The Nation - News from July 30, 1985

A national atheist organization has asked the Boy Scouts of America to strike its requirement that Scouts believe in God after the expulsion of a scout who said he does not believe in a supreme being. “We believe this recent discriminatory action of the Boy Scouts of America is both legally and morally indefensible,” Anne Gaylor, president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said in Madison, Wis. Paul Trout, 15, of Shepherdstown, W.Va., was denied a promotion to Life Scout in June after he told a local review board that although he respects the rights of others to believe in God, he does not hold such a belief himself.