By Karen Ocamb

To quote Yogi Berra, “It was déjà vu all over again.”

On Nov. 20, after affectionately lauding outgoing, openly gay Los Angeles Police Commissioner Shelley Freeman and presenting her with the Police Commission Distinguished Service Medal, the Commission once again took up the issue of the LAPD’s youth Explorer program and its connection with the anti-gay Boy Scouts of America (BSA).

The issue has been on the front and back burners of the Southern California LGBT community since 1992, when El Cajon Police Officer Chuck Merino was kicked out of his Police Explorer post in San Diego after he came out at a neighborhood meeting about hate crimes. Interestingly, BSA didn’t remove Merino until after his three-month summer academy for 300 boys ended. The San Diego Police Chief was so angry at how the respected officer was treated, he severed the department’s ties with BSA.

That year, BSA created Learning for Life (LFL) as a subsidiary for its Explorer Scouts program.

In 2000, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that BSA was a private religious organization that had the right to discriminate against gays, local municipalities around the country, including the Los Angeles City Council, voted to stop allowing BSA to use city property for troop activities at no cost. The L.A. City Council also voted to sever the connection between BSA and the LAPD’s Explorer Scouts program.

At that Nov. 28, 2001, meeting, openly gay Councilmember Jackie Goldberg said, “We have to send a message that we will not tolerate discrimination.” Councilmember Mike Feuer—a lawyer—agreed, saying the city had a legal obligation to sever ties with BSA. “We have no choice,” Feuer said.

Openly gay attorney and Police Commissioner Dean Hansell followed suit, holding hearings before the Police Commission that clearly established links between LFL and BSA. He also ordered the LAPD commander in charge of the Explorer program to come up with viable LAPD-created alternatives.

In 2002, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo sent Police Chief William Bratton a letter saying that while people can disagree on whether LFL follows BSA’s anti-gay policy, he recommended that the department err on the side of non-discrimination and sever ties.

At the Nov. 20 Commission meeting, Police Commissioner Andrea Ordin asked that Delgadillo be contacted to clarify his position.

“The City Attorney believes we need programs that reach out to, and provide positive role models for, our youth,” Delgadillo’s openly gay communications director, Nick Velasquez, told IN Los Angeles magazine. “He also believes the city cannot legally, and should not morally, do business with any program which discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

“The city attorney has urged, and continues to urge, the LAPD to establish an alternative to the existing Learning for Life program.”

At times during the Commission meeting there appeared to be a serious misunderstanding about why Freeman continued to press the issue. LAPD Cmdr. Kirk Albanese, who admitted that “a nexus is present, no question,” vociferously argued that the Explorer program adheres to the LAPD’s non-discrimination policy and does not agree with BSA. “Any discrimination, any lack of values as it relates to the Explorers, is not to be tolerated by the department,” Albanese said, at one point hushing up a commissioner who interrupted. “They do not get exposed to anything that the Boy Scouts of America teach.”

Freeman, however, elicited from Albanese that the Explorers only get two hours of education on ethics, which, she assumed would include the non-discrimination policy. Additionally, there was no guaranteed safeguards that Explorers who prize their connection with BSA might not influence the LAPD Explorers.

“I am torn because I am the beneficiary of this program,” Commissioner Alan Skobin said. “It’s a program of real value, but we need to determine what the linkage is to Learning for Life.”

Freeman circulated LFL’s 990 tax forms from 2005, which she downloaded from the Internet, that again clearly spelled out the links: LFL and BSA share the same headquarters; BSA was reported under “reconciliation of revenues” and “reconciliation of expenses”; BSA was listed under “reason for non-private foundation status; all six members of the LFL board of directors list the BSA headquarters as their LFL address; and two Scout executives are listed under “analysis of compensation summarized.”

Greg Salce, director of LFL’s L.A. chapter, told the Daily News that the nonprofit long ago broke with BSA, though they share national board members and offices in Irvine, Texas. “I am proud to be affiliated with the membership (of Boy Scouts of America),” Salce told the newspaper. “But we don’t discriminate. That is not what we do.”

“How do you know if Learning for Life discriminates or not—because they say so?” Freeman asked Albanese, wondering why fine LAPD detectives would conclude an investigation based on one person’s statement. “This is a very disturbing relationship,” Freeman said.

Freeman tried to tease out why the link between the LAPD and LFL is so strong. It can’t be the $8 fee paid per Explorer to LFL for insurance, which can be purchased elsewhere. Could it be the national sports competitions held among LFL Explorer troops? “They won’t let us play with them?” Freeman asked. “Right,” Albanese said. “In candor, that’s their hook.”

“We do not need 990s to rebut legal technicalities. It is an undeniable fact that the LAPD Explorer program is affiliated with Learning for Life, which is coordinate by the Boy Scouts of America—an organization which proudly discriminates and even went to court to affirm its bias,” Roger Coggan, legal director at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, told the commissioners. “Today we are calling upon the mayor to exercise leadership and instruct his hand-picked police commissioners to act as they would if this were a matter of racial discrimination.”

The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

The commission closed the matter by ordering another report, this one due by mid-December.