Merlyn_LeRoy

gungho4scouts writes: I trying to understand what argument you can possibly make of why it's ok for my Son to be discriminated against if my Son enters either place as a Scout. Last that I recall, no one here is calling for the same places to be closed to anyone else for their membership requirements. And no one is calling for the places to be closed to Scouts. Scouts can still meet in public parks, Scouts can still meet in public schools (assuming the school has its facilities open to the public; some schools only allow school activities in their facilities). If only Atheist and Gays paid the taxes for the public schools and parks, then I would concede to your argument. but as it stays your argument is rather weak. You don't seem to understand what I'm arguing about. I'm not talking about Scouts meeting in public parks. Parks are public property, and have to be open to everyone - me, you, scouts, an atheist group, a gay group, a KKK group, anyone. I'm talking about cases such as Balboa Park, where the BSA leases 18 acres for $1/year. Can I rent 18 acres in Balboa Park for $1 year? No. Now, this is still public parkland. Can a San Diego resident use that land in July? Only if they are a BSA member, because the Boy Scouts reserve the entire summer months for only their members - and atheists and gays can't join. So now here's 18 acres of a public park that is now reserved for a private, discriminatory club. Doesn't sound like a public park to me. Why is the government subsidising a private, discriminatory club by leasing land for $1/year? I'm also not talking about Scouts meeting in public schools, I'm talking about public schools that charter e.g. a cub scout pack. That Pack is owned & operated by the school, according to the BSA's own website description of a chartering organization's relationship to its BSA unit. It's as if a public school decided to start a school chess club - then decided to use the program of a private, discriminatory national chess club that doesn't allow atheists or gays as members. Now you have a school chess club that discriminates, which is illegal. The same is true of a cub scout pack - a pack chartered by a public school means the school is illegally discriminating against atheists and gays. Our inalienable rights, affects both sides of this issue. Which is why public schools can't charter BSA packs. Public schools can't run a youth group that excludes atheists any more than it could have a baseball team that excludes atheists.

Ed, no amount of explanation gets through to you. I'm not trying to end the BSA, just illegal government support of the BSA, and that's very doable as ACLU cases against military sponsorship and the Balboa park lease have shown. Don't pop a vein when the 12% of Cub Scout packs chartered to public schools have to find private charters.

While government-chartered BSA units are an important issue, it isn't the only issue. HUD grants, $1/year leases of public land, Learning for Life teaching ethics to atheist students while being a wholly-owned subsidiary of an organization that denigrates atheists, etc, etc are still problems even after all government chartered BSA units are gone.

Ed, all court actions have to pass constitutional muster, and if you had bothered to read any of the cases cited, you might have accidentally learned that.

Ed, judges can give alternatives to jail, but those alternatives must be constitutional; they can't exclusively offer alternatives that only allow certain religious views. They CAN offer it as one of several similar alternatives if some of these alternatives are religiously neutral. As I keep pointing out, you just don't understand that. And, of course, you don't understand that military bases and public schools can't sponsor private, discriminatory groups like Boy Scouts.

Ed, you don't even understand the issues. And you neglected to answer my question about this statement of yours: Once again the ACLU stomps all over the right of religious freedom! Now, exactly WHOSE religious rights did the ACLU stomp all over? They were defending various people who did NOT want to take part in court-ordered programs that violated their religious views, so whose rights are you talking about?

Let's see......I committed a crime that carries jail time or a class as a penalty. I refuse the class because it goes against my beliefs so my only other option is jail. Where did I give up my rights? I have the right to appeal & would do that. You gave up your rights by accepting the court's imposing of the unlawful choice between your religious views and jail. Your appeal doesn't address that, it only addresses your conviction. If you want to dispute the legality of the court only offering a religious class as an alternative to jail time, that requires a lawsuit. And once again, Merlyn, you missed my point! Well, you don't seem very good at explaining your point. For example, after I gave examples of the ACLU litigating against court-ordered religion-based program attendance, you wrote this: Once again the ACLU stomps all over the right of religious freedom! Now, exactly WHOSE religious rights did the ACLU stomp all over? They were defending various people who did NOT want to take part in court-ordered programs that violated their religious views, so whose rights are you talking about?

No Ed, YOU are the one who said you'd give up your rights. You indicated you'd go to jail instead of fighting for your rights.

Ed, your answer of "stop going" wasn't one of the choices. And if you'd go to jail instead of fighting for your rights, that's not being moral, that's surrendering your rights without a fight. You can give up your rights if you want to be a doormat, but I won't give up mine.

Ed, you apparently aren't honest enough to answer the question. "stop going" isn't one of the choices the judge gives you. It's either complete the program or jail.

Ed, you realize that "just stop going" means you go to jail for six months, don't you? That was the choice the judge gave to Mr. Hanas - either attend and successfully complete the program as an alternative to jail, or serve his six-month sentence.

Ed, read the story at the URL. The program was put on by one of Bush's "faith-based" groups, and it was this private group that had the requirements, not the state. When he asked to be transferred to some other group, the judge refused and basically said he had to use that one or go to jail. See, this is what sometimes happens in the real world; a state-financed program violates your religious rights, and to get them back, you HAVE to litigate. Asking didn't work. So Ed, if you hoped the state would remove the requirements, and the judge (as in this case) says no, complete the course as-is or go to jail, NOW would you sue?

There are already a number of court precidents making it unlawful to require AA attendance for exactly that reason: 1996 NY state supreme court: http://archive.aclu.org/news/w061296b.html Ruling that Alcoholics Anonymous "engages in religious activity and religious proselytization,'' New York state's highest court declared Tuesday that state prison officials were wrong to penalize an inmate who stopped attending the organization's self-help meetings because he said he was an atheist or an agnostic, The New York Times reports. The court ordered prison officials not to tie the man's eligibility for a family reunion program to his refusal to take part in the Alcoholics Anonymous sessions at Shawangunk state prison in Ulster County. ... 1995 California http://www.positiveatheism.org/rw/norcacya.htm Settlement Halts Mandatory Religious Substance Abuse Program at California Youth Authority American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California August 28, 1995 -- The ACLU of Northern California, the Prison Law Office and the American Jewish Congress won a settlement on May 12 in a lawsuit filed on behalf of wards at the Karl Holton School, a California Youth Authority facility in Stockton. The settlement also covers a challenge to the program by teachers at the facility, who were represented by the California State Employees Association. As a result of the settlement agreement, the CYA will modify a Twelve Step substance abuse program that involves prayer and "conscious contact with God" so that it no longer infringes on the religious freedom of the incarcerated youth or the constitutional prohibitions against the establishment of religion by the state. "This case presented a pristine civil liberties issue," said ACLU-NC attorney Margaret Crosby. "The state was forcing young people to attend religious classes at a public school, and to adopt theistic concepts or suffer punishment. ... There's a case currently in the courts in Ohio: http://www.acluohio.org/docket/docket.htm ... Mandatory Alcoholics Anonymous for DUI Offenders FACTS: Our client was sentenced to mandatory AA participation as a result of a DUI conviction. He was never offered any counseling alternative other than AA, and he chose to serve out the balance of a jail sentence rather than attend the meetings. The religious component to AA meetings was offensive to his beliefs. LEGAL THEORY: This case presents a straightforward Establishment Clause violation, conditioning a criminal sentence on attendance at religious meetings. STATUS: Our complaint was filed in November 2002. Both sets of defendants moved for summary judgment, invoking judicial immunity (in the case of the judge) and a lack of state action (in the case of the contract probation service). In January 2004, after the case was re-opened, we filed a brief in opposition to the Summary Judgment Motion of Behavioral Connections of Wood County. ... I've also seen cites for cases in Maryland, Colorado, Alaska and Wisconsin. Here's a similar sort of case in Michigan: http://www.aclumich.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=363 July 20, 2004 - Press Release DETROIT The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan asked the Michigan Supreme Court today to hear a case of a Catholic man who was criminally punished for not completing a Pentacostal drug rehabilitation program. His request to be transferred to another program was denied and he was sentenced to six months in jail and boot camp. "This man was punished for insisting on the right to practice his own religion and refusing to be religiously indoctrinated as a condition of a court order, said Kary Moss, ACLU of Michigan Executive Director. The endorsement of any faith as well as the discouragement of any other is clearly a violation of the First Amendment. Joseph Hanas of Genesee County, now 22 years old, pled guilty in the Genesee Circuit Court to a charge of marijuana possession in February 2001. He was placed in a "Drug Court for non-violent offenders, allowing for a deferred sentence and possible dismissal of the charges if he successfully completed the Inner City Christian Outreach Residential Program. Unbeknownst to Mr. Hanas when he entered the program, one of the goals of Christian Outreach was to convert him from Catholicism to the Pentecostal faith. He was forced to read the bible for seven hours a day and was tested on Pentecostal principles. The staff also told him that Catholicism was a form of witchcraft and they confiscated both his rosary and Holy Communion prayer book. At one point, the program director told his aunt that he gave up his right of freedom of religion when he was placed into this program. Mr. Hanas was told that in order to complete the program successfully he would have to declare he was saved and was threatened that if he didnt do what the pastor told him to do, he would be washed of the program and go to prison. ...

cfs4539, I didn't write the original article, I reposted it here (with a link to the original URL) because this is a forum for discussing such things. And I DON'T have the same access as the majority; right now, public schools own & operate "private" BSA units that exclude atheists. Do public schools own and run any youth groups that only allow atheists and exclude theists? No. Would it be legal for public schools to do so? No. Yet there are still thousands of public schools breaking the law on behalf of the BSA.

Ed, you are entirely free to exercise your first amendment rights by writing anything you want and demonstrating to the world that you have no idea what first amendment rights are.

cfs4539 writes: I have read this article with great interest and I am somewhat perplexed and amazed that anyone can argue that BSA should not be allowed in a "public" school without first attacking the government itself. I'm perplexed myself; what article are you referring to, which argues that the BSA should not be allowed in a public school? The one at the start of this thread is about someone deciding not to give the BSA a donation. Eagledad, you don't seem to understand that I'm against the government practicing religious discrimination, particularly against atheists. Every government charter partner of a discriminatory BSA unit is doing just that.

Yes, it looks like Berry College is a private college, so I've removed it. As the index page says, there are about 5800 packs vs 2200 troops in the list.

[duplicate of previous post removed](This message has been edited by Merlyn_LeRoy)

SR540Beaver, as I earlier said to OGE: ...there are still other issues; for example, the Boy Scouts, while being an organization that discriminates against atheists, teaches that atheist members can't be the best kinds of citizens, and has thousands of public schools currently running their "private" no-atheists-allowed youth groups, also teaches schoolkids (including atheist schoolkids) through their Learning for Life program how to make ethical decisions. I do not consider the BSA to be an ethical organization any longer, and I certainly object to a subsidiary of an organization that discriminates against atheists to have programs in public schools that pretend to teach ethics.

NJCubScouter, the information is there from official BSA sources if one knows where to look. Ed, I quite clearly state that some schools on the list may be private schools; stop lying.

Ed, I'm not putting this list together for "credibility", I'm doing it so state ACLUs can get started on removing public schools and other government agencies as charter partners. Any private schools that are on the list inadvertently would simply be skipped.

Hey Ed, I'll take off any schools that are private that I know about. And you might be interested to know that during the Winkler litigation to remove all military sponsors, the Boy Scouts of America couldn't even come up with a definitive list of military sponsors, which they were supposed to do as part of discovery. I know my list will have some private schools on it, and I state that right up front. I also know there are government charters that I've missed. It's also a couple of months old by now, too. It's still sufficient to start removing public schools as BSA charters.

My source is the BSA itself; I didn't include the many charter partners that said "PTA", "PTO" "friends of xxx", etc. I have done spotchecks on some entries by calling BSA councils and getting the charter partner from registration, and they've been accurate.

I am trying to change the BSA's policies. Please note that the BSA has only expanded their discriminatory programs to include gays and atheists exactly twice: First, soon after Learning for Life was created, the BSA dropped the requirement that public schools not allow gays and atheists as leaders in the L4L program. Second, when Chicago agreed to stop chartering 28 BSA units in 1998, the BSA announced that it was splitting Exploring into Exploring and Venturing, with Exploring now under Learning for Life and allowing gays and atheists. Notice that both these changes were made so government agencies could continue to use the programs that were affected; public schools would not be able to use the Learning for Life program if adults had to meet the BSA's discriminatory requirements, and police and fire departments would not be able to use the Exploring program if adults and youth had to meet the BSA's discriminatory requirements. I think it's likely that the BSA will again decide to change their policies when faced with the possibility of losing thousands of charters from government agencies due to their discriminatory requirements.

Which ones, Ed? I'll take them off if you'll tell me and I verify that they're private schools.