by Melanie Kirkpatrick

About the author: Melanie Kirkpatrick is the assistant editor of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page.

The U.S. Supreme Court did a good turn the day it accepted the case of the gay Boy Scout. That case will be argued in April 2000, and the court will do another good turn—for the Constitution and for all of us, gays included—if it decides in favor of the Scouts.

Freedom of Association

For the Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale is about every American’s First Amendment freedom of association. If the Boy Scouts lose, so will the thousands of other private, voluntary associations that organize themselves on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

By now the Boy Scouts have nearly...