Merlyn_LeRoy

It doesn't look like it's obvious to *everyone* here that there's a problem; some people are arguing that excluding people who won't promise to do their "duty to god" somehow isn't religious discrimination, or that there's some kind of compromise possible (which still allows the BSA to throw out atheists, and still has public schools running them and supporting the BSA's religious discrimination). In fact, very few BSA supporters seem to even *see* a problem.

No, "duty to god" isn't vague enough for any government entity to be involved. The BSA has gone to court for its right to eject any member who refuses to make such a promise. The Randall case the BSA won by arguing that it wasn't a business under the (California) Unruh act (which prohibits business in CA from practicing various kinds of discrimination, including by religion or creed). The Sherman case boils down to: 1) Rick Sherman applied to join the Buffalo Grove police dept. Explorers, crossing off the parts about god in the application; 2) The BSA refused his application; 3) The police department, seeing that they couldn't possibly run a youth group that excluded people based on their religious views, dropped their Explorer affiliation. The BSA stopped expecting government-run Explorer units to practice religious discrimination NOT after the Randall case, but only after the ACLU successfully sued the city of Chicago to drop all BSA units; the memo moving Explorers into Learning for Life came just one week after the Chicago suit was settled: http://www.aclu.org/news/n041097a.html http://www.aclu.org/news/n020498a.html Now the ACLU is doing the same thing with all federal and Illinois state charters: http://www.aclu.org/news/1999/n041499d.html You can bet the BSA knows about these cases; what are they doing to move charters from public schools to organizations that *can* practice their discrimination? Nothing that I can see. When the government loses this case (and it's against the government, not the BSA), they'll get cut off without any warning.

I'm afraid it's your argument that lacks merit; requiring a "duty to god" is a religious requirement, and public schools can't enforce this. And yes, the BSA practices religious discrimination. They kicked out the Randall twins in California. They kicked Rick Sherman out of an Explorers post run by the municipal police department (back when the BSA expected government-run Explorer posts to discriminate; they don't now, but it wasn't the BSA's idea). Like I've said, you can continue to ignore the problem by pretending it doesn't exist, but 1) according to the BSA itself, over 10,000 schools charter BSA units, and 2) requiring a "duty to god" is a religious requirement that public schools can't enforce. If the BSA addresses this problem, they'd announce a withdrawl to give units some time to find new chartering partners. However, I'll assume they (and most of you, apparently) will deny any problem exists until the Illinois ACLU lawsuit cuts off all government charters at a stroke and people are left unprepared. You DO know about the ACLU lawsuit, don't you? The Illinois ACLU was responsible for Chicago dropping 28 BSA units about 3 years ago, and they filed a lawsuit to do the same to all federal and Illinois state charters 2 years ago.

Legally, religious discrimination is not lawful for public schools to practice *anywhere* in the US. It's a constitutional problem. Furthermore, the BSA is dishonest in accepting charters from public agencies that it knows can't practice its discrimination. Putting all the blame on the public schools doesn't wash; if you look at any of the court cases that have touched on the issue, the public school officials didn't realize that the school was supposed to reject members based on their religious views. Look at your own answer - I talk about religious discrimination, you only talk about sexual orientation discrimination. Outlawing religious discrimination isn't new. And, as I said at the start, isn't the BSA being dishonest by not severing the charters itself? The *BSA* knows public schools can't practice religious discrimination.

Oh, drop the 10,000+ charters held by public schools and other government agencies, of course. Do you think it's legal (or honest) for the BSA to expect public schools to reject members for not meeting the BSA's requirements? Public schools can't practice religious discrimination.

One issue I haven't seen addressed is the problem with public schools as BSA chartering partners. Please note I'm not talking about ACCESS to public school facilities in this thread, I'm only talking about public schools that *charter* Scout units. According to the BSA's own figures, there are over 10,000 Scout units chartered by public schools; again note that I'm NOT talking about PTAs/PTOs, private schools, etc (the figures had separate totals for each of these, so they weren't included in the totals for public schools). The problem with public schools as chartering partners is obvious; they can't legally do what the BSA requires chartering partners to do. Public schools can't reject a potential member because he's gay or an atheist. The situation with Oak Park only makes it worse. The BSA refused to renew 7 units because the chartering organization said it would adhere to their nondiscrimination policy. Is the BSA going to refuse to renew the 10,000+ charters to public schools? After all, NONE of them can e.g. enforce the BSA's requirement to promise a "duty to God". There is a pending ACLU class-action suit that would remove charters from government agencies, but shouldn't the BSA do this on its own as the honest thing to do?