Every year the Boy Scouts hold their National Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia. Each year the Pentagon spends some $6 to $8 million transporting personnel and supplies to get the base ready for the event. That aid is authorized by 10 USC Sec. 2554 (the Jamboree statute). Today the Army Times reports that on June 22, an Illinois federal district court enjoined further funding of Boy Scout Jamborees. The injunction follows the court's earlier grant of summary judgment in the case in Winkler v. Chicago School Reform Bd. of Trustees, 2005 WL 627966 (ND IL, May 16, 2005). There the court held that the Jamboree statute violates the Establishment Clause by funding the Boy Scouts with its substantial religious component, to the exclusion of all other groups. The Scouts require an oath of duty to God, exclude atheists and agnostics from the organization, and require a prayer book as part of each scout's personal camping equipment for the Jamboree. The ruling will not affect this year's Jamboree scheduled to begin later this month.
The ACLU of Illinois also announced the injunction today. The plaintiffs in the case, who were represented by the ACLU, were Reverend Eugene Winkler and Rabbi Gary Gerson. They praised the court's action as maintaining government neutrlity toward religion.
