Sebastian Kitchen

@writeonsk

The Louisville Metro Council can't provide funding to the Boy Scouts because the organization's ban on openly gay scout leaders violates the city's anti-discrimination ordinance, according to a county attorney's decision.

It blocks an attempt by Councilwoman Cindi Fowler, D-14th District, to use $640 in neighborhood-development money to expand swimming for two hours on two nights at Sun Valley Park for scouts pursuing their swimming badge.

Michael Bowman, Fowler's legislative assistant, on Thursday emailed Mike Kuhn, assistant scoutmaster for Troop 51 at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church, telling him that the funding had been rejected because "the Boy Scouts organization cannot provide documentation of an employment policy that does not discriminate against individuals, specifically sexual orientation."

Jessie Halladay, a spokeswoman for County Attorney Mike O'Connell, confirmed the request had been denied. The county attorney's office must approve all neighborhood-development fund expenditures.

Though funding for the Boy Scouts had been approved in previous years, recent attention to the Boy Scout policy had prompted the county attorney's office to look more closely at the request, Halladay said. The Boy Scouts of America altered its policy this year to allow gay scouts, but it still prohibits gay scout leaders.

"With the heightened talk, attorneys in the civil division believe that they do discriminate and ... it is intentional discrimination," Halladay said.

She said the issue surfaced during the standard appropriations review of the funds by the county attorney's office and finance staff for the council after Fowler made her request.

Kuhn wrote an email Thursday to fellow scout leaders, Fowler and Councilmen David Yates and Rick Blackwell, asking that the council reconsider funding the scout swim nights.

He also threatened that the scouts may rethink volunteering for local government projects, including Eagle Scout projects at Jefferson Memorial Forest and cleanups along the riverfront and as part of Brightside.

"Maybe the unpaid labor provided by the scouts for the multitude of service given to the community on request of the local government should not be forthcoming," wrote Kuhn, who later told The Courier Journal he is tolerant but is concerned about the effect of the decision on children.

"Don't make the kids suffer over an interpretation of BSA policy that they have no control over," he wrote.

After receiving Kuhn's email, Fowler told her colleagues in a meeting Thursday, "I wanted you all to know that there could be some repercussion from this."

Kuhn's frustration is misplaced, Blackwell said, and should be directed at the national organization for its discriminatory policy.

Metro Councilman Kelly Downard, who supported the fairness ordinance, said blocking the funds was unfair to the children.

"I don't think this was the intention," said Downard, R-16th District, who added the situation is a "slippery slope" that could be used to deny funding to a number of organizations.

Last year, at least $45,000 in city money was directed to the Lincoln Heritage Council Boy Scouts — most of it through council members' discretionary neighborhood-development funds, according to the city's online checkbook.

Phil Miller, a spokesman for Mayor Greg Fischer, confirmed after talking to budget staff that there are no funds directly allocated to the Boy Scouts and that any funds that have gone to scouts were through council neighborhood development funds.

"This is not something that is happening just in Louisville," said Greg Bourke, who was pushed out as a local scout leader because he is gay. "There is a very large national movement that is taking place and addressing the Boy Scouts and its ongoing discrimination" by national leaders.

The Metro United Way is evaluating whether to continue to direct $250,000 in annual funding to Louisville-area Boy Scouts, and the United Way of the Bluegrass has already withdrawn funding from the scout council in Lexington.

Bourke, who is also running for Metro Council, said there are other activities nationally to try to encourage the scouts to change policy. Bourke said, with he and his son still involved with scouts at times, he supports the organization financially "but I don't think public funds should be used to support an organization that actively discriminates against gay people."

Fowler had already directed funds to expand swimming hours at the pool for the general public on Tuesdays during summer months and said she encouraged the scouts to take advantage of that expanded time.

Yates, D-25th District, said they could expand hours for public use and not specify that the funds are to assist the scouts. But Councilman Brent Ackerson, D-26th District, said he disagrees with trying to find a way around the policy.

"The whole idea is punishing them for their choice," Ackerson said.

Reporter Sebastian Kitchen can be reached at (502) 582-4475. Follow him on Twitter @writeonsk.