Merlyn_LeRoy

erickelly65 writes: However, I disagree with the general assertion that a group subscribing to a particular belief system that makes belief in that view a requirement of membership is victimizing (aka "discriminating against" in the legal sense) "discriminating against" in the legal sense has nothing to do with victimizing. If an organization doesn't allow married people, it's discriminating on the basis of marital status. If an organization doesn't allow single people, it's ALSO discriminating on the basis of marital status. Everyone would find themselves discriminated against by one of these two organizations. How easy to cry victim and what an age-old and effective method to color your opponent as the evil oppressor. I am not violating your civil rights when I want my son to belong to a program that professes a duty to God and a belief that a scout is Reverent. You do if you have public schools run them, as Brent and Fred Goodwin have. If youre an atheist and want a secular scouting experience, go create it. (The US scouting program is in the minority in having only one Boy Scouting program in our country) No, that's actually a WOSM requirement. Other countries have all their scouting orgs as part of one umbrella organization to satisfy WOSM. And what if I'm an atheist and I simply want my public schools to stop violating the civil rights of atheists? If people want the government to yank funding for our program because of that stance, fine. I dont agree with it but perhaps that is as fair and balanced an arrangement as we can arrive upon. How nice you begrudgingly agree that fair and equal treatment is fair & equal, even though you don't agree with it. That's mighty white of you. I have no problem with people who are atheists. At the same time, I do want my child to participate in a BSA program that does espouse ones responsibility to God and a belief in a higher power. If someone that is an atheist wants to join and is willing to say the oath and pledge and follow the program as is and not interfere with my ability to teach (within the existing BSA program) my children the belief system I want them to follow, then more power to them and welcome to Scouting. So you don't mind admitting atheists as long as they're willing to lie and pretend to believe in a god. Well, I think that's as good an illustration why public schools have no business chartering packs.

Gold Winger, do you have anything to add besides a baseless personal attack? For your information, I've been quite involved in countering the BSA's discrimination against atheists; I worked with the Illinois ACLU in stopping public schools from chartering packs & troops, because it kinda bothered me for 10,000 public schools across the US to be violating the rights of atheist students by unlawfully running private clubs that excluded atheists. I do not take civil rights violations lying down.

Ed, the SC decision determined whether the BSA was a public accomodation or a private organization.

Hunt, the city never changed the deal. The lease has always said that either side can terminate the lease by giving one year's notice. And I would say the BSA "changed the deal" by going to the supreme court to define itself as a private religious organization. Leasing public land to a religious organization at special rates has problems even without a local nondiscrimination ordinance. In any case, what the city did is certainly legal. They had a lease that said they could end it by giving one year's notice, and they exercised it. I haven't even heard any BSA lawyers try to misrepresent this as a "public forum" red herring.

Exactly eolesen, private groups, like the BSA and churches, can use school facilities on the same basis as any other outside group. Some schools allow free use, some rent, some don't allow outside groups at all. But a cub scout pack chartered by a public school is not the same thing. When the public school charters it, it's the school's "private, religious, discriminatory" club. And public schools can't run private, religious, discriminatory clubs. If the school has its facilities available to the public, private clubs can use them on the same basis as anyone else. But that's entirely different from a public school chartering a cub scout pack.

erickelly65, there's a difference between a school-run group vs. a private group using school facilities open to the public. A cub pack chartered by a public school is the former, and has the school practicing religious discrimination, which is illegal.

In this (the Philadelphia case), being a non-profit isn't the only criterion. A city could give special leases to all nonprofits, but since it's possible to create a nonprofit organization that, say, is whites-only, or is only for people whose last name is Westley, it's probably a better idea to have additional requirements than just being a nonprofit, like Philadelphia.

By the way, onehouraweekmy, my position is that the BSA does have the right to exclude gays and atheists, but that the government cannot further their discrimination with public school charters or special lease deals. In fact, such arrangements are why I considered the BSA to be a public accommodation, as no organization that had 10% of its "private clubs" run by public schools could honestly hold itself out as a private, discriminatory, religious organization. If the BSA would act as a private organization, there wouldn't be so many lingering legal issues.

onehouraweekmy, you're the one equivocating on the word "discriminate"; I'm using it in the context of illegal discrimination, such as a public school discriminating against atheists. Public schools can discriminate in many ways (age, for example) but they can't discriminate on the basis of religion. Brent, your handwaving arguments don't make religious discrimination by a public school legal. There's no court cite saying it's OK if people don't wear uniforms with the school's name on it. Or do you think it's legal if the school's ball team doesn't use uniforms? My schools didn't, we just played baseball in our street clothes, and we didn't compete with other schools. We just played baseball. Now, apparently, such a ball team could exclude Jews in your view, right? All your objections are absent, so that makes it OK, right? Gold Winger, strangely enough, I can find objections to black-only schools that you can't seem to find.

There's no court ruling because no public school will even begin to defend the practice. And no, no public schools "own and operate" a christian organization like FCA; FCA is also a private organization, but public schools don't own & operate them, nor do they select the leadership for them, like they would for a cub scout pack. By the way, you didn't answer my question on whether you think a public school could run a baseball team that excludes Jews. Do you think a public school could have a rule saying Jewish kids couldn't play on their after-school ball team?

You don't see a program run by a public school as a public school program? Do you think they could have a baseball team that wouldn't let Jewish kids join? Hey, it's after school hours so that makes it OK, right? And you seem to suddenly like court cites for some reason. Tell you what, as soon as any public school anywhere tries to defend chartering a cub scout pack anywhere in the US, we'll get a court ruling. Up to now, no public school has even attempted to defend chartering a pack, because it's such an obvious violation.

Whoops, I just noticed you used the combined membership of scouting and Learning for Life. L4L is up, but scouting is down. http://www.scouting.org/media/reports/2006/12memsummary.html 2005: 2,938,698 2006: 2,868,963 http://www.scouting.org/media/reports/2006/13lflsummary.html 2005: 1,648,133 2006: 1,750,767 Also, and I've pointed this out before, "special needs" appears to be "special needs" scouts, and they're counted under L4L, not traditional scouting. So it appears either special needs scouts aren't counted as real scouts, or special needs scouts can be gays and/or atheists.

And the guy who LOST to that dead guy, John Ashcroft, was appointed Attorney General by George W. Bush. And yes, the dead guy was the better candidate.

The number of units is down 0.2%, while membership is up 0.7%, so I'd say they're both basically flat. And yes, I know you consider the rights of atheist students to be "nonsense", but it's a good deal more serious than that. Why do you think public schools ought to be able to discriminate against atheists, anyway?

eolesen writes: When San Diego was faced with kicking BSA out of Balboa Park and Fiesta Island a few years ago, the ACLU filed a brief with the court SUPPORTING the BSA (go figure...). No they didn't. The ACLU of San Diego has been litigating against the BSA's special lease, e.g.: http://www.aclusandiego.org/issues_item.php?cat_id_sel=001&sub_cat_sel=000011&article_id=000065 They made a case that the below-market lease San Diego was extending to the Scouts was more than offset by facility improvements and maintenance costs. I doubt any ACLU would argue that civil rights take a back seat to park improvements. Maybe you're thinking of the ACRU, which is only in favor of some people having civil rights. If the cost of kicking them out on principle winds up costing the PHL taxpayers more, it's the wrong decision from a fiscal standpoint. Civil rights are not for sale. Are you saying discrimination is OK if it's profitable? By the way, a more current list than your 2004 list would no longer have public schools.

The BSA has already lost a lot of charters; their discrimination made it impossible for their single largest chartering partner (public schools) to continue. And if the GSUSA is "floundering", how do you characterize the BSA, which has lost more members? And why would a change in national policy affect your troop? Each troop would still be able to exclude anyone they wanted for any reason. The CoL council says they have gay members NOW; about all the national policy is doing is preventing them from making it official and signing a statement that says they don't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. So what is being accomplished here?

onehouraweekmy writes: leave BSA alone and unchanged. It's just common courtesy. That's what Philadelphia is doing. Charging them the same rates as anyone else is leaving them alone; subsidising their HQ expenses is not. And having gays and atheists subsidise their expenses is not "courtesy".

The lease has always said that either party can end the lease by giving one year`s notice.

How about religion, eolesen? Or is that another special interest group?

Any halfway-reasonable lease amount would figure in maintenance costs, whether it's the lessor's or lessee's responsibility. And once again, treating the scouts the SAME as every other private organization results in whining from some BSA supporters.

Well then Aquila, scoutldr is wrong for saying 800 inner city kids would be denied scouting too, right? They can just use a different program. And if you're aware of any organization that leases Philadelphia property at less than market rates (notice that the BSA can continue to lease the building at market rates) and which does not meet the city's nondiscrimination policy for getting a subsidised rate, I'm sure they'll do the same for that hypothetical organization. But there really aren't that many organizations that practice such invidious discrimination apart from the Boy Scouts, Freemasons, or KKK.

Fine, if the city can send them a bill for $22.5 million for past rent, Ed. But neither case would have a leg to stand on.

The scouts built it, but from what I've read, they transferred ownership to the city as part of the deal to build on public land in the first place. The city owns the building, the council just leases it. And as usual, point to the straight, theist kids being "denied scouting", while ignoring the ones being denied scouting now, all across the country. That's the whole reason the BSA is losing $1/year rent, after all.

It also seems to mess up creating a new topic if you put an apostrophe in the subject line; I have to write "scouts" instead of "scouts'" to post.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20071018_City_hikes_Boy_Scouts_rent_by__199_999_over_gay_ban.html ... Cradle of Liberty officials have said they could not renounce the scouts' long-established policy of not opening membership to atheists or openly gay people without running afoul of their charter with the scouts' National Council. City officials have said they could not legally rent taxpayer-owned property for a dollar a year to a private organization that discriminates. ... At one point in 2005, the city and scouts seemed poised to agree on a policy statement adopted by New York scouts. That statement, while not renouncing the bars against atheist or gay members, affirmed that "prejudice, intolerance and unlawful discrimination in any form are unacceptable." But last year, Diaz wrote Cradle of Liberty Council officials to say the suggested policy statement could not be reconciled with the city's own anti-discriminatory fair-practices ordinance. ... Like I said back then, the BSA's proposed "nondiscrimination" statement was completely dishonest and fraudulent.