ARTICLE OF INTEREST:

My sister constantly tells me how much her six-year-old son Ricky adores me. So when he came home with a flyer about joining a fun and exciting group for kids his age, she had a tough decision to make. Should she let him join a group that doesn't like his beloved Uncle Michael?

When the Supreme Court ruled the Boy Scouts had the right to fire scout leaders for being gay, my sister and countless parents like her got caught in an agonizing moral dilemma: Should you join a group synonymous with family values if it requires you to abandon part of your family?

The political backlash since the ruling is clear to anyone who reads the local papers. Many cities, believing the Scouts are engaging in discrimination, have told local Scout troops that they can't use parks, schools and other municipal sites. In addition, companies and charities have withdrawn hundreds of thousands of dollars in support.

But what isn't so easy to see is the division the Supreme Court decision created in millions of families like mine.

When my sister first called to tell me she was thinking of putting Ricky in the Cub Scouts (a program run by the Boy Scouts of America) I could hear the torment in her voice.

Ricky is a bright, athletic boy who suffers from a shyness so paralyzing he doesn't have any friends. The other day she asked whom he had played with during recess. "Nobody," he mumbled in reply, looking at the floor. "I just scratched the mosquito bites on my leg till it was time to go back to class."

It breaks my sister's heart to see what Ricky's shyness is doing to him. Karate, softball and soccer leagues helped, but not nearly enough. In another age, she wouldn't have thought twice about joining the Scouts. But now the decision has taken on an unsettling ethical dimension.

"I don't understand why they're making me take sides in my own family," she said about the Boy Scout policy. "They're putting me in an awful position: To help my son I have to abandon my brother."

My sister was up against some disturbing questions. Should she violate her sense of family loyalty for the social needs of her son? Or keep her values intact and deny her son the possibility of overcoming his shyness? The Boy Scouts created the unimaginable: A moral quandary about joining the most wholesome group in America.

My sister was afraid she'd be doing the same thing parents did a generation ago when they joined country clubs that didn't allow blacks and Jews. They too rationalized their membership by saying the group's wholesome activities would be good for the kids.

There was one thing my sister and her husband were not conflicted about: Me. "No way are we putting Ricky in the Scouts if this is an issue for you," she said. "Blood is thicker than camping." Still, she wanted to know how I'd feel if my nephew became a scout.

I felt completely torn but I answered with as much certainty as I could muster. "I am not getting in the way of what's best for a six-year-old," I told her. Ironically, I found myself arguing for Ricky to join the Scouts. It's families that teach morality, I told her, not after-school groups. Besides, it's not like the Scouts actually preach anti-gay messages to the kids.

Or do they? Is it really inconceivable that kids who know why the President of the United States was impeached wouldn't ask why gay people aren't allowed in the Scouts? And what would the Scouts response to the kids be? I was shaken by the possibility of my nephew listening to trusted grown-ups trying to convince him his Uncle Michael is something to be scared of.

One night I had a terrible dream of a Boy Scout official pointing me out to Ricky and saying "See that guy? The one you love more than any other man except your father? He's not allowed in here."

I woke up feeling a kind of enraged helplessness. How could I mean so much to my family and so little to so many outside of it? I was deeply torn, but ultimately I knew I could live with the indignity of my nephew belonging to a group that discriminates against his uncle; what I couldn't live with was the guilt of denying Ricky a chance to improve his life.

A decision this complicated requires time and a lot more information. So my sister, a mom torn between loyalty to her brother and concern for her son, heads to next month's introductory Scouts meeting with her husband.

Will they put Ricky in the Scouts? I don't know. But as the date of the meeting approaches I can't help but think how unfair it is for her to pass under that imaginary sign hanging over every Scouts meeting: "Your Son is Welcome, But Your Brother is Not."

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