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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A Utah Boy Scout official has warned a Latino troop that its participation in last week's immigration demonstrations violated the organization's policy against involvement in political events.
Members of Troop 987 -- made up of 15 Latinos ages 12 to 15 -- were attempting to earn merit badges for "Citizenship in the Community," troop scoutmaster Michael Clara said.
Clara said he received a phone call Wednesday from Vic Rowberry, a Great Salt Lake Council of Boy Scouts of America field director, who said the troop shouldn't have been involved.
Clara disagrees. He says he doesn't understand the difference between providing the flag ceremony and staying at the Republican State Convention in August 2005 and carrying and passing out flags at nonpartisan immigration demonstrations.
Rowberry had given Troop 987 permission to conduct the flag ceremony at the state GOP convention, Clara said.
"It's disappointing that the council would second-guess our judgment," said Clara, a Utah Republican Hispanic Assembly member who started the troop three years ago.
Clara, 39, said his Boy Scouts participated in the demonstrations as volunteers for the Utah Coalition of La Raza, a nonpartisan advocacy civil rights organization.
To earn the citizenship badge, the troop must give eight hours of service to a charitable organization and then later discuss what was learned.
Kay Godfrey, spokesman for the Great Salt Lake Council, said the policy is clear that uniformed members cannot participate in political events or activities that might be "construed as rendering an endorsement for a particular candidate or position."
But, it is OK to serve as a color guard or in a flag ceremony as long as the troop doesn't participate further in the event, Godfrey said,
The troop's participation would have followed policy if it had performed the flag ceremony at the demonstrations and then left, Godfrey said.
But the group will not face any consequences, he said.
"I'm sure he had good intentions, but we need to watch it," Godfrey said of Clara. "When there's a political cause involved, we have to be careful."
Clara said the demonstrations were a powerful and patriotic experience.
He said he believes the troop is being "singled out" because it participated in a "nontraditional event." He said the Boy Scouts teach civic responsibility, tolerance and respect for differences.
"The very thing we're teaching our young men, the council is not doing to us," Clara said.
Godfrey rejected Clara's remarks as "ridiculous."
------ Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
