The Washington Times reports that companies such as Levi Strauss, Wells Fargo and Textron have decided not to give any more money to the Scouts.      

Chase Manhattan says some of the Boy Scouts' tenets may conflict with the company's commitment to "diversity."       

Merrill Lynch is also reconsidering its annual contribution to the Scouts. Knight Ridder has asked that money it gives to the United Way not be directed to the       Scouts.       

An editorial in Friday's Washington Times says tolerance is a virtue touted, but not practiced, by homosexual rights advocates who are campaigning against the Scouts.       

It says: "Homosexual rights activists are willing to do all they can to ostracize or even destroy the Boy Scouts unless the almost century-old organization both nullifies its pledge to be 'morally straight' and abandons its central mission to teach young boys ... 'true manliness' – a man's responsibility in marriage and fatherhood.       

"Such principles may sound uproariously quaint and beyond corny to society's moral relativists, but they remain even now an anchor against civilization's drift into unfettered decadence," the editorial says.