Merlyn_LeRoy

Why would they get sued? People have to have grounds for a lawsuit, and suing just to punish someone is illegal.

How is this different from the BSA not allowing Wiccans to charter units, or changing the religious award rules to prevent a Wiccan award, which they've been doing for years?

The subject being your paranoia?

You're insane, Stosh.

An LGBT organization didn't levy that fine -- A complaint was filed by two people, and Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian determined the fine for violating state law. This fine is comparable with other fines from OBLI (e.g. http://www.ktvz.com/news/Bend-dentist-loses-discrimination-case-appeal/19864260 ) And that's illegal. However, if you're going to try to justify excluding all people from the BSA who merely share a trait with some jerks who issue death threats, I've previously posted in this forum about atheists who get death threats and rape threats from Christians for getting a prayer banner or a cross removed from public property, so to be consistent you'd have to use that as a reason to exclude Christians.

I disagree. They can opt out if they homeschool their kids; unvaccinated kids are a public health hazard for other people.

That's not an accurate summary of SB277; medical reasons, plus homeschooling/special education/independent study can get exemptions (basically, if your child isn't attending school with other children).

I think the legal argument laid out for why they "must" change their leadership standard is a total sham, done in an attempt to save face while making the change. They claim that "The inescapable consensus in the legal community is that a protracted legal battle to defend the BSA’s current standard excluding gay adult leaders is unwinnable", yet religious discrimination is much more protected than sexual orientation; they say that "No one seriously doubts that the BSA’s and its chartered organizations’ right to maintain duty to God is protected by the First Amendment", but the Dale decision was based on the first amendment right of freedom of association, which still holds for anyone the BSA wants to exclude. And they still include double-talk like "Let there be no doubt, the BSA will steadfastly defend the right of religious chartered organizations to select leaders whose beliefs are consistent with those of the religious organization" -- unless, say, a UU unit wants an atheist to be the leader.

There goes another irony meter.

No, it's pretty clear that people are talking about specific types of discrimination; what YOU'RE doing is BS, because you're just equivocating, which is little more than wordplay.

Well, if the BSA allowed atheists like Shaw and Twain to join, maybe it'd be better off.

"Separate but equal" means just that -- it's been in the news quite a lot regarding civil unions vs. gay marriage.

The 14th Amendment does not include the term “separate but equal.†I know. That's why I I quoted the 14th. “Separate but Equal†was strictly about race, both in its origin and its demise. Wrong. The phrase "separate but equal" has been used in other court opinions that are not about race.

It doesn't. "Separate but equal" is from the 14th amendment, which requires "...the equal protection of the laws." This qualification of equality isn't restricted to racial equality, even if the most famous application was on race in Brown v. Bd of Edu. et al. The exact phrase appears in other court opinions, and it's been applied to sex a number of times, and gays in Romer v. Evans. It was even the basis of Bush v. Gore.

To add to NJCubScouter's list, church units can limit membership to only members of that church/denomination if they want to. The only limitation from the national BSA I've ever heard of is that they won't allow units to exclude members based on race.

Scouter99, you're comparing apples and oranges, in this case government actions and private organization actions.

He's going about it wrong, then -- one reason he cited why he wants a change imposed from within instead of imposed by the courts is so the BSA could continue to discriminate against atheists, which won't change the situation with government & public school support: "AND IF WE WAIT FOR THE COURTS TO ACT, WE COULD END UP WITH A BROAD RULING THAT COULD FORBID ANY KIND OF MEMBERSHIP STANDARD, INCLUDING OUR FOUNDATIONAL BELIEF IN OUR DUTY TO GOD AND OUR FOCUS ON SERVING THE SPECIFIC NEEDS OF BOYS." STEM Scouts seems to be an odd beast -- it's actually under Learning for Life, not Scouting: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/05/11/understanding-the-difference-between-stem-in-scouting-and-stem-scouts/#comment-142386 ... 1. STEM Scouts IS part of the Learning for Life program ... — Richard Stone STEM/Nova Training and Education Chair But by using the scout oath as part of the program, it's cutting off any possible government support. Also, it seems to be the only L4L program where members count as a Scout ("... a boy in a STEM Scouts lab counts the same as a boy in a Boy Scout troop.")

No, laws against sexual orientation discrimination have been around in some states for quite a while, and similar religious discrimination laws for even longer. It's not a new thing, and a gay marriage opinion from the supreme court won't change any of that. Massachusetts has had gay marriage for over a decade.

The lawsuits are (and can only really be) against whatever the official BSA policy is; any legal problems due to that policy can't be avoided by unofficial actions on the part of councils or troops.

He totally ignores the fact that everything he's afraid of from rogue councils and supreme court rulings on sexual orientation already exist for analogous religious discrimination against atheists.

I give up -- how did they?

The idea that such a quote is against religious belief per se is also comical.

What's pragmatic about a starting place that necessarily has humans in it, yet you want to give it the cloak of certainty?

Your god, nor anyone else's is "the reference". Like I said in another thread, you always have humans in the loop saying what god(s) want.

But what you have are people saying what they say their god wants. Some people mistake this for knowing what their god wants, thus Pascal's quote. I prefer people who are a good deal more circumspect about being absolutely sure they know who their god wants to kill. And if you think there aren't such people, check out Theodore Seeber's comments here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/michaelnovak/2015/05/turnabout-questions-for-atheists/ He quite plainly says he would kill people if he thought his god wanted him to kill people, and that killing all the children in Jericho was a moral act.