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Boy Scouts Want to Discriminate Using Public Dollars

Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone at 10:03 AM on May 28, 2008.


The Boy Scouts want the city of Philadelphia to subsidize their discrimination against gays and atheists.
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The Boy Scouts here in Philly want the city to support them to the tune of $200,000 per year. They’re suing for that “right,” feeling themselves to be entitled. They’ll lose, at least according to precedent, but this time they are using some particularly whiney courtroom strategies that go against what they claim to teach boys.

Commentary By: Steven Reynolds

We’ve had a long controversy here in Philadelphia. (I’ve written about this before, here and here.)The Cradle of Liberty Council of the Boy Scouts of America has long had a $1 lease on a fine building in a very expensive part of town. The national Boy Scouts won a Supreme Court ruling allowing them to discriminate in the last several years, sure. But the Boy Scouts are in a bind, Cradle of Liberty Council in particular. They don’t want to discriminate against gays and athiests as the national coucil tells them to do, at least not quite as much, but if they do discriminate, then the City of Philadelphia will have to follow its own laws. You see, it is against the law in Philadelphia to fund groups that discriminate. So what’s the solution? According to the Cradle of Liberty Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the solution is a lawsuit, demanding that the City of Philadelphia aid and abet their discriminatory policies by reducing their rent from $200,000 to $1 per year.

Now it has come down to it, here in Philly, that the Boy Scouts feel they are entitled to suck off the public teat, to soak up my tax dollars, even if they do treat my fellow citizens in a discriminatory manner. There are articles on the subject in both the Philly Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News this morning, and there’s a wonderful quote from Mayor Nutter on the situation in the Inquirer:

Mayor Nutter, asked about the lawsuit at a speaking engagement yesterday in Harrisburg, said: “The issue is very, very clear and has been clear for a very long time. . . . I do find it interesting that somehow, some way, the Girl Scouts have figured out how to provide services to all girls and not discriminate, and the Boy Scouts have not figured out how to do the same.

“Our position is, you cannot discriminate in terms of delivery of services on city property,” Nutter added. “The U.S. Supreme Court has opined that the Boy Scouts can have any rules that they want, and at the same time you can’t discriminate on public property.”

Bravo Mr. Mayor. What’s a bit upsetting is that the Cradle of Liberty Council has trotted out a “but Johnnie did it, so why can’t I?” defense in order to bolster their suit.

The lawsuit maintains that about 100 private organizations with membership criteria - including 15 youth groups - lease city property at rents of under $2,000 a year.

Only the Boy Scouts, the suit continues, have been threatened with eviction.

The lawsuit mentions the Roman Catholic Church of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which the suit says has paid a nominal rent for a church building in Pennypack Park since 1935; Zion Baptist Church, which pays $25 a year to lease three parcels of recreational land for the Clara Baldwin Home for seniors; and Women for Greater Philadelphia and the Colonial Dames of America, which have free perpetual leases for historic mansions in Fairmount Park.

“This city allows numerous organizations to use city-owned property and does not necessarily refuse them based on restrictions on membership,” said Center City lawyer Jason P. Gosselin, who filed the suit on behalf of the Cradle of Liberty Council.

Such whiney and juvenile defense of bad actions is something the Boy Scouts taught me to avoid. When I was a scout we were taught not to follow the crowd, but follow the ideals that made one a good and ethical man. I am angered at the Boy Scouts and their discriminatory policies, but I am ashamed that they would use such an ethically bankrupt and whiney excuse for the city to support those policies. Shame on them.


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Anachronism
Posted by: QQOblivion on May 28, 2008 10:57 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Boy Scouts are an anachronism whose time has long ago gone by.
Heck, not only should the Boy Scouts not discriminate against atheists and gays, but in my opinion it should merge with the Girl Scouts to become, say, the Youth Scouts.

The Boy Scouts has some good things going for it. (I was never in the Boy Scouts, but I was Cub Scout as a child.)
My suggestion is that some enlightened individuals start a new organization for ALL kids and with ALL kinds of adult role-models as its leaders.
Why ruin all the fun of any youth organization with institutionalized bigotry? I say, tear down the Boy Scouts and start fresh with an organization that can instead be a POSITIVE force in young persons lives.

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» RE: Anachronism Posted by: Lauren
» RE: Anachronism Posted by: Blondinista
Atheists?
Posted by: Lauren on May 28, 2008 11:00 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
At least they don't hunt you. Try being a pagan.

Boy Scout Ceremony

From their book, Exodus 22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

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When
Posted by: WyrdSister on May 28, 2008 11:47 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
will they get it?

its hard to believe that the year is 2008.

sad, so very sad for those boys who get lessons in hate.

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Yet another bunch of punks
Posted by: hurricane hugo on May 28, 2008 12:30 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
who think they're above the law.

Fuck 'em - sign your kids up with Spiral Scouts instead.

jdfu!

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» RE: Yet another bunch of punks Posted by: Longdream
Homosexuals are not protected from discrimination
Posted by: blogbooks on May 28, 2008 2:48 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I never see anything related to sexual orientation listed in non-discrimination clauses.

Only a few counties and cities in the U.S. have such rules.

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when I was in the Boy Scouts
Posted by: Rod on May 28, 2008 3:00 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
we had 2 scouts that were gay. I shared a tent with one of them, as he always had the best food. They had not come out yet, I did not know they were gay. They must have known I was straight, or I was just too ugly, either way, nothing happened that would warp my development.

Nothing to worry about here. Let the gays join.

Rod

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But Girl Scouts Rock!
Posted by: Blondinista on May 29, 2008 9:25 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I never understood how the Boy Scout organization can be so Neanderthal, while the Girl Scouts are so progressive. According to the GS Handbook, when reciting the GS promise, ..."it is okay to replace the word 'God' with whatever word your spiritual beliefs dictate." My secular humanist daughter chooses to say "... to serve humanity..."

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There are subversives in scouts...
Posted by: alona on May 29, 2008 3:15 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
For what it's worth, there are actual progressives who serve as scout leaders. I am vocal about disagreeing with the ridiculous God & gays nonsense that BSA dishes out, I give money to gay rights organizations in lieu of giving to BSA (AND I tell BSA that I am doing so), and I am careful to notice when boys get into picking on each other for perceived "gayness" (whatever that means, which isn't usually actually being gay). BSA is a terrific organization with astonishingly good educational materials, far better than Girl Scout materials IMHO. I am a leader for both organizations, but my daughter has had a great deal of difficulty finding a GS troop that will do the outdoorsy, adventure stuff that she wants to do. Plus the GS materials change all the time and have an increasing resemblance to glossy fashion magazines.

That being said, I am all in favor of Philadelphia evicting the council, and I have said so in scouting venues. The God and gay nonsense has almost nothing to do with the real values of scouting, which I see as being the scout law: "A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent." And the "morally straight" thing in the scout law LONG predates any use of the word straight to connote heterosexuality. So it would be terrific if BSA (the national organization) would do what so many scouts and leaders are doing - get back to being prepared, growing responsible adults, learning outdoor skills, and getting muddy in the pursuit of the above.

Resistance happens from inside as well as out -

AMB

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