I don't want to keep posting my own stories, but I really find this topic fascinating. The Boy Scouts are going to destroy themselves if they aren't careful. When the CEO suggested I try to work a business angle into this I was skeptical, wanting to write a regular hard news story instead, but it turned out really well. I was very surprised at the support Dale got from governmental organizations...

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By T.J. DEGROAT

©2000 my Internship

June 29, 2000



The Boy Scouts of America’s legal campaign against the inclusion of gays in its membership led to yesterday’s favorable Supreme Court ruling, but some civil rights experts say it could cause severe backlash from philanthropic groups and corporate sponsors.



Yesterday the justices voted 5-4 in favor of the Boy Scouts, ruling that freedom of association, as described in the First Amendment, gives the organization absolute power to accept and reject members.



“The Boy Scouts asserts that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the values it seeks to instill,” Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote in the court’s majority opinion. “The Boy Scouts takes an official position with respect to homosexual conduct, and that is sufficient for First Amendment purposes.”



The Boy Scouts made it clear that homosexuality goes against their oath to be “morally straight” when the organization ousted James Dale, an assistant scoutmaster from Troop 73 in Matawan, N.J., after being described as a gay student leader at Rutgers University in a 1990 newspaper article.



The former Eagle Scout began his legal battle in 1992. Yesterday’s decision overturns a 1999 ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court that said the Scouts violated the state’s anti-discrimination law.



“I’ve spent nearly half of my life in Scouting, so obviously this decision is disappointing,” Dale said. “If I learned anything during my years as a Scout, it was to believe that justice will prevail. America realizes that discrimination is wrong, even if the Boy Scouts don’t know that yet.”



In a prepared statement, the Boy Scouts said the decision affirms its standing as a private association with the right to choose its own membership.



“The Boy Scouts of America, as a private organization, must have the right to establish its own standards of membership if it is to continue to instill the values of the Scout Oath and Law in boys,” the statement said.



While the Scouts don’t make an effort to discover the sexual orientation of its members, the organization believes “an avowed homosexual is not a role model for the values espoused in the Scout Oath and Law,” according to the statement.



David Buckel, a senior staff attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund who worked on the case, said the court’s decision forces governmental agencies such as public schools to pull support from the Scouts.



“If they sponsor the Boy Scouts they are giving governmental approval to an anti-gay message,” he said. “They now must look for programs that serve all youth in a positive way.”



In fact, 37 amicus briefs were filed in the case. Supporters included the American Psychological Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 11 states, seven cities and five school districts.



Financial action was taken by such groups as the United Way of Somerset County in New Jersey, which revoked its annual donation of $30,600 in May because the Scouts refused to sign an anti-discrimination policy.



Other organizations may follow suit and could prove to be disastrous to the Scouts’ cause, Buckel said.

DEPRESSING!!! I just wrote this for the internship:



AIDS Threatens To Erase a Generation



By T.J. DEGROAT

©2000 my Internship

June 28, 2000



AIDS-related illnesses will kill more than half of all 15-year-olds in the African countries most affected by the pandemic, including South Africa and Zimbabwe, where a fifth of all adults are HIV-positive, according to a study released by the United Nations yesterday.



“The world has never before experienced death rates of this magnitude among young adults of both sexes across all social strata,” the U.N. Joint Program on HIV/AIDS said in the report, titled “Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic.”



The projections were calculated from statistical models based on surveys of infection rates in African countries. Overall, Africa accounts for 71 percent of current infections and 83 percent of all AIDS-related deaths.



If rates remain steady in countries such as Botswana, there will be more adults in their 60's and 70's than in their 40's and 50's, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.



The report stated there are 16 countries where more than 10 percent of people age 15-49 are infected with the virus: Botswana, Burundi, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.



Lack of education and denial are part of the problem, according to the report. A 1999 survey of 72 Kenyans whose parents died of AIDS found that none of the minors believed their parents had died of the virus. Most blamed witchcraft.



There are now 34.3 million people infected with HIV worldwide, according to the report. The rate of 0.6 percent of the population has stabilized in the United States, but it’s one of the highest rates among developed nations. An estimated 850,000 Americans have HIV.



The report warned that some Americans have become careless, especially gay men in cities such as New York and San Francisco, where some are engaging in unprotected sex with multiple partners.



While financial efforts to prevent the disease from spreading have increased, the estimated $300 million in support this year falls very short of the $2 billion needed annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone, the report said.

This is lame. Boy scouts! I interviewed James Dale, the former boy scout who was given the boot when the organization found out he was gay. James went to Rutgers so I tracked him down and spoke to him. He would not be going through all of this emotional garbage if he didn't really believe in the cause. That makes me even more annoyed with the decision, knowing that this guy has put so many things in his life on hold to fight for something like this...

This is the way I write an article:



I have a press release or my notes from an interview or many pieces of stories and I just plop them into a word document. Then I hack away, cleaning up type-os, figuring I will just work from top to bottom making sense of everything. Then I begin feeling urges to move the graph I just clean up to a higher point, where it would flow so nicely! So I keep doing that with everything I see until I reach the bottom of the file. Then I look at the document and am almost surprised that everything fits. All that’s left is to make sure the lead and the last graph are kick-ass and that there are transitions throughout the piece.



Finis.

I'm trying to get an interview with the creators of this really cool, new comic about the life of a Latino dealing with two cultures, but in a very cute and humorous way. I absolutely love Tía Carmen!

Oh my goodness. This is such a sweet day.



I have a women from siliconindia pursuing me to write a story, which will be quite an interesting one. She is awesome and accomodating and loves the site. I had someone from Merrill Lynch put me through to an unreachable executive because she loves our newsletter. I also am emailing a producer at NBC news who's the new president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She is very willing to let me interview her, which is awesome for the site and for my personal network of contacts.



SWEET!



Also, Ben Jenkins is a total loon! :)

Tennis time.



Annamaniia? Oh dear, where are the results? Anna Kournikova came along with Hingisd and the Williams sisters and was hyped just as much as they were. But unlike her peers, Anna has no results at all. She has not even won a tournament yet! But she has managed to prosper because of her looks. She is a very attractive girl, but ... I will never be a fan until she starts kicking some ass.



My Monica has won a few tournaments this year, though. And losing to the eventual champ at the French Open is not a bad way to go. But Monica almost lost in the first round today at Wimbledon, which does not bode well for her.



Hmmm...