A former Boy
Scouts of America program director who defended the
organization's ban on gays has been charged with felony
possession and distribution of child pornography and was
expected to appear in federal court Wednesday, according to
court records. Many expected him to plead guilty. Douglas
Sovereign Smith Jr. is accused of receiving images over the
Internet in February that contained children "engaging in
sexually explicit conduct," including oral sex and
intercourse. The charges were filed March 21 in the Fort
Worth division of the northern district of Texas. "We're
shocked and dismayed to learn of this," said Gregg Shields,
national spokesman for the Irving, Texas-based Boy Scouts.
"Smith was employed by the Boy Scouts for 39 years and we
had no indication of prior criminal activity."
Law enforcement officials indicated the pictures did
not show boys who were with the Boy Scouts organization,
Shields said. Smith was not in a leadership position that
involved working with children, Shields said. Smith was put
on administrative leave immediately after Boy Scouts
officials learned of the charges, and then Smith chose to
retire, he said. "This is the first time ever we recall
anything like this being charged against a Boy Scouts
employee," Shields said. "We're proud of our dedicated and
hardworking people but never heard of anything like this."
Smith recently provided a rebuttal to a protest
letter against the Scouts' antigay policy by Bruce D.
Collins, who is a corporate vice president of the cable news
channel C-SPAN and an Eagle Scout. Wrote Smith: "Some
intolerant elements in our society...want scouting to forego
its constitutional rights, affirmed in 2000 by the Supreme
Court in BSA v. Dale, and adopt fundamentally
different values from the ones that helped shape the
character of Mr. Collins and 106 million other young men
over the past 94 years.... The [legal affairs Web] site does
seek to defend our values and to inform the public about
the three-decade-long legal assault on scouting."
