavailable for comment yesterday.
A response to the Merino case came yesterday afternoon in front of the San Diego city school board offices in University Heights. A small group of protesters met to shame the board for voting earlier this month to forbid Scouting activities during class hours in schools, effective July 1.
"The board's decision open ups a can of worms," said Pedro Moreno, a candidate in the 8th District City Council race who organized the brief rally.
Moreno said that homosexuals are trying to force their lifestyle on the school system and that schools are "a basic family-oriented institution."
Other speakers said that homosexuals were responsible for a disproportionately large number of rapes and molestations and that they recruit boys into their lifestyle by associating with groups such as the Boys Scouts and Big Brothers.
Organizers let B. Allan Ross, a member of the Queer Nation gay activist group, respond at the end of the rally. The attitudes held by the protesters have caused teen-aged gays to commit suicide, Ross told them.
He said he is on a hunger strike until the lawsuit is settled in Merino's favor.
Scouting's response to the lawsuit shows that "all persons seeking youth or adult membership must agree to observe the Scout Oath and Scout Law," Brundage said.
"Boy Scouts leaders serve as role models who play a critical role in conveying Scouting's values to these young men," he said.  Homosexuality is inconsistent with those values, he said.
Brundage said the council is preparing to comply with the school board's decision.
In a prepared statement, Michael Edwards, an attorney for the local Boy Scout council, said all aspects of Merino's lawsuit were being denied.
"In my opinion, both California's Unruh Act and San Diego's human dignity ordinance are clearly unconstitutional if they are used to attempt to force the Boy Scouts to accept an avowed homosexual as a Scout leader," Edwards said in the statement.

Police Reject Boy Scouts' Ban on Gays
Los Angeles Times () - SATURDAY September 18, 1993
By: LESLIE EARNEST; SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

LAGUNA BEACH - In the latest challenge to the Boy Scouts of America's anti-homosexual stance, city officials said Friday that they are notifying the organization that the Police Department will not comply with the group's policy banning openly gay people from joining the Police Explorer program.

Gay Ban Stands or No Explorers, Laguna Warned
Los Angeles Times - WEDNESDAY September 29, 1993
By: LESLIE EARNEST; SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

LAGUNA BEACH - The Boy Scouts of America has warned it will dismantle its Explorer Scout program here unless the city bars any openly gay people from becoming members or advisers, something city officials refuse to do.
Kent W. Gibbs, president of the Scouts' Orange County Council, reaffirmed in a letter obtained Tuesday the organization's policy of excluding "avowed homosexuals" from the program for youths ages 14 to 21.
who are interested in a law enforcement career. "If a chartered organization sponsoring an Explorer post should knowingly violate any of these standards," he wrote in the letter dated Sept. 22, "the BSA has no recourse but to revoke the charter of that post."
His letter responded to Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr., who informed the Boy Scouts of America 12 days ago that the Police Department will not comply with the policy barring homosexuals from the Explorer program.
It was the first such challenge to the Scouting organization's policy in Orange County, and city leaders gave no indication Tuesday that they are willing to back down.
"I think it's a clear-cut case of discrimination," said Purcell. "I took a sworn oath to protect all people's rights and I know of nothing in this state that makes it illegal to be homosexual."
Siding with Purcell, City Councilwoman Ann Christoph added: "I think the ball is in their court."
What happens to the city's Explorer program, which has existed for two decades, will be discussed by the council in November. The charter agreement between the city and Boy Scouts of America comes up for renewal in February.
"It's a controversial issue and we should take the heat for it," said Councilman Robert F. Gentry, who is openly gay. "Obviously, we cannot sign that annual charter."
Laguna Beach, which has a large homosexual population, is the only city in Orange County with a law prohibiting discrimination based upon sexual orientation.
Options for the city include dropping its Explorer program, waiting to see if the Boy Scouts of America terminates it, or fighting the organization's policy in court.
City officials say they want to keep the program, and both Gentry and Purcell have said they would consider a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America. However, Gentry said Tuesday he prefers to avoid a legal confrontation.
Instead, Gentry hopes the city can work out a compromise agreement with the Boy Scouts so Laguna Beach youth, regardless of their sexual orientation, will continue being Explorer Scouts.
"It would be like an associate membership, in a way--we would not sign the charter and would not say we would discriminate but would work together on issues like training," said Gentry. "I would like to explore that."
Gibbs, however, dismissed that proposed solution.
"We are not about to sacrifice our principles or policies," he said in an interview. "I can't envision right now that there's any middle ground to violating the rules and regulations of the Boy Scouts. Our rules are pretty firm."
Since the dispute between the city and the scouting group were made public, Gibbs said parents have called and written to the organization expressing support. Gentry said the scant responses he received were opposed to the city's position.
"All of us on the council really support the work of the Explorer program," Gentry said. "It's a very important part of our community and of law enforcement."
There are currently eight members in the city's program, which helped train some of the city's police officers now serving.
Last year, the Boy Scouts of America ended the El Cajon Police Department's Explorer program after the officer coordinating the group revealed he was gay.
In response, then-San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen cut that department's ties with the Boy Scouts of America because of its policy regarding homosexuals.

Laguna Might End Scout Pact Because of Gay Ban
Policy: Explorer program's provision conflicts with city's anti -discrimination law.
Los Angeles Times - THURSDAY March 17, 1994
By: LESLIE EARNEST; SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

LAGUNA BEACH - Rekindling an unresolved dispute over gays, city leaders will consider whether to end an agreement with the Boy Scouts of America involving the organization's police Explorer Scout program.
The issue, which surfaced in September, concerns the organization's ban on openly homosexual people becoming members or advisers of the Explorer Scouts, a provision that conflicts with the city's anti-discrimination law.
"The city must obey its own law," City Councilman Robert F. Gentry said Wednesday. "This is one of the most important public policy decisions the city is going to make, because the Boy Scouts of America is a highly reputable organization and they have a tremendous amount of support, as they should, but they discriminate."
Gentry raised the topic Tuesday night at a council meeting, refocusing attention on the dilemma that arose in September when Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. informed the Boy Scouts that his department would not comply with the group's policy on homosexuals.
Currently, eight boys and girls participate in the Explorer Scout program that has operated in Laguna Beach since 1972. Purcell said the program teaches youths ages 14 through 21 to be good citizens while introducing them to "the law enforcement family."
Laguna Beach, which has a large gay population, is the only city in Orange County with a law prohibiting discrimination based upon sexual orientation. Responding to Purcell, the Boy Scouts of America threatened to dismantle the Explorer Scout program in Laguna Beach if the city knowingly violated the organization's standards.
"I am upset the Boy Scouts of America have taken such an inflexible stand on this issue," Purcell said.
Kent W. Gibbs, president of the Scouts' Orange County Council, said Wednesday that the organization stands behind its earlier position.
"They filled out the charter papers and in doing so they agreed to abide by the rules of the Boy Scouts," he said. Should the council decide to revoke the month-old agreement, Gibbs said the program would simply "cease to exist."
When the Laguna Beach city charter came up for renewal last month, the agreement was resubmitted to the Boy Scouts, but with a letter saying Laguna Beach would not abide by the group's ban on homosexuals.
However, Gentry, who is openly gay and a former Boy Scout, said he feels it is wrong for Laguna Beach to contract with a group that requires discrimination.
He recommended that the city consider retracting the agreement until a lawsuit over the issue is settled. That litigation involves the Boy Scouts and the El Cajon Police Department in San Diego County.
The council took no formal vote but referred the matter to city staff for review. The council is expected to reconsider the issue April 5.
Gibbs said he was disappointed in the city's position, especially considering how the Scouts pitched in to help Laguna Beach recover from the fire in October.
"We had tremendous involvement, including the Police Explorers and the Fire Explorers," he said. "Something like 60 different Cub Scout packs and Boy Scout troops from all cities in this county have been involved in cleanup, sandbagging and reclamation, to the point that our lead volunteer was recognized by the City Council for Scouting's effort in helping the city and the city's residents."
This is not the first such dispute for the Boy Scouts of America.
In 1992, the organization fired an Explorer Scout leader when an El Cajon police officer revealed the leader was gay. El Cajon's police chief would not replace the leader and that city's agreement with the Boy Scouts expired. The leader sued the Boy Scouts and the case is expected to go to trial soon.

Gay cop says he's role model for kids
ANNE KRUEGER
San Diego Union-Tribune
22-Mar-1994 Tuesday

The issue could ultimately be decided by the US Supreme Court.
El Cajon Police Officer Chuck Merino, who was ousted from the Boy Scouts after publicly acknowledging that he is homosexual, testified yesterday that he believes he is a good role model for youths.
"I believe I've got a set of values and standards I live by that I think are rather high," Merino told San Diego Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph in a non-jury trial of his lawsuit against the Boy Scouts over his removal from the organization.
After months of public debate on talk shows and at rallies about the role of homosexuals in Boy Scouting, Merino, 38, finally got to tell his side of the story in a courtroom.
Merino was the only witness in the case presented by his lawyer, Everett Bobbitt. The Scouts will present their witnesses when the trial resumes later this week.
The two sides agree that whatever decision Joseph makes will be appealed to a higher court. The issue could ultimately be decided by the US Supreme Court.
Attorney George Davidson, representing the Boy Scouts, said after yesterday's session that he believes that a state law and San Diego's Human Dignity Ordinance -- both banning discrimination against homosexuals -- do not apply to a private organization such as the Boy Scouts.
Davidson said that under the US Constitution the Scouts are allowed to prohibit homosexuals from belonging to their organization.
"Admitting somebody who had a different set of values than Scouting's values would interfere with Scouting's attempts to get its message across," Davidson said. "Homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the Scout oath and law. As an avowed homosexual, he would be modeling behavior inconsistent with Scouting's values."
Merino, who had led an Explorer post affiliated with the El Cajon Police Department since 1988, was kicked out of the Scouts in August 1992 after he publicly revealed his homosexuality at the start of a citizens' patrol in Hillcrest.
His expulsion from the Boy Scouts and his legal efforts to have the Boy Scouts removed from land at Balboa Park and Fiesta Island if they do not reinstate him ignited a controversy.
After Merino was expelled from the Boy Scouts, the San Diego and El Cajon police departments severed their ties with the organization. On the other hand, San Diego City Councilman George Stevens and radio talk-show host Roger Hedgecock expressed support for the Boy Scouts' position. 
Merino said on the stand yesterday that there was no indication on the application he filled out to be an Explorer leader that homosexuals were not welcome in Scouting.
"Do you believe in a Supreme Being?" attorney Bobbitt asked Merino.
"Yes, I do," Merino replied.
"And does the Supreme Being you believe in discriminate against homosexuals?"
"No, it doesn't."
Under cross-examination by Davidson, Merino said he never discussed sex or his sexual orientation with the approximately 18 youths in the Explorer group because he did not feel that the topic fitted with the group's law enforcement focus.
Davidson briefly asked Merino about renting a room in his home to a young man who had completed the Explorer program, but that line of questioning was dropped because Judge Joseph expressed concern that the young man's privacy would be invaded. Davidson told Joseph that he did not believe Merino engaged in any unlawful conduct.
"Would you believe that it's inappropriate to use the Explorer program to develop personal social relationships . . . dating relationships?" Davidson asked Merino.
"Yes," Merino answered.
Merino testified that he wants Scouts to accept their own uniqueness.
"There's nothing wrong with being different," he said. "The differences that we have make us the unique person that we are."

Scout oath bars gays, 2 testify in cop's case | Merino wasn't thought `morally straight'
ANNE KRUEGER
San Diego Union-Tribune
25-Mar-1994 Friday

The oath taken by Boy Scouts to be "morally straight" means homosexuals should be excluded from the organization, two Scout leaders testified yesterday.
The two men took the witness stand for the defense in a civil suit brought by El Cajon police Officer Chuck Merino, who was expelled from leading a Boy Scouts' Explorer post after he publicly admitted that he is gay.
Merino wants to be reinstated as leader of the Explorer post. If he is not reinstated, he will seek to have the Scouts removed from their city-owned land at Balboa Park and Fiesta Island because the group is violating state law and the city Human Dignity Ordinance by discriminating against homosexuals, said Merino's lawyer, Everett Bobbitt.
Merino testified Monday in San Diego Superior Court that he was ousted in August 1992 from leading the Explorer post affiliated with the El Cajon Police Department after he publicly revealed his homosexuality at the start of a citizens' patrol in Hillcrest.
After Merino was expelled from the Boy Scouts, the El Cajon and San Diego police departments severed their ties with the organization.
Attorney George Davidson, representing the Boy Scouts, told Judge Anthony Joseph that Merino was expelled from the organization because he "holds a contrary moral view to the Scouting movement."
Joseph is hearing the testimony in a nonjury trial scheduled to resume Tuesday.
Christopher Leach, a volunteer active with the Boy Scouts group in San Diego, and Roy Williams, Western regional director of the Boy Scouts of America, both testified that the tenet in the Boy Scout oath requiring a Scout to be "morally straight" prohibits homosexuals from becoming Scouts or Scout leaders.
Williams said that although applicants for Scout leaders are not specifically asked whether they are homosexual, he said it is commonly known that gays are prohibited from the organization "because the Boy Scouts of America doesn't believe that that type of conduct is suitable and reflects the type of standards we want."
Leach, reading from the Boy Scout handbook, said being "morally straight" means being honest and open in relationships. But he agreed that Merino was expelled from the Boy Scouts after he openly admitted he was gay.
"Morally straight implies being in a relationship that is heterosexual and monogamous," Leach said.
Leach was hammered by Bobbitt about his beliefs on homosexuals, religion and laws prohibiting discrimination.
"It's wrong to discriminate against anybody," Leach said.
"But you don't want them (homosexuals) in the Boy Scouts?" Bobbitt said.
"Correct," Leach replied.
"What are you afraid of if the doors of the Boy Scouts were open and gays were Scout leaders?" Bobbitt asked.
"I will tell you: There will be a lot less people in Scouting. I do not want an openly gay individual teaching my children," Leach said. "I'm afraid they will become exposed to a lifestyle with which I disagree."

Cop ousted by Scouts says he's not gay by choice | El Cajon's Merino, church leaders testify at trial
By LESLIE WOLF
San Diego Union-Tribune
30-Mar-1994 Wednesday

El Cajon police Officer Chuck Merino, ousted from a Boy Scouts leadership position after publicly admitting his homosexuality, testified yesterday that being gay is simply the way he is and not the result of any choice or outside influence.
"I don't think it was a choice, no," Merino said, in response to a question from San Diego Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph during the nonjury trial of Merino's lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America.
"I think it was more of a realization of who I was and the acceptance of that," Merino said.
Merino, 38, is suing the Scouts to be reinstated as the leader of an Explorer post, a Scouting program that gives teen-age boys a look at careers in law enforcement. He was dropped from the program in August 1992 and expelled from the Boy Scouts.
Much of yesterday's testimony centered on whether homosexuality is a biological trait or a learned behavior, though the judge said he did not believe that question could be resolved during the trial.
Lawyers for the Boy Scouts are trying to show that homosexuals should not be permitted to hold leadership positions in Scouting, even though there is no specific prohibition against homosexuality, nor even any mention of it, in the Boy Scout oath, handbook or regulations.
Yesterday, the defense brought in a sociology professor from Radford University in Virginia to testify that impressionable young Scouts would be more prone to homosexual activity if they knew their Scout leader was gay.
Tomorrow, Merino's lawyer, Everett Bobbitt, plans to call as a witness former Salk Institute researcher Simon LeVay, whose scientific research led him to conclude that homosexuality is determined by the development of the brain's hypothalamus gland.
Merino's own testimony yesterday clearly indicates he, too, believes homosexuality is biologically determined.
When Judge Joseph asked Merino if he could think of any outside factors that might have caused him to be gay, Merino said most of the major influences on his upbringing, including family and the Catholic Church, tried to push him in the opposite direction.
"If you really, really tried, do you think you could be attracted to women?" Bobbitt asked Merino.
"No," he replied.
"Do you think counseling would help? Going to church? Praying?" Bobbitt asked.
Merino replied no to all three questions.
In other testimony yesterday, Mormon, Methodist and Catholic leaders testified that their churches would re-examine or even sever their relationships with the Boy Scouts if Merino wins his suit.
The Rev. Donald Hummel, a Roman Catholic priest from New Jersey, testified that the Catholic Church, like other churches, sponsors thousands of Scout troops nationwide.
"According to the Roman Catholic Church, homosexual conduct is sinful," Hummel said. If Merino wins his lawsuit and is reinstated, Hummel said, "I suspect very strongly that the relationship between the Boy Scouts of America and the Roman Catholic Church would cease."
The trial is expected to end tomorrow.

Laguna to Keep Explorer Scouts Despite Gay Ban
Los Angeles Times  - WEDNESDAY April 6, 1994
By: LESLIE EARNEST; SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

LAGUNA BEACH - After hours of anguished debate, the City Council agreed Tuesday to keep its popular 22-year-old Police Explorer program intact, but expressed deep reservations about the group's affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America, which continues to ban gays.
The council voted unanimously to establish a task force to lobby the Boy Scouts and urge a change in its position about homosexuals. In addition, council members agreed to explore the idea of setting up a Police Explorer-type program of its own. "The dilemma is the city of Laguna sponsors a program that is not available to every resident," said Councilman Robert F. Gentry.
Some council members said that although they strongly support the Explorer program--aimed at people between 14 and 21 who are interested in law enforcement careers--they were uncomfortable with the Boy Scouts' long-held ban on gays as members or leaders.
At Tuesday's meeting, packed with gay community leaders, members and parents of Explorers, and others, most criticized the anti-gay policy of Boy Scouts of America, which sponsors the program. But the crowd was divided over how best to change that position. Some gay residents wanted the city to sever its ties with the Explorers, but other residents urged that the program be allowed to continue while the community tried to sway the Scouts.
"The program saved my at-risk son and turned his life around," said Barbara Norton. "It's critical that we keep this program intact as it is."
But Dennis Amick, Gentry's companion, said, "We cannot tolerate prejudice whether we're gay or straight. What you're asking us is to sit around and watch them make the first move."
The dispute between the city and Boy Scouts of America erupted in September when Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. told the organization that the city--which has a large gay population and an ordinance prohibiting discrimination against gays--would not ignore its own law.
Purcell's decision followed similar actions by both the El Cajon and San Diego police departments, who severed ties with the Boy Scouts in 1992 after the Scouts removed a gay El Cajon police officer from the position as Scout leader.
After Purcell's announcement, the Boy Scouts said it would revoke the city's charter if it learned that a gay person was participating as a member or an adviser. But until last month, the Police Explorer program continued without incident.
The 11 Explorer Scouts in Laguna Beach help officers in non-hazardous jobs such as crime scene searches, directing traffic and searches for lost children. Some previous Scouts have gone on to become officers.
Purcell called it "a fantastic opportunity for the young people" and a cost savings for the city.
At a City Council meeting in March, however, Gentry, who is both gay and a former Boy Scout, asked that the matter be reconsidered.
On Tuesday night, Gentry called for a six-month deadline for the Scouts to change their policy. But other council members, including Councilman Wayne L. Peterson, who also is gay, wouldn't support the deadline, saying the process may take longer.
Kent W. Gibbs, president of the Scouts' Orange County Council, said before Tuesday's meeting that the group does not try to find out if someone is homosexual.
"We don't have any litmus test for homosexuals or anything like that ," Gibbs said. "It appears as though this whole thing is someone's political agenda."
Although Chief Purcell initiated the debate, he later recommended that the city keep the Explorer Scout program because he considered it important to local youth.
This is not the first challenge to the Boy Scouts' policy on gays.
Last month, the 2nd District of the Court of Appeal concluded that the Boy Scouts of America may bar gay men from becoming Scout leaders. The court ruled that a state law prohibiting job discrimination against gays does not apply to the Boy Scouts because it is not a business, and said forcing the group to allow openly gay leaders would violate the group's First Amendment rights of association.
National leaders of the Boy Scouts of America praised the decision and said they had been supported time and time again by parents who do not believe that gay Scout leaders should serve as role models for their children.

Man says he had sex with Scout leader | Tells of encounter at bathhouse with avowed anti-gay volunteer
By: ANNE KRUEGER
San Diego Union-Tribune
08-Apr-1994 Friday

The civil trial over the Boy Scouts' ban on homosexuals ended with a bombshell yesterday when a witness said he had sex with the high-ranking Boy Scout volunteer who had testified that gays should be kept out of scouting because their practices are "contrary to the laws of God."
And another man testified he saw Christopher Leach of Poway, who testified last month that the Scout oath promising to be "morally straight" means that homosexuals should be barred from the organization, in a gay X-rated adult video store.
The two men were called to the stand by attorney Everett Bobbitt, who said he wanted to show the flaws in the Scout policy of prohibiting homosexuals.
"It demonstrates the inability of the Boy Scouts to accomplish what they want to accomplish," Bobbitt told Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph at the conclusion of the non-jury trial.
"Mr. Leach is gay. He goes to bathhouses and peep shows. . . . It is the best evidence of the foolhardiness of their policy and the difficulty in enforcing their policy."
Lawyers representing the Boy Scouts said Leach has denied the claims of the two men. His lawyer, Michael Edwards, said Leach, his wife and children went to Utah after receiving numerous harassing phone calls that followed news reports of his testimony.
"I thought it was pretty slimy," Edwards said of yesterday's testimony. "They run the man and his family out of town and then they do a hatchet job on him."
Bobbitt represents El Cajon police Officer Chuck Merino, 38, who was ousted from leading a Boy Scouts Explorer post in August 1992 after he publicly revealed his homosexuality.
Merino wants to be reinstated as leader of the Explorer post affiliated with the El Cajon police department.
If Merino is not reinstated, Bobbitt said, he will seek to have the Scouts removed from their city-owned land at Balboa Park and Fiesta Island because, he contends, the organization is violating a state civil rights law and the city of San Diego's Human Dignity Ordinance by discriminating against homosexuals.
J. Mark Crouse of San Diego testified yesterday that he recognized Leach from a photograph in The San Diego Union-Tribune that appeared with an article about his testimony in the Boy Scout case.
He said he first met Leach at an adult bookstore in fall 1990 and saw him on and off for a month. Crouse said he saw Leach again in spring 1991 at a bathhouse patronized by gay men.
"Sometimes we would have sex together, sometimes we would not. Sometimes we would just talk," Crouse said.
Under questioning by a Boy Scouts lawyer, George Davidson, Crouse denied he had an interest in Merino winning his case against the Boy Scouts.
"I did it (testified) only because I had a truth to tell in this matter," Crouse said.
Another witness, Len Potter, who said he is acquainted with Leach and his wife, said he saw Leach at a gay X-rated video store about two years ago.
He said that Leach also saw him and that Leach covered his face with his hand.
He said he followed Leach to the back of the store.
"He was embracing another man, mutual fondling, touching," Potter said.
Leach, a member of the local scouting organization's governing board . had testified that he had been involved with the Boy Scouts almost all his life and would resign if homosexuals were allowed to become members.
"I do not want an openly gay individual teaching my children," Leach testified. "I'm afraid they will become exposed to a lifestyle with which I disagree."
Joseph indicated he would rule on the case within about two weeks. Lawyers on both sides of the case said they expect whatever decision he makes to be appealed to higher courts.

Who should lead the kids in Scouting?
Peter Rowe
San Diego Union-Tribune
12-Apr-1994 Tuesday

Now that we've had a good laugh at the Boy Scouts' expense, let's ask a serious question:
Who should lead the kids?
Last week, the Scouts were in court, explaining why they had no use for Chuck Merino. A decorated El Cajon police officer, Merino founded a law enforcement Explorer Post in 1988.
In August 1992, Merino was booted after Scouting officials learned he is gay.
When Merino sued, officials said they have a duty to inoculate kids against that fatal disease, lifestyle exposure.
"I do not want an openly gay individual teaching my children," Christopher Leach, of the local Scout council's governing board, testified. "I'm afraid they will become exposed to a lifestyle with which I disagree." Oh? Leach may disagree in public, but two witnesses testified last week that he indulges in private, partaking of gay videos, and, yes, gay sex partners.
This is titillating, but fails to answer the real question:
Who should lead the kids?
No Explorer ever complained of Merino making improper advances. He's no pedophile.
If he were, the Scouts might have shown more sympathy. Witness the case of Edmund Lee Settle, former Scout leader and convicted child molester.
A different case
In September 1988, Settle became an assistant Scoutmaster for Clairemont's Troop 260.
A year later, a Scout accused the man of talking dirty, asking if he had ever had sex. Settle, then 21, was taken to a board of inquiry.
Troop 260's leaders rallied to Settle's side -- and slammed his accuser.
"Children start figuring out how to manipulate their parents and adults starting at birth," wrote Darwin Saylor, then Troop 260's scoutmaster, to the board. "Edmund Lee Settle is the type of Scouter every troop would like to have."
And Saylor was not alone. "There was an outpouring of support," said Dan White, a spokesman for the Desert Pacific Council, Scouting's governing body in San Diego County. "I don't think I've ever seen so many letters of support."
So Settle was reinstated -- and resumed preying on Troop 260's boys.
He did not restrict his perversions to after-work hours. As an X-ray technician at Children's Hospital, he fondled young patients, telling them it was a "test."
With the Scouts, he asked boys to submit to similar "tests" to determine if they had ever masturbated.
He groped a sleeping Scout during a camp out on Mount San Jacinto.
He played "soap wars," showering with Scouts on an East Coast trip. "He'd rub the boys down all over their bodies, including their private parts, with soap," a Scout told police.
He gave "physical exams." After one kid was struck in the groin with a soccer ball, a scoutmaster, the police reported, "found Settle and the young boy in the bathroom. Settle was feeling the boy's genitals to make sure the boy was OK."
In February 1991, parents complained that Settle had taken two Scouts home for pizza and an X-rated video. Again, Settle was forced to leave Troop 260.
When police arrested him in May 1992, Settle claimed that he, too, had been sexually abused as a child.
That may be so. But joining a Scout troop was inappropriate therapy. Anyone would know that.
Anyone, that is, except his peers.
"Eddie's devotion and energy are seemingly tireless," Bill Warner, the current scoutmaster of Troop 260, wrote Settle's lawyer in July 1992. "He has made a tremendous positive contribution to the lives of so many of our boys . . . "
"I don't know, or care, what you have done," Rick Board, an assistant scoutmaster, wrote his prison-bound colleague. "From my perspective, the good you have done far overshadows what wrongs you may have done."
Settle's seven-year prison sentence was reduced to three years. He's now on parole, living in San Diego.
White says Settle would have been removed earlier if the kids had complained. But the kids already saw what happened to the first Scout who crossed Settle.
So let me get this straight:
Merino -- a gay man with an unblemished record -- dishonors Scouting values, the same values demonstrated by Troop 260?
Right. His standards are too high.

Foe of gays in Scouting describes campaign of terror
San Diego Union-Tribune
By: ANNE KRUEGER and TERRY RODGERS
19-Apr-1994 Tuesday

A high-ranking Boy Scout volunteer who opposes having gays in the Scouts denied on the witness stand yesterday that he is a homosexual, countering testimony by two men who said they saw him in a gay bathhouse and video store.
With his wife and some supporters watching, Christopher Leach of Poway denied he had visited a video store or bathhouse and said he didn't even know J. Mark Crouse, who testified April 7 that he had had sex with Leach in the spring of 1991.
Leach, a member of the executive board of the local Scout council, was initially called to testify last month by lawyers for the Boy Scouts who are fighting a civil lawsuit seeking to overturn a ban on gays in the organizations.
The suit was filed by Chuck Merino, an El Cajon police officer who was expelled from leadership of an Explorer group after he publicly revealed his homosexuality in August 1992.
In an interview yesterday, Leach said his family life and accounting business were turned upside down after his original testimony triggered a barrage of harassing phone calls from those sympathetic to gays.
"It destroyed me," he said. "My practice came to a complete stop during this. The calls started. They kept going. I got paranoid."
Leach, 37, who is an Eagle Scout, said he decided his family was in mortal danger and opted to leave town after he found a threatening note on the windshield of his car. The note said: "We will get you, you homophobic bastard. You can't win."
While in seclusion with relatives in Utah, Leach learned from his lawyer, Michael Edwards, that he had been described in court as a homosexual.
"Anybody who knew me -- the people who count -- knew it was a pack of lies," he said.
Judge Anthony Joseph, who is presiding over the non-jury trial in San Diego Superior Court, reopened testimony in the case to let Leach respond to the accounts of the two men.
Leach said his wife, to whom he has been married for 13 years, gave him crucial support throughout his ordeal.
"Obviously, my wife has been there every step of the way," he said. "Never once has it been, `Were you?' It was always: `Chris, I know you can go back and I know we can get through this. I'm with you.' "
Leach had testified in March that homosexual practices are "contrary to the laws of God" and said the Scout oath's promise to be "morally straight" means that homosexuals should be barred from the organization.
Boy Scout lawyer George Davidson said Leach was chosen to testify about the organization's moral standards because of his wide experience in various Scout leadership posts.
After Leach testified last month, Merino's lawyer, Everett Bobbitt, dropped a bombshell by bringing Crouse and Len Potter, an acquaintance of Leach's, to court. Potter testified he had seen Leach fondling another man in Cinema F, a gay X-rated video store.
Asked during an interview if he would still testify on behalf of the Scouts if he had an opportunity to reconsider, Leach replied: "Would I do this again? It's hard for me to answer that question. Maybe. Not during tax season."
Leach, who said he lost 20 pounds due to the emotional trauma, added he feels satisfied that his denials under oath yesterday went a long way toward restoring his reputation.
He also said gay activists appear to be on a crusade to destroy Scouting.
"I do believe this is the opening volley of a war," he said, "because we know that this is not going to be the last time a gay Scout leader or a leader who does not believe in God will bring the Scouts to trial. This is not the ending of the argument."
Edwards said he, too, was reached by what he called an organized campaign of terrorism against his client and others in the case. He said one crank caller went as far as to threatened to disembowel his daughter's pet cat.
Crouse, an accountant at the San Diego Convention Center, testified that he had occasional liaisons with Leach in the fall of 1990 and again in the spring of 1991, when he saw Leach at a gay bathhouse.
Yesterday, Edwards, representing the Boy Scouts and Leach, introduced into evidence documents showing Potter was convicted in Riverside County in 1988 of four charges of oral copulation with boys, for which he was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison.
Boy Scout lawyers also tried to introduce documents showing Crouse pleaded guilty in 1992 to a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure in an incident at Torrey Pines State Reserve. Joseph, however, would not admit that conviction as evidence.
Leach testified that he believes Potter is biased against him because he had to lay off Potter's former wife from her job at his accounting firm.  He also said he had difficulties with Potter being late in making lease payments on a Jeep Comanche he rented to Potter.
"Were you in the Cinema F in April 1992?" Edwards asked Leach.
"No, I was not," Leach replied.
"Have you ever been there?" Edwards asked.
"No, I have not," Leach said.
Leach also denied having an affair with Crouse, saying that he spent his weekend evenings at Scouting activities or with his wife and family, going to the movies or out for pizza.
"I've never been into a gay bathhouse and I don't know a man named Crouse," Leach said.
Bobbitt had subpoenaed Leach to return to the witness stand March 31, but Leach did not appear because he had gone to Utah with his family. Leach said he left at a time when he was receiving harassing phone calls and death threats.
"The most important thing in my life is my family, and therefore I took them to safety," he said.
Under questioning by Bobbitt, Leach said he still fears for the safety of his family, even though he return to San Diego a week later.
"I came back to tell people that all the things you have brought forth are not true," Leach told Bobbitt.
Joseph is expected to issue a written decision in the case in a few weeks.

MAN TESTIFIES HE HAD SEX WITH ANTI-GAY SCOUT VOLUNTEER
2 May 1994 10:15:47 -0700
Frontiers Newsmagazine:

((AP) -- A San Diego man recently alleged that he had sex with the high-ranking Scout volunteer who testified in a civil suit that homosexuality is "contrary to the laws of God." Both testimonies were part of a suit against the Boy Scouts brought by openly gay El Cajon police Officer Chuck Merino, who was ousted from leading a Boy Scouts Explorer post in 1992 after he publicly acknowledged his homosexuality. Christopher Leach, a member of the local Boy Scout governing board, testified that he had been involved with the Boy Scouts almost all his life and would resign if gays were allowed to become members. After seeing Leach's photograph in a newspaper account of the testimony, J. Mark Crouse came forward to testify that he first met Leach at an adult bookstore and had sex with him on several occasions. Crouse also said he saw Leach at a bathhouse. Another witness said he encountered Leach at a gay adult video store where he was saw Leach engaged in various activities with another man, including "mutual fondling." Leach, his wife and children went to Utah after receiving numerous harassing phone calls following his testimony.

GAY SCOUT LEADER WINS COURT RULING AGAINST DISMISSAL
San Diego Union-Tribune
by Anne Krueger, Staff Writer
Friday, July 8, 1994

A San Diego Superior Court judge ruled yesterday that state law prohibits Boy Scouts from discriminating against an Explorer Scout leader who was ousted from that organization after he revealed he is homosexual.
The ruling by Judge Anthony Joseph -- the first judge in the country to rule in favor of a homosexual Boy Scout leader -- was hailed by gay leaders and condemned by those who support the Boy Scouts' exclusion of gays.
The decision came in the case of El Cajon police Officer Chuck Merino, who sued the Boy Scouts following his ouster from the organization in August 1992 after he announced that he is gay.
Though Joseph's ruling was eagerly awaited by both sides, it is not expected to have any immediate impact on the organization. The Boy Scouts vow to appeal it, and Merino's lawyer, Everett Bobbitt, estimated it may take three years to resolve the issue if the case is decided by the US Supreme Court.
Bobbitt said he will ask San Diego City Manager Jack McGrory to remove the Boy Scouts from their city-owned land at Balboa Park and Fiesta Island, which the Scouts lease for $1 a year. If no action is taken, Bobbitt said he will renew his lawsuit against the city, which was dropped from the case, because he claims the Scouts are violating a city ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Merino, 38, was thankful for yesterday's ruling, saying it showed that it was more important "to accept people for the deeds that do vs. any labels that people put on them . . . I think my record shows I've done nothing but outstanding work for the Boy Scouts."
Merino had run the El Cajon Police Department's Explorer group since 1988.  After he was expelled from the Boy Scouts, the El Cajon and San Diego police departments severed their ties with the group.
Though he sued for reinstatement, Joseph ruled that he could not order Merino reinstated because the officer had not requested an administrative hearing before Scouting officials, as the Scouts allow, to protest his expulsion.
Michael Edwards, a lawyer for the Boy Scouts, vowed that the Boy Scouts would not change their policies despite Joseph's ruling.
"The principles of the Boy Scouts are not for sale and they will not change," Edwards said.
The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases centering on whether the Boy Scouts can exclude gays and atheists from their ranks. Edwards said that he will ask that Merino's case be sent directly to the state's high court to speed the appeal process.
Legal experts said the only other legal challenge to the Boy Scouts' exclusion is in a New Jersey case that has not been decided. In that case, Eagle Scout James Dale sued the Scouts after they terminated his membership when he revealed that he is gay.
A key issue in the Merino case was whether the Boy Scouts are a business that falls under the provisions of the state Unruh Act, which prohibits businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, religion and other characteristics. A Los Angeles appeals court, in one of the cases before the state Supreme Court, ruled in March that the Boy Scouts are not a business and therefore could prohibit a homosexual from becoming an assistant scoutmaster.
But Joseph ruled that the Scouts are a business, saying they are a large public organization with a national membership that includes more than 4.1 million youths and almost 1.2 million adults.  He noted that the Scouts have an open membership policy, conduct many public activities and engage in commercial enterprises, such as a Scout store that sells scouting equipment.
Joseph ruled that the Boy Scouts are violating the state civil rights act by discriminating against homosexuals, and have no constitutional right to exclude homosexuals.
"This court's determination is the Boy Scouts may not exclude or remove avowed homosexuals from membership in the Boy Scouts unless the conduct of such persons is violative of Boy Scout rules which apply equally to all Boy Scout members without regard to homosexuality," Joseph wrote.
Joseph said Merino furthered Scouting's goals while he was a leader and never discussed his sexuality with the Explorers in his post.
"Public acknowledgment of homosexuality does not translate to a 'teaching' that homosexuality is proper or improper any more than a Scout admitting he is a Catholic amounts to a 'teaching' that Catholicism is the only 'proper' religion," Joseph said in his ruling.
But Darnell Watkins, director of the Boy Scouts' Desert Pacific Council serving San Diego County, said in a written statement that the Boy Scouts have a duty to exclude homosexuals as scout leaders.
"Scouting is based on high principles, enduring values and is a positive force in society. It is our responsibility to make sure our youth have scouting as a positive alternative to the growing gang problem in San Diego and that the leaders are of the highest moral stature," he said.
Christine Kehoe, a lesbian and the City Council member whose district includes the Scouts' Balboa Park headquarters, said she as pleased by Joseph's ruling.
"I agree 100 percent with the judge," Kehoe said.  "The Boy Scouts should revise that policy. They're really holding the kids hostage by that policy of intolerance."
On the other hand, Bishop George McKinney of St. Stephen's Church of God in Christ said the ruling fits in with what he called "the moral decay in the courts and schools and society in general."
"The ruling simply is continuing the trend whereby the moral values that support family life and the protection of children are being abandoned," he said.

Judge: Scouts Discriminated
29 July 1994

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A judge awarded $5,000 to a Boy Scouts leader who was expelled after revealing he is gay.
California's civil rights law prohibits the Scouts from discriminating against homosexuals, Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph ruled Thursday.
"Public acknowledgment of homosexuality does not translate into `teaching' that homosexuality is proper or improper,'' the judge wrote.
He declined, however, to order the reinstatement of Chuck Merino until the Boy Scouts held administrative hearings.
The Boy Scouts planned to appeal. The group claims it consists of volunteers and is not a business, and therefore is exempt from the law.
Merino, a 38-year-old police officer, was an Explorer Scouts leader for 11 years until he was expelled in 1992.
The Boy Scouts of America have a national policy banning homosexuals from being leaders. A spokesman said homosexuals are inappropriate role models.

Scouts ordered to reinstate gay police officer as leader
ANNE KRUEGER
San Diego Union-Tribune
27-Aug-1994 Saturday

A judge granted an injunction yesterday requiring the Boy Scouts to reinstate a homosexual El Cajon Police Officer as an Explorer post adviser.
Yesterday's ruling by San Diego Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph in the case of El Cajon officer Chuck Merino was an expected result of the judge's ruling last month that state law prohibits the Boy Scouts from discriminating against homosexuals.
Yet it is not the final word on the matter: Oral arguments on the ruling are scheduled for Sept. 7. And no matter what, any action in the case is expected to be on hold until higher courts rule on the anticipated appeals.
In his ruling last month, Joseph had said he could not order Merino to be reinstated because the officer had not asked for an administrative hearing before Scouting officials, as the Scouts allow, to protest his expulsion.  Both sides have since agreed that such a hearing would be fruitless. 
Attorney Michael Edwards, representing the Boy Scouts, could not be reached for comment yesterday, but the Scouts had said previously that they intend to appeal Joseph's ruling. Merino's lawyer, Everett Bobbitt, said he was pleased by the ruling.
The El Cajon Police Department ended its connection with the Boy Scouts in the wake of Merino's expulsion. He was kicked out after he publicly revealed his homosexuality in August 1992.
Joseph said he could not order the department to seek reinstatement for the Explorer post, but also said the Scouts could not block Merino's reinstatement as the post's leader.
Boy Scout officials had testified in the non-jury trial before Joseph that the tenet in the Boy Scout oath requiring a Scout to be "morally straight" prohibits homosexuals from becoming Scouts or Scout leaders. Merino and police testified that he was a respected Scouting leader.

Gay officer ousted by Scouts seeks to be Explorer adviser
ANNE KRUEGER
San Diego Union-Tribune
08-Sep-1994 Thursday

Chuck Merino, the El Cajon police officer ousted from leading an Explorer group after the Boy Scouts learned he was gay, has reapplied to join the organization -- even though he admits he has virtually no hope of getting back in.
Yesterday, in the latest court hearing on his lawsuit against the Boy Scouts, Merino said he has applied for an "at large" spot as an Explorer law enforcement adviser, a position unaffiliated with any particular Explorer post.
Merino had previously headed the El Cajon Police Department's Explorer post, but the department voluntarily withdrew from the Scouts two years ago -- setting up its own cadets program -- after Merino was expelled from the organization in the wake of his public revelation that he is homosexual.
Yesterday's hearing ended with San Diego Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph ruling that the Scouts must reinstate the Boy Scout charter for the El Cajon Police Department post, with Merino as its leader, once the department applies for reinstatement.
Merino, who has the backing of El Cajon police Chief Jack Smith, said he will fill out the papers to reinstate the El Cajon post, although he said he realizes it will most likely be rejected while the case is appealed through legal channels, probably up to the state Supreme Court and perhaps beyond.
"There won't be any immediate result, but it's something I need to do for me," Merino said.
Yesterday's court order stems from Joseph's ruling in July that state law prohibits the Boy Scouts from discriminating against Merino because he is gay.
After Merino was kicked out of the Boy Scouts, the El Cajon and San Diego police departments cut their ties with the Boy Scouts. His lawyer, Everett Bobbitt, had threatened to ask San Diego officials to kick the Boy Scouts off their city-owned land at Balboa Park and Fiesta Island, which the Scouts lease for a total of $2 a year.
Joseph had issued a tentative order Aug. 26 ordering the Scouts to reinstate Merino and the El Cajon post and scheduled yesterday's hearing to allow lawyers for both sides to present their arguments before issuing his final order. He is expected to issue a written ruling in about two weeks.
George Davidson, the lawyer representing the Boy Scouts, said he will appeal Joseph's ruling to the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

BOB ROWLAND
San Diego Union-Tribune
09-Sep-1994 Friday

EL CAJON -- An overture by Councilman W.E. "Bob" McClellan to thwart a court order reinstating a gay Boy Scout leader here is sparking threats of litigation and charges of homophobia.
"I think we need to be directly involved in this issue and take a stand," McClellan said yesterday. "This is not something the city supports."
McClellan's apparent target is Chuck Merino, an El Cajon police officer who sued the Boy Scouts after his ouster in August 1992 when he announced that he is homosexual.
Merino was the head of the Explorer Scouts post at the El Cajon Police Department, which severed all ties with the Boy Scouts in the wake of his expulsion.
On Wednesday, San Diego Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph ruled that the Boy Scouts must reinstate the organization's charter for the El Cajon Police Department post, with Merino as its leader.
In a televised interview Wednesday night, McClellan hinted that the City Council might intervene. At the time, he said that if he were to bring the matter before the council, it would oppose the reinstatement of the charter, most likely by a 4-1 vote.
McClellan softened his stand somewhat yesterday, saying he plans to confer with City Attorney Lynn McDougal before making his next move. McDougal was on vacation and could not be reached for comment yesterday. He is scheduled to return to work Monday.
Merino's attorney, Everett Bobbitt, vowed yesterday to sue any council member who votes against the charter, saying such a move would constitute a violation of his client's civil rights.
"The only reason they would be trying to block his return is because of his sexual orientation," Bobbitt said. "I'm not kidding around with Mr. McClellan. He's been a well-known homophobe for a long time now."
McClellan, who braces his political platform with strong religious tenets, said his opposition to Merino's reinstatement is based on character issues.
"When he applied to be an Explorer, Merino didn't disclose his homosexuality, even though he knew he couldn't live up to the Scouts' oath to be morally straight," McClellan said.
Regarding the Boy Scout charter in El Cajon, McClellan said he would encourage the council to block its return until a higher court makes a final decision.
Newly elected Councilman Todd Keegan said yesterday that he opposes any council involvement in the controversy surrounding Merino.
"This is a matter that's best left up to the courts," Keegan said. "In my opinion, the council shouldn't play a part in this at all."
Keegan said he was not surprised by McClellan's comments regarding the Merino case.
"Mr. McClellan has a very narrow focus," he said. "When it comes to moral issues, he always seems to be out there in the forefront. My advice to him is that he pay more attention to matters that concern the citizens of El Cajon."
Councilman Mark Lewis said that if the Merino-Boy Scouts issue comes before the council, he will cast his vote with McClellan.
When told of Bobbitt's vow to sue, Lewis said, "He'll have to stand in line."
Mayor Joan Shoemaker declined to comment, saying she had not seen McClellan's televised interview.
Attempts to contact Councilman Dick Ramos were unsuccessful.
Police Chief Jack Smith, who has praised Merino as a model officer, said in a prepared statement yesterday that he has not read Judge Joseph's ruling and that he plans to seek advice on the matter from City Attorney McDougal.
"I have no further comment at this time," Smith said.
Regardless of the course of action chosen by McClellan and his council colleagues, Merino's involvement with the Boy Scouts will likely fuel debate for months -- possibly years -- to come.
Bobbitt estimates that it may take up to three years to resolve the matter if it is decided by the US Supreme Court.
A key issue in the Merino case is whether the Boy Scouts constitute a business that falls under state laws barring discrimination based on sexual orientation.
In July, Joseph ruled that the Scouts are a business. He noted that it is a large public organization that engages in commercial enterprises and has an open-membership policy.
However, Boy Scout officials have testified that a Scouting oath requiring members to be "morally straight" precludes homosexuals from becoming Scouts or Scout leaders.
And Darrell Watkins, director of the Boy Scouts' Desert Pacific Council serving San Diego County, says his organization has a duty to its members to exclude homosexuals.

Tolerance on Trial
Airwaves
By: JOHN FREEMAN

Hampered by limited resources and forever rattling a tin cup, KPBS Channel 15 can't very well be expected to tackle all the pressing issues of our time.
But it's heartening to see San Diego's public TV station examine at least a few.
At 7 p.m. tomorrow, KPBS devotes a full hour to the intense furor that has erupted between the Boy Scouts and a scout leader who was suspended last year after he publicly revealed that he is gay.
The issue involves not only the status of the ousted leader, Chuck Merino of El Cajon, but the legal implications of the Boy Scouts using city-owned property to practice what some critics charge is discrimination against gays.
Produced in an understated, balanced style, "Tolerance on Trial" presents a wide sampling of the highly polarized views on the issue -- without editorializing. The show likely won't change anybody's mind, but it serves to clarify why certain factions align themselves on one side or the other so steadfastly.
"Tolerance on Trial" also serves to humanize Merino, the former Scout leader whose case has become a cause celebre.
He was ousted last September after he revealed his gay status at a community meeting on hate crimes against gays. (His homosexuality was previously not known to his parents or his co-workers.)
Through film clips and brief interviews with some co-workers, we learn that Merino has been a respected El Cajon police officer for 15 years, a popular volunteer football coach at Grossmont High School and, until last year, was much-admired as a Scout leader.
Merino, judged not to be a suitable Scout role model, has filed a lawsuit against Boy Scouts of America seeking his reinstatement.
In supporting the Boy Scouts' move, Councilman George Stevens of San Diego cites his religious beliefs, which he claims support the view that gays should stay away from groups where they're unwelcome: "Don't wear pants and act like a skirt," he says.
By contrast, fellow Councilman John Hartley says he supports Merino, citing what he terms the Boy Scouts' "history of discrimination against various groups of people" in its 80-year history.
The show, which also includes pointed remarks from scout officials and parents who strongly support the Boy Scouts, ends with this challenging statement from Merino: "More people need to be educated as to what gay people really are. People need to be treated equally," which is, in itself, a plea for tolerance on the complex issue.
A co-production of KPBS and San Diego State's Production Center for Documentary & Drama, the special emerges as worthwhile and thought-provoking, but far from conclusive.
"Tolerance on Trial" will be followed by a live half-hour call-in program hosted by KPBS' Gloria Penner.

Appeals panel hears arguments in case of ousted gay scout leader
San Diego Union-Tribune
By Anne Krueger
March 12, 1997

Three state appellate justices appeared skeptical yesterday about a claim that the Boy Scouts had no right to expel a gay Explorer leader.
In a case that has been closely watched nationwide for five years, the justices peppered an attorney for El Cajon police officer Chuck Merino with questions as he urged them to rule that the Boy Scouts illegally discriminated against Merino when they ousted him in 1992.
The justices of the 4th District Court of Appeal did not question the Boy Scouts' attorney, George Davidson, after he asked them to overturn a Superior Court judge's finding that Merino had been unlawfully expelled.
Justice Richard Huffman put Merino's attorney, Everett Bobbitt, on the hot seat with aggressive questioning as the lawyer told the panel that if the Boy Scouts were allowed to legally discriminate against gays, they could also discriminate against women and other minorities.
"No sir, they would not," Huffman replied. "Let's not walk off into an abyss of 'Oh my God, this is the end of civil rights in America.' "
After the arguments, none of the lawyers would predict the panel's decision, but Bobbitt clearly was dismayed by the tenor of the justices' questions, while attorney Michael Edwards, another attorney for the Boy Scouts, was delighted.
"I'm very pleased with the oral arguments that the court heard," Edwards said. "I thought the justices focused on very good questions and issues."
Merino had led an Explorer Scout post through the El Cajon police department until he was ousted in August 1992 when he announced he is gay. After he was expelled, the El Cajon and San Diego police departments severed their ties with the Boy Scouts.
Merino sued the Boy Scouts, seeking reinstatement as Explorer post leader. In July 1994, Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph ruled that state law prohibits the Boy Scouts from discriminating against gays. Joseph was the first judge in the country to rule in favor of a gay Boy Scout leader.
A similar case has been before the state Supreme Court for almost three years. In March 1994, a Los Angeles appeals court ruled that the Boy Scouts are not a business, which is subject to state anti-discrimination laws, and therefore could prohibit a gay man from becoming an assistant scoutmaster.
Huffman said his court's decision in Merino's case would not be delayed waiting for a decision to be reached by the state Supreme Court in the Los Angeles case. A ruling from the San Diego panel, which includes Huffman and Justices Gilbert Nares and Judith Haller, is expected within 90 days.
Davidson, the Boy Scouts' lawyer, told the justices that Joseph's decision was "at war with itself" because it reached contradictory conclusions. Joseph had said in his ruling that a Scout leader's public acknowledgment that he is gay does not mean that leader is teaching Scouts that homosexuality is proper.
Davidson contended that the fact a leader states he is gay is the same as saying that homosexuality is acceptable.
Bobbitt argued that although Merino admitted he is gay, he supports the Scouts' mission to teach values to youngsters. Merino was an Explorer post leader because he wanted to teach youths about police work, not to advance the gay lifestyle, Bobbitt said.
Huffman asked whether Merino's widely reported announcement that he is gay would influence the youths in his Explorer group.
"It had nothing to do with the Boy Scouts," Bobbitt responded. "It doesn't mean you don't have family values. It doesn't mean you don't have moral values."   

Police Officer Challenges Boy Scouts

A police officer in suburban San Diego who lost his post as head of the police department's cadet program with the Boy Scouts of America because of the BSA's policy banning Gays filed an appeal with the US. Supreme Court Sept. 30, 1998. The appeal asks the Supreme Court to overturn a California court ruling.
Charles Merino, a police officer with the police department of the city of El Cajon, filed a lawsuit seeking to force the Boy Scouts to retain him as head of the cadet program, called the Explorer Post. He also sought to force the county of San Diego, which has a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, to end its cadet program with the Boy Scouts because of the BSA's discriminatory policy.
A district court in California ruled that Merino's action to force the city to end its program with the Boy Scouts was premature, but it ordered the Boy Scouts to reinstate Merino as head of the cadet program. The Boy Scouts appealed that decision, and a state appeals court ruled in favor of the Boy Scouts. The California Supreme Court dismissed Merino's appeal and, Merino has appealed to the US. Supreme Court.
The California Supreme Court ruled in March of this year, in a separate case, that the Boy Scouts could discriminate based on sexual orientation because the organization is not a "business" and, therefore, not subject to the state Unruh Civil Rights Act. That law, which has been interpreted to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, stipulates that "All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal" and "are entitled to the full and equal accommodations … in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever." The California Supreme Court dismissed Merino's case a few months after ruling in the other Boy Scout case this year.
Merino argues that, while the Boy Scouts may not be subject to the law, its joint venture with a governmental entity (the San Diego police department) is subject to the law and that his position as head of that cadet program is a public job that is protected by the law. Thus, he argues, the Boy Scouts can't throw him out of that post because of its discriminatory policy against Gays.
In addition to asking the US. Supreme Court to rule on whether the Boy Scouts' cadet program with police departments requires the Boy Scouts to abide by the laws applying to the police department, Merino's petition asks that the court define that standard of review courts should apply in Gay-related discrimination cases.

Supreme Court rejects appeal of gay man who was ousted as Scout leader
November 30, 1998
by Richard Carelli

WASHINGTON - A California policeman ousted as a Boy Scouts leader because he is gay lost a Supreme Court appeal today.
The Boy Scouts' ban on homosexuals has been challenged in California and other states, and El Cajon policeman Charles Merino's case is the first to reach the nation's highest court.
The justices, without comment, refused to review a state court ruling that said Merino's suspension as leader of a law-enforcement Explorer Post violated no state law.
Merino became a Boy Scouts adult leader in 1989 after applying for an Explorer Post charter from the national organization's San Diego County Council.
Exploring is the co-ed young-adult program of the Boy Scouts for ages 14 to 20, and is sponsored by community organizations.
After learning that Merino was gay, the Boy Scouts in 1992 suspended his registration as an adult leader. His homosexuality was viewed as inconsistent with Scouting principles, specifically the requirement in the Scout Oath to be "morally straight."
The police department then discontinued the Explorer Post program.
Merino sued the Boy Scouts' local council, and a state trial judge ruled in 1994 that the group had violated a state anti-discrimination law that applies to public agencies and accommodations.
But a state appeals court reversed the judge's ruling after concluding that the Boy Scouts are not a business covered by the anti-bias law.
Merino appealed to the California Supreme Court, but it dismissed his case after ruling in another that the state public-accommodations law does not apply to the Boy Scouts.
In contrast, a New Jersey appeals court has ruled that the Boy Scouts and their local councils were "places of accommodation" with open membership and covered by the state's civil-rights law.

Challenge to Scout anti-gay policy rejected
December 08, 1998
by Bob Ponting

WASHINGTON -- A gay El Cajon policeman lost his lawsuit against the Boy Scouts Monday when the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of his case Monday.
Charles Merino had hoped to challenge on constitutional grounds the Boy Scout's ban on homosexuals, but the justices of the nation's highest court turned away the case without comment. Merino became a Boy Scout leader in 1989 after applying to start a law enforcement Explorer post with the Scouts' San Diego County Council. The Explorer program is for scouts ages 14 to 20.
In 1992, the Boy Scouts learned that Merino is gay and kicked him out of the organization. Boy Scout officials said they did so because being homosexual is inconsistent with the Boy Scout principles and the Scout Oath's pledge to be "morally straight."
Merino sued the Scouts' local council. In 1994, a state judge ruled that the Scouts are a public organization and as such had violated state anti-discrimination laws by ousting Merino. But an appeals court reversed the decision, ruling that the Scouts are not a business covered by the anti-discrimination law.
Merino appealed to the State Supreme Court, but his case was dismissed after the court ruled in another case that the anti-discrimination law does not apply to private organizations like the Boy Scouts.
When Merino appealed to the US. Supreme Court, his lawyers argued that he had been denied his constitutional right of equal protection under the law. They also said that because the Scouts were supervising the Explorer Post in cooperation with the El Cajon Police Department, the organization was acting as a private organization.
Legal observers say the Supreme Court's refusal to hear Merino's appeal still leaves unanswered whether the Boy Scout ban on homosexuals is legal. Several other cases challenging the ban are currently working their way through the lower courts.
 

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