Justly or not, his position was seen as "pandering" - and it is one of the few elements of his campaigning so far that has imprinted itself in voters' minds.America's legal system appeared, in its lower echelons at least, as ponderous, politicised and short on common sense. Only President Clinton, in tune - as so often - with popular opinion and the human element, emerged unscathed. His early calls for the law and a father's rights to be upheld were vindicated. Indirectly, his stance might also have contributed to the start of a thaw in United States-Cuban relations: no mean reward for a President in the last months of his office.. Six-year-old Elian Gonzalez was on his way back to Cuba last night after the United States' Supreme Court summarily ended the bitter seven month battle over his future and cleared the way for him to leave the US. Six-year-old Elian Gonzalez was on his way back to Cuba last night after the United States' Supreme Court summarily ended the bitter seven month battle over his future and cleared the way for him to leave the US. A chartered aircraft carrying Elian, his father, Juan Miguel, and other members of his immediate family left Washington's Dulles airport in the late afternoon and was expected to land in Havana soon after nightfall.Elian bade farewell to America with a happy wave and a shy smile from the top of the aircraft steps. It was his first live appearance before America's television cameras since he was snatched from the home of his Miami relatives in April to be reunited with his father.In a short statement delivered in Spanish before leaving, Mr Gonzalez thanked "the North American people" and the US government for their support and expressed his hopes for better relations between the two countries."I am extremely happy to be able to go back to my homeland," Mr Gonzalez said, adding: "And I don't have words really to express what I feel."In English, he said simply: "We are very happy to be going home.

Thank you."A second aircraft left shortly afterwards, with the friends and counsellors who had been staying with the Cuban branch of the Gonzalez family in recent weeks as they awaited the outcome of court proceedings.The departure of the two planes closed, for the moment, one of the most dramatic human and diplomatic chapters in the past troubled half-century of US-Cuban relations.Washington, Miami and Havana had been on tenterhooks since early morning, waiting to learn whether the Supreme Court would renew the court order that had been keeping the boy in the United States. When the decision came, shortly before noon, the Gonzalez family was already packing and the aircraft were already on the tarmac. A convoy of cars, escorted by motorcycles, sped the Cubans to the airport, where they arrived shortly after 4pm, the time the original court order expired.The Supreme Court decision was greeted with screams and weeping from the small crowd gathered outside the house in Miami where Elian lived for five months with his great-uncle's family. His great uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, had earlier lashed out at cameramen who had followed him to a Miami church.

He had to be be restrained by Elian's young cousin, Marisleysis.But Cuban émigré groups in Miami, who had fought through the courts and the media for Elian to be allowed to remain in the United States "in freedom", were numbly resigned to the outcome. They said there were no plans for the sort of protests that were staged after armed US officers snatched Elian from the house in April to be reunited with his father.Elian and his family spent their last two months in the United States in seclusion, first at a Maryland farmhouse and latterly in a Washington suburb.. The gay movement in the United States suffered a setback yesterday when the US Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America were entitled to exclude gays from serving as troop leaders. The gay movement in the United States suffered a setback yesterday when the US Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America were entitled to exclude gays from serving as troop leaders. The ruling stemmed from a case involving a New Jersey man ejected as a leader of a Scout troop in 1990 when it emerged he was gay.In an indication of the difficulty of this ruling for the Supreme Court, which rarely addresses homosexual rights issues, the justices taking yesterday's decision were divided by five to four. By coming down in favour of the Scouts, the court is certain to trigger extensive disappointment among gays and lesbians.America's gay movement has celebrated some important victories in recent months. These include the recent passage of a law in Vermont allowing gay "unions" - a definition of partnership that falls marginally short of marriage - and the broadening of hate crime laws by Congress to include anti-gay offences.Most frustrated at yesterday's outcome will be James Dale, who was ousted as an assistant scoutmaster by the Scout leadership when a local newspaper published a story identifying him as the leader of a gay and lesbian student group at Rutgers University. Mr Dale, who was 19, sued the Scouts.In its ruling, the Supreme Court overturned a decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court, which had previously ruled in favour of Mr Dale.