Dan,

I don't recall the specific authority, but I have understood that private
club/organization discrimination turns on the issue of whether the club is
a "public" accommodation where constitutional equal protection protects
applicants and members.  I recall that the gay scoutmaster won his bias
case on an appeal reversal (Cal Supreme Court?) holding that the Boy Scouts
are NOT a private organization since no functionally equivalent
organization exists to offer those activities.  The logic is much the same
as the U.S. Jaycees case many years ago where women won membership rights
because they could not find any substitute for the all-male business
networking that was the primary function of the local chapters.

I'll be interested in more specific responses you'll probably receive after
turkey day. My students have asked me the same questions.

Brad Sleeper




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Brad Sleeper                            Professor of Law
BB 307                                  email:  [log in to unmask]
St. Cloud State University              telephone:  (320) 255-4227
St. Cloud, MN  56301-4498               fax: (320) 255-4061

In the end, it is not the world, but your family that is your witness and
your immortality.       --  Jacquelyn Mitchard
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