For time being, Scouts have a shaky PCUSA pact The Presbyterian Layman Volume 34, Number 5 Posted July 6, 2001 LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The General Assembly has decided to stay out of the controversy over the relationship of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to the National Association of Presbyterian Scouts. The commissioners approved by a show of hands a resolution from the Committee on Christian Education and Publications. They referred Commissioners’ Resolution 01-11, a pro-Scout statement, and Commissioners’ Resolution 01-15, an anti-Scout statement, to the General Assembly Council and instructed the council to bring a report to the 214th General Assembly. Just before the General Assembly opened on June 9, the General Assembly Council adopted a statement that simply referred to the fact that the council and the National Association of Presbyterian Scouts currently work together in a written covenant. But that covenant has been criticized. Several members of the General Assembly Council have openly disagreed with the policy of the Boy Scouts of America in their prohibition against homosexual scout leaders. The staff of the General Assembly Council has already informed the National Association of Boy Scouts that a grant request was disapproved by the staff and that the Scouts would not be permitted to use the Presbyterian Youth Connection logo on their jamboree patches. Commissioners’ Resolution 01-11 had asked the General Assembly to support the Boy Scouts. Resolution 01-15 had asked the General Assembly to urge Scouts who use church facilities to stop discriminating. During the meeting of the General Assembly Council that preceded the General Assembly, former General Assembly Moderator Fred Gardner said, “We will be in conversation [with the National Association of Boy Scouts] over things that are not settled and need to be discussed. Unless there are circumstances unforeseen, I don’t want to suggest that the committee is totally comfortable with the action of the Boy Scouts of America. Fellow members of our church are being excluded from the leadership of the Boy Scouts and sometimes as members.”

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