SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) -- The United Way of the Bay Area carried through
its threat Wednesday, and cut off future general funds to the Boy Scouts
of America because of the group's ban on gay Scouts and troop leaders.
	However, the umbrella fundraising group said it would continue to
allow contributors to earmark funds for the Scouts under its Donor
Choice plan. Last year, the United Way raised more than $57 million, of
which the Boy Scouts received $849,000 in allocations and $326,000 in
Donor Choice funds.
	``The United Way deeply regrets that the six local Boy Scout councils
will no longer participate as funded members of The United Way based on
current limitations imposed by their national charter,'' said Charles
Lynch, the local United Way chairman.
	``The Boy Scouts will, as previously agreed, be allocated general
funds raised during the 1991 campaign for distribution through June,
1993. They will not be eligible for future general fund allocations
until such time as our policies are in alignment,'' Lynch added.
	Blake Lewis, a spokesman at Scout national headquarters in Irving,
Tex., said the local Scouts would look for funding elsewhere.
	``We will go out and obtain the funding necessary to continue a
program for the young people of the Bay Area,'' Lewis said. ``We will do
it in a way that will allow us to operate in a manner we feel is proper.
We currently are looking at several funding strategies.''
	The feud between the two agencies boiled over in January when United
Way warned that the Boy Scout councils of San Francisco, Marin, Alameda,
Contra Costa and San Mateo counties risked losing their funding if they
did not open their membership to all children.
	Despite the fact that individual Scout groups in the San Francisco
area have been critical of the ban, United Way said it could no longer
fund them because of the agency's anti-discrimination bylaws.
	The charity group is not the only agency that has taken aim at the
ban. The San Francisco Unified School District has told local Scout
leaders they can not use the city's schools for afterschool meetings
because of the stand.