Merlyn_LeRoy

Ed writes: Inconsistent with what? You interpretation of the Constitution? There's a big surprise! I meant inconsistent with their other 10 commandments rulings (but my opinion too, of course, and probably lots of other people, maybe even including you). Actually, the ruling was right on the money & in-line with the Constitution. You mean you agree with the part of that same ruling that said the 10 commandments had to be removed from two Kentucky courthouses? And who would those gods be, Merlyn? Themis, the sometimes-blindfolded goddess also known as Justice/Justicia appears three times. Zeus, Minerva, Juno, and Mercury are part of the frieze in the great hall.

Kahuna writes: Now that I've apologized for my discourtesy in misspelling your screen name, let me respond to just one of your points and then lapse into silence. I see - you lecture me on how to conduct an argument by acknowledging the other person, while at the same time state that you will not be responding to me? "Do as I say, not as I do", eh? If you don't like my style, that's your own problem. I have responded to your assertions, such as why the Balboa park case was correctly decided - if the BSA wins, it's possible for cities to create whites-only sections of parks just as I outlined. Your reply that cities just wouldn't do that tacitly admits that cities *could* do that, they just *wouldn't* do that (to non-white citizens, but apparently it's OK to do that to atheist citizens).

Hey Ed, I consider the supreme court reasoning in 10 commandments cases to be inconsistent (and so do many other people). Just keep in mind that anywhere "you shalt have no other gods before me" is erected by government officials, you'll have no legal recourse to complain if it's replace by "gods are myths". By the way, there are a large number of gods on the supreme court building; it's polytheistic, not monotheistic.

Kahuna writes: I said at the outset of this ill-fated discussion that the reason no one cites examples to you is that you refuse to see them as what they are. Well, when you refer to examples of religious discrimination against atheists, and then deny that it would lead to religious discrimination, I can only conclude that you don't consider religious discrimination against atheists to be religious discrimination. With all respect, I don't see any purpose in continuing this discussion. You have your viewpoint and I have mine. Just trying to show you why your viewpoint is wrong - you know, a discussion. This is a discussion group, so I thought it rather apt. BTW, it's Kahuna, not Kahoona. I spelled it Kahoona in reply to your post that spelled my nickname "Merlin"

Kahoona writes: Merlin apparently believes that allowing communities to support the BSA will lead to the return to racism and religious discrimination in government. It won't. The reason is that public would not support it. As I've said before, you're completely blind to discrimination against atheists. Allowing communities to support the BSA (in the ways that have been discussed) won't LEAD to the return of religious discrimination in government, it IS religious discrimination in government. The government would already be practicing religious discrimination - you can't say it wouldn't "lead to" it, because it's already happening. But since it's religious discrimination against atheists, you can't even SEE it.

Ed writes: Removing a manger scene from court house steps but leaving the Menorah. The ACLU sued to have BOTH removed; the supreme court (which had no Jews on the court at that time) said the menorah wasn't a religious symbol. Removing the Ten Commandments from government buildings. Taking "under God" out of the Pledge. That's removing references to God from the public. Correct, Ed. Unfortunately, here's what you claimed, and what you need to defend: "The ACLU wants all reference to God removed from public display!" ALL references. Not just unlawful government-endorsed religious references. Your claim can be shown to be wrong by a single counter-example, because you claim that the ACLU wants to remove ALL such references. Here's one: http://www.aclufl.org/about/newsletters/2002/bocacemeterytorch1202.cfm And that old line "I can't learn" is really nothing more than away for you to avoid addressing the real issue. No Ed, you really can't learn things. I bet in a few months you'll still claim that the ACLU wants to remove "all" references to god from public view. For example, I specifically told you long ago that the ACLU argued AGAINST allowing menorahs: http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=94655&p=5 Yet you still continue to try to use that against the ACLU, as if they only sued to get the manger scene removed, and didn't sue to remove the menorah. And that's because you can't learn.

Kahuna writes: ...The best examples I could possibly give of the ACLU's culture war would be the line of cases against the BSA, notoriously the Balboa Park (San Diego) Scout Base case. You, of course, will not agree that those cases constitute actions that are detrimental to our culture. Correct. If the Balboa Park situation is upheld, it's legal for a city to lease public parkland for $1 to a discriminatory group that uses it exclusively for themselves in the summer. Any city could again have a whites-only section of the park if, for example, if they decided to lease that part of the park to the KKK, who would allow only KKK members to use it during the summer. The BSA said in the Balboa park case that they book it 100% with their members during the summer, which is the most popular time. At other times they only book it about 80% (but their members still get priority over the rest of the general public). They have succeeded in imposing a point of view that most Americans do not agree with, that public institutions cannot support private institutions that discriminate for religious reasons, and to what advantage? Do you think it would be legal to use public tax money to run youth groups that exclude Jews? Are you saying most Americans would say that's legal? Remember, we're only talking about the legal issues, so whether Jews or atheists or Catholic or Muslims or Jehovah's Witnesses are excluded is irrelevant - the only issue is whether it's public support of a private group that excludes some segment of the population due to their religious views. Are atheists better off as a result? Well, let's see. Police departments and fire departments used to run Explorer Posts that excluded atheists - now atheists can join, and not be excluded. Is that better off? Public schools will no longer own & operate youth groups that exclude them - is that better off? Or if a public school ran a "no Catholics" youth group, would you consider it harmless for 2nd graders who were Catholic to be subjected to such discrimination by their own schools? Sorry, you're COMPLETELY blind to discrimination against atheists. Completely. You can't even see it when it's pointed out to you. ACLU threats (not that organization alone) have resulted in some United Ways cutting BSA funding. I highly doubt that. Where has ANY ACLU threatened a United Way? Some UWs have cut BSA funding because the BSA doesn't meet their standards (doesn't that sound familiar), but it has nothing to do with the ACLU. Ed writes: The ACLU wants all reference to God removed from public display! No they don't, Ed. I can give you plenty of examples where the ACLU has defended public displays of gods from all kinds of religions. But you can't learn things.

I notice a distinct lack of actual examples from the anti-ACLU crowd of anything the ACLU has done.

BrentAllen writes: Hard to draw any real conclusions, but it looks like numbers dropped after the 1993 policy change. You're mixing two different sources for membership figures; how do you know that the source I cited wasn't including adult membership? It doesn't say, and if you compare total membership from 1999 to the GSUSA's 2004 annual report, membership is still over 3.7 million. Plus, of course, if membership dropped due to a 1993 policy change, why isn't that seen soon after 1993? Why not blame the 9/11 attacks for a supposed membership drop? If Title IX calls for equal opportunities for the sexes, I don't see why the same can't apply to schools chartering Scout units. As long as a school offered to charter any "Scouting for All" unit, there shouldn't be a problem. All we need is an Title IX-type law for religion - one that simply calls for equal opportunities. Am I wrong? If so, how? Yes, you're wrong. Public schools are prohibited by the US constitution from discriminating on the basis of religion. The BSA argued in court that it was a private, discriminatory, religious organization - public schools simply don't have the authority to own & operate private, discriminatory, religious youth groups. A lot of BSA supporters seem to want both the right to discriminate AND government support. You can't have both. This really isn't hard to understand. (plus you seem to be under the impression that Scouting For All is a youth organization similar to the BSA - it isn't, it's an advocacy organization made up mostly of scouts and former scouts who want the BSA to change its membership policies)

I got girl scout membership figures from http://www.kyanags.org/pdfs/020.pdf It says that 1992 membership was nearly 3.5 million in 1992, and says in 1999 membership exceeded 3.7 million. They voted to allow girls to substitute other wording for 'god' in the promise back in 1993. I haven't studied this, but wouldn't a high school boy's basketball team belong to the school? Since they don't let girls be members of the team, isn't that sexual descrimination? How about all those high school football teams? Is this type of descrimination by our schools ok? Yes, it's legal for public schools to have sex-segregated sports. They still have to stay within Title IX requirements. Notice it would be completely unlawful for a public school to have a high school basketball team that said Jews couldn't join the team. Or atheists. Or Catholics. What about schools that sponsor Fellowship of Christian Athletes clubs? Schools don't sponsor them. FCA is a private organization that promotes their particular view of christianity. They can meet and have members in public schools on the same terms as any other outside organization. And atheist groups get to have the same access, too. If schools sponsored them in the same sense that a school sponsored a cub scout pack, the school would be in charge of selecting leadership for the group. And, of course, these schools would be hit with lawsuits for trying to teach its students that christianity is the "correct" religion for them to follow, because the FCA does that. A public school can't run a club that has religious requirements for membership.

BrentAllen writes: Sorry, but I don't share your twisted view that a school chartering a Cub Scout Pack is tantamount to religious discrimination. How is that a "twisted view"? A school that charters a pack "owns and operates" it as their own youth group, according to the BSA's own description of a chartering organization. Members of that youth group can't be atheists. That's religious discrimination. It would be religious discrimination if a school ran a (supposedly private) club that didn't allow Jews, or excluded trinitarians. Did the Supreme Court actually decide that, or did the BSA agree not to accept charters to put an end to the lawsuits? Sounds to me like your beef is with the individual public schools - they are the ones agreeing to charter. As I've pointed out before, BSA supporters NEVER blame the BSA, always the schools. The BSA knew about other schools that had to drop charters due to these same issues - yet they continued to issue charters to other schools. The BSA knew about school officials who testified that they thought atheists could join their scout unit - but they continued to issue charters to other schools. The BSA was finally called out on their dishonest policy of chartering discriminatory BSA units to government entities, and the BSA had to cave in. They've never run from a legal fight they thought they might win, but even they could see that they couldn't win this one. I'll tell you the lessons the BSA should take from Canada Scouts - stick to your guns! Don't let a tiny minority of leftists try to intimidate you. Compromising your values will be the death of the organization. Continue to do what you are doing - ignore them. Did you say that when the BSA made Exploring open to atheists and gays? I don't remember that program losing thousands of members. Did you say that when the Girl Scouts decided not to exclude atheists and gays? Their membership has increased since they made that change.

BrentAllen writes: Well, Brian, Scouts Canada sure isn't proving to be a good case study for your side. Whether or not the decline is due to the change in policy, it is certainly clear allowing girls and gays in has not brought in the droves of new members, as had been claimed. I certainly haven't been claiming that. I'm curious what lesson(s) you think the BSA should take from Canada. What lessons do you think the BSA should take from the loss of school charters? The fact that we had to move our charter from the school to the PTA has actually helped with our fundraising. When we tell the story about what the ridiculous, evil ACLU is trying to do, the checkbooks come right out! Oh, preventing public schools from practicing unlawful religious discrimination is now "evil"? And you're supposed to be teaching ethics to kids? Yeah, right.

Eh? I've stated on a number of occasions in Issues & Politics that I'm Brian Westley from Scouting For All. I can understand if some people within scouting who have been critical of the BSA don't want their real names revealed, but since I haven't been a member since cub scouts about 40 years ago, it doesn't matter if I'm anonymous or not. I've just used "Merlyn LeRoy" as a netnickname since the early 1980s, so that's what I usually go by.

Yes, I am Brian Westley from Scouting For All. Yes, we were chartered by the elementary school until recently. We are now chartered by the PTA - happy? Actually, I'm going to be going after PTAs and PTOs too. They are almost certainly considered public accommodations, and cannot discriminate on the basis of religion. It's also quite likely that a large number of PTAs/PTOs will be willing to state publically that they will not discriminate, which will put the ball in the BSA's court. Gay-friendly Canada has had a big population increase, but yet their Scouting memberships continue to decline. Their new policy in 1998 was supposed to open the door for all these new prospects - females and gays - to join. Their numbers should be booming! Instead, they are facing bankruptcy, declining memberships, and are forced to sell properties. As I've said, that's a post hoc fallacy, and Scouts Canada has had declining membership well before gays were ever an issue. And there certainly are a lot of BSA councils selling property lately, too.

Zeiger is guilty of a post hoc fallacy - Scouts Canada membership has been declining for a long time: http://www.scouts.ca/media/documents/mscottdraft7let.pdf ... Total Membership declined from 300,000 to 200,000 from 1984-1999. It stood at 122,000 in Aug 2004 ... BSA's membership has also been declining; Cub Scouts have lost members every year since 1998 (which is about when the Dale lawsuit started getting wide media coverage). Of course, that too could just be post hoc reasoning; but much of the decline in 2005 can be tied directly to the BSA's insistence on discrimination, which cost them all charters from government entities. Mike Marks posted some BSA membership figures for October 2005 to the Venturing list, which (assuming they're accurate) has BSA membership falling by over 400,000 compared to Dec 2004, a 13.5% drop. That drop appears to be a combination of phantom units being scrubbed, and losing what looks to be over half of public school units that couldn't find a new chartering organization (nearly 8,000 fewer units). This decline can (and should) be blamed on the current BSA administration for turning a blind eye to widely-known phantom unit fraud, and their own fraud of issuing BSA charters to public schools in the first place. Mike Marks post is here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/venturinglist/message/12178 Past BSA membership figures are here: http://www.bsa-discrimination.org/html/bsa-membership.html

The quickest decision where the supreme court reversed itself were the pledge of allegiance cases brought by jehovah's witnesses in 1940 and 1943; the original Gobitis case upheld compulsory pledging, but after some JW's were tarred and feathered and one was castrated, the Barnette case said schools could no longer require it. stare decisis is the term for following past court precidents. The decision in the property case Kelo v. New London, short of a supreme court reversal, can be addressed a number of ways: state courts might find that their state constitution(s) limit state & local governments (but not federal) in seizure; state & federal legislation could probably do the same (though this is less clear, and federal legislation might not have the jurisdiction to limit cities that want to condemn property - "states rights" and all that) and at least eight states already have such laws and congress may pass a federal law; and, of course, since all of the decisions to seize property are made by elected officials, don't elect the ones who would seize property you don't want seized. A couple of actions as a result of this decision are: one developer wants to build a hotel on justice Souter's house. New London now wants to charge the plaintiffs 5 years rent, saying they have been living on state land for the last five years.

Hey BrentAllen, is our entire system of counting days of the week a house of cards too, or is today (Thursday) named after a real god Thor?

Kaji writes: A scout is REVERENT. He's not required to believe in a particular god, but he is required to at least be open to the possibility that there is one, regardless. "Reverent" does not mean being open to the possibility that god(s) exist, and the BSA does not merely require that a scout be open to the possibility (but actually believe in a god), so your definition fails on both counts.

Kahuna writes: A distinct minority wants to eliminate Christmas for those who wish to celebrate it and have gone to great extremes to get rid of it. I've never heard of this (in modern times, at least; some puritan areas outlawed christmas centuries ago). Do you have any examples? Please keep in mind that not having the government promote a religious holiday does not constitute "eliminating" or "getting rid of" that holiday, unless you also subscribe to the view that practically every other holiday has already been "eliminated" and "gotten rid of" by virtue of even less government promotion of pretty much any other religious holiday you can name.

The previous court quote makes it clear that the Sea Scouts had at least some atheists as members that it knew about and "appellants had not discriminated against those persons", so they ignored policy.

So Ed, do you think the Berkeley Sea Scouts are ignoring policy or not? The BSA's own lawyer is saying that atheists and gays were members. How do you have: 1) an organization which prohibits atheist and gay members 2) a unit of that organization which admits in court under oath that atheists and gays have been members ...and not conclude that 2) is ignoring policy? They even admitted in the earlier court proceedings that they ignored policy: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/revpub/A097187.PDF ... Appellants did agree to a modified version of a dont ask, dont tell program, in which appellants stated that they considered such matters as sexual orientation to be a private matter, which they would not ask anyone to divulge, and appellants agreed to obey any laws actually forbidding them from engaging in any illegal discrimination. Appellants also pointed out that some of their participants in the past had been persons who were atheists or who had presumably not been heterosexuals, and appellants had not discriminated against those persons. However, appellants did not and could not agree not to discriminate on these grounds in the future, because the Boy Scouts of America would not allow appellants to agree to such conditions without losing their Boy Scout charter, and appellants had to obey because they were securing their marine insurance at favorable rates through the Boy Scouts of America. ...

The free berth requirements apply to all organizations: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/11/BAGFIGLHQI1.DTL ... That arrangement continued until 1997, when several other groups sought free berths at the marina. In response to those requests, city officials said, the city passed a resolution outlining criteria for winning a free berth. Groups must now provide an important service that outweighs the berthing subsidy, offer regular activities, comply with the city's nondiscrimination policy and show that the organization's presence and activities are of great importance. They also cannot duplicate existing commercial services. Those criteria are fair for the city to use in deciding who benefits from taxpayer money, Albuquerque said. "If a government doesn't have the discretion here, it might as well start doling out budget money on a first-come, first-served basis," she said. Three groups complied with all the requirements -- the Nautilus Institute, the Cal Sailing Club and the Berkeley Yacht Club. ...

OK, is this ignoring official BSA policy or not? http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_3391354 ... Questioned by Associate Justice Carlos Moreno, Gordon acknowledged that although gays and atheists have been Sea Scouts under a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy, any youth or leaders known to be gay or atheist would not be permitted, as required by the national policy. ...

The BSA's argument is completely meritless, as the lower courts have already found. Berkeley simply has standards for organizations that want free berths from the government (which includes nondiscrimination requirements), and the BSA doesn't meet them. Berkeley isn't preventing the BSA from exercising their free speech at all. The BSA is being treated exactly the same as any other nonprofit organization that doesn't meet Berkeley's standards for a free berth - they can rent berths at normal rates like the general public.

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2006/01_09-17/CAN Service project creates Gay-Straight Alliance By LORI PHELAN, Staff Writer Severn School senior Bethanne Albert-Bruninga, 17, of Glen Burnie, recently attained Girl Scouting's highest honor, the Gold Award. Equivalent to the Eagle Scout from the Boy Scouts of America, the Gold Award requires a Scout to fulfill requirements of a community service project. For Miss Albert-Bruninga, her goal was to create the Gay-Straight Alliance, an Annapolis youth group. The daughter of Elise Albert and Bob Bruninga and a member of the Annapolis Girl Scout Troop 3114, she earned her Gold Award in August. The idea for the organization was inspired by a friend who confided in the teen about her own sexuality. "She had, and is still having, a hard time dealing with the homophobia that she sees around her everyday," said Miss Albert-Bruninga. "I founded the GSA because I wanted to give her a safe place where she could feel that no one was judging her. She told me recently that she appreciates the GSA and it has really helped her in the past couple months." ...