(San Jose Mercury News, 11/14/92)

LEAKED MEMO FURTHER DIVIDES SCOUTS, UNITED WAY
by Ken McLaughlin

	United Way and Boy Scout officals can agree on one thing about
this week's revelation that the two agencies were going their separate
ways: Something went wrong, terribly wrong.

	The result was a public relations disaster, as a purported deal
to sever ties because of the Boy Scouts' exclusion of gays exploded into
headlines and led to public denials by officials for both organizations.
The resolution of the crisis now seems unclear.

	On Tuesday, the Mercury News obtained an internal United Way
memorandum which said the Boy Scouts had proposed to cut ties with the
charity by June 1996.  This was seen as a way to resolve the fractious
dispute over the Scouts' anti-gay policy.

	A draft of the statement even said that United Way's board of
directors would act on the Boy Scouts' proposal by Nov. 20, the next
regularly scheduled meeting.

	"We just made a mistake, and I assume full responsibility" for the
memo becoming public, Perry VanDeventer, interim president of United Way
of Santa Clara County, said Friday.

	As of now, the plan for resolving the crisis appears to be dead in
the water.  But a competing proposal for a United Way committee -- which
could prove worse for the Scouts -- is still alive.

	"Basically we still haven't recived an offer from the Scouts, nor
do I expect to receive anything," VanDeventer said.

	"There is no proposal to act on," said Al Kugler, Scout executive
of the Stanford Area Council.

	Privately, some United Way officials grumbled that the Scouts
eemed to have reneged on a deal that seemed to be good for both parties --
a seemingly ingenious compromise of putting off the agencies' divorce for
four years, by which time the issue could be resolved on a national
level.

	But the disclosure of the contingency plan -- as VanDeventer has
called it -- has put the Boy Scouts on the spot.

	And although local Boy Scout officials are sticking by previous
statements that there never was a deal, the only issue now on the United
Way board agenda next Friday is a recommendation by a committee to cut
off funding of groups that discriminate against gays by June 1994 -- two
years earlier than the contingency plan.

	VanDeventer blamed the leak on carelessness in faxing the 1996
plan -- which he said was not "written in stone" -- to the 15 or so
members of a special public relations committee that would eventually have
to deal with the Boy Scout issue.

	"We sent a fax to a (phone) number that we were told was
confidential but was not," he said.  "I guarantee that we have to change
our ground rules about what we fax...  All it did was embarrass the Scouts
and confuse the public."

	On Thusday, the day the Mercury News story appeared, the two Scout
councils in Canta Clara County issued a joint press release saying that
the "announcement leaked by the local United Way organization was
inaccurate."

	"The Boy Scouts of America does not wish to leave the United Way of
Santa Clara County, and we will not abandon the beliefs and values that
families have come to expect of us," Kugler was quoted as saying.

	In a pointed reference to gay and lesbian groups that have
challeneged the Scouts policy of not permitting gays i the organization,
the statement maintained that special interest groups were challenging
"scouting's tradition and standards of membership."

	"If United Way of Santa Clara County decided to force
special-interest values on all agenice funded by the group, the effect
could be profound," Doug McDonald, Scout Executive of the Santa Clara
County Council, said in the release.

	On Friday, however, on assisstant Scountmaster from Palo Alto
criticized the Scouts for not addressing the issue head on.

	"There are many super-dedicated people in this organization...
but the Boy Scouts has absolutely stonewalled on this entire thing," said
Bob Smith, 47, a computer software company executive.

	"Very sadly, the impression I have is of an orgnization that is
not listening an really doesn't want to hear what the community has to
say," said Smith, and Eagle Scout who serves on United Way's 32-member
ad hoc committee studying gay and lesbian issues.

	Smith, who has a 16-year-old son in Scouting, said he has written
dozens of letters to Scout officials trying to prompt an internal debate
"on all levels of Scouting," but has "never received a response."

	"The differnece between the Hnited Way and the Boy Scouts has
been night and day, " Smith said.  "(The United Way panel) has had 60
meetings over the past year, and the Boy Scouts won't even discuss the
issue."

	Kugler said that he had discussed the issue with Smith, but that
his view was a minority position among parents of Scouts.

	"They believe that our policies are correct, but Bob personally
believes that the (anti-gay) policy should be changed," said Kugler.  "But
I think he's aksing us to go beyond our mission.  Our mission is to serve
kids."