Merlyn_LeRoy

Perhaps by allowing continuation of a positive program in the city, None of their programs require them to be headquartered in that building. and keeping a substantial piece of land from turning into a weed field, and becoming run down. HAHAHAHAHA! Right, the BSA is actually providing a SERVICE by renting a public building for $1/year instead of paying market rates of $200,000/year, because as we all know, cities never bother to take care of valuable public property that generates income. This still doesn't explain or justify why the BSA is suing the city. That's costing the taxpayers money, but the BSA doesn't care about anyone but themselves.

I didn't expect you to clarify your question, skeptic; you weren't really asking, what you were doing was disparaging, as JoeBob pointed out with his reply. I'd like to know how the BSA's e.g. litigation over the Cradle of Liberty building is supposed to "help the community"

What are the "questionable tactics" referred to? And how does holding "PC opinions" constitute trying to "force a minority view"? Are people with minority opinions not supposed to talk about them?

HICO_Eagle writes: I cited SEVERAL cases where the ACLU and other groups not only tried to deny Scouts equal access to public facilities like public schools for recruiting but also articles that detailed their multi-year strategy to do so, including recruiting volunteers to misrepresentthemselves to BSA so they could bring about a lawsuit. No, you didn't. All of your examples were about things like recruitment during school hours or other special treatment, or were about litigation pre-Dale when the ACLU argued that the BSA was a public accommodation and could not legally exclude gays or atheists. Misrepresenting what you or anyone else has said to "win" debate points isn't one of them. You should take your own advice.

Ed, complain to the BSA. They are the ones who ranked public schools as the #1 chartering organization. If you want to combine chartering organizations, I'll pick "organizations run by homo sapiens" and my numbers will be even BIGGER than churches. So the homos are really #1.

Ed, I KNOW that if you add up all the church charters, you get more than public schools, even back in 1998. Note the "single largest", and that the BSA itself ranked public schools as #1. That's how the BSA presented their own chartering organization figures. Complain to the BSA if you like.

It occurs to me that if the BSA says it's a religious organization, and the courts say the BSA is a religious organization, that you might have to deal with that, instead of trying to imply that the courts have it all wrong.

What file, Ed?

Well, since the LDS is a church and so are the Methodists and Presbyterians & Catholics, etc, sound like they would have more units chartered & members as a total! Yes Ed, in the same way that adding 5 and 6 and 7 will be larger than 10. But 10 is still larger than 5, 6, or 7, so stating that 10 is the largest is true.

What link Ed?

In the Feb/Mar BSA Today, public schools were listed as the #1 chartering org. with 427,842 members in 11,853 units from the 1997 end-of-year statistics. LDS had more units (30,297) but only 402,828 members and was listed third, after United Methodist.

skeptic, the BSA has stated in court that it's a religious organization, and courts have been ruling that it's a religious organization. See http://www.bsalegal.org/downloads/1DE211_July_2003_Order.pdf "Not only does the BSA-DPC concede that it is a religious organization,"... "the Court finds that the BSA-DPC is a religious organization"... both bottom of page 15 BSA-DPC = Desert Pacific Council Skeptic, stop lying.

skeptic writes: Now who is making things up? Churches have always been the primary sponsors of BSA groups The BSA listed public schools as their single largest sponsoring group in 1998; "churches" wasn't a single group, they were listed as Catholic, LDS, etc. So blame the BSA for the way they categorized sponsors. You also once again make your far-fetched statement that BSA is a religious organization Because the BSA calls itself a religious organization. Again, your argument is with them.

HICO_Eagle writes: Your claim is that any voluntary membership organization can't be a private organization with its own by-laws and membership criteria if 10% of their affiliates are sponsored by public schools. Correct; that describes a public organization. I suppose then you support girls joining Boy Scouts and boys joining Girl Scouts. If run by public schools, yes, I would be. Since they aren't (the BSA was forced to stop dishonestly chartering units to public schools a few years ago), it's a moot point. High school GLBT clubs would have to admit Christian or Muslim fundamentalists who want to join in on some of their activities. Many (probably most) public schools require that all school clubs have to be open to all students, so yes, they would have to admit them. However, such clubs aren't "owned and operated" in the way a public school owned and operated a BSA unit. As to the ACLU attacking the Boy Scouts as a public accommodation, you're trying to have it both ways by assuming BSA is in fact a public accommodation but then trying to claim the ACLU hasn't attacked them as such. Both the ACLU and I considered the BSA to have been a public accommodation pre-Dale; since then, both the ACLU and I have treated them as a private, discriminatory organization, which is why public school charters had to go. [Winkler case] What's your point in bringing up the Winkler case? That wasn't about recruitment, that was about the city of Chicago sponsoring BSA units that unlawfully excluded people based on their religion or sexual orinetation. BSA promotes civic development. The Supreme Court has held the inherent public interest in promoting civic development for two centuries. This doesn't give the BSA a blank check. Allowing BSA to recruit at school or use classrooms or DoD facilities on a non-interference basis like any other civic organization doesn't prevent other organizations from trying to do the same. There's that important phrase, "like any other civic organization" How many other private organizations have get-togethers every four years with about 1/3 of the cost (about $8 million) paid for by the DoD? I'd say about zero. How many other private, religious organizations recruit students during school hours? If a local church wanted to recruit for the Royal Rangers on the same basis, do you think any public school would allow a Christians-only youth group to recruit their students? The no-atheists BSA is on the same legal ground. You have presented no evidence that atheist or *sexual organizations have even tried to set up similar organizations and been denied permissions given to BSA That might be because I've never claimed that; I was asking YOU for specific cites of where the BSA has been DENIED equal access -- and I'm still waiting. He [Jeffrey Archer, President of the San Diego Atheist Coalition] then advocated withdrawal of BSA's ability to meet at these locations. OK, you've found someone who apparently doesn't know the law, who wrote a letter. I have stated the exact opposite (at least about meeting in public schools) in this forum many times, because I happen to know the law. But what you originally said was "Most of the participants in Scouting pay taxes. They are therefore as entitled to use available public facilities as any other citizen group, whether it's the school band or a chess club or drama club. However, AUSCS and *sexual lobby groups have taken it on themselves to deny Scouting that right rather than create their own groups" Sorry, a letter to a newspaper written by someone who doesn't know the law does not qualify as denying scouting any rights. The ACLU of Oregon advocated withdrawal of "government sponsorship and financial support" for BSA in its Apr 22 2005 article Yes. That also does not limit the rights of scouting or the BSA. "Private" organizations pay their own way. The fact of the matter is that several extremist organizations especially the ACLU are attacking the BSA on an ideological basis. The fact of the matter is that you are whining about the BSA having to live up to its own claim of being private and getting cur off from public funds as a result. I'll note that you have yet to cite one instance of any rights of the BSA being denied in everything you've written above; mostly you're complaining that the government won't help pay for your discriminatory, private club. Learn to live with it.

vol_scouter writes: To clarify: In the Dale case, it was contended that the Boy Scouts were a public accommodation - i.e. like a bus as was argued in the case. This tortured logic was overturned by the Supreme Court. Since public schools were the single largest chartering partner, it was pretty obvious that the BSA WAS a public accommodation; the "tortured logic" was saying that an organization that had 10% of its membership run via public schools was, somehow, a completely private organization that could discriminate on any basis. As to scouts being denied access to public facilities, boy scout groups were being routinely denied access to schools fro recruiting even though other youth groups had access. That isn't a cite, which is what I asked for. That's more unsupported assertions on your part. By the way, how many other "religious organizations" get to recruit schoolkids, often during class hours, besides the BSA? There are a number of churches that would take advantage of that. The congress passed a law that President Bush signed outlawing that practice but it still occurs. So boy scouts have been denied equal access. That STILL isn't a cite. That's more unsupported assertions on your part. If it's "still happening," cite specifically where. You haven't produced one instance yet.

Ed, are you saying everyone who disagrees with your interpretation of the bible doesn't understand it?

[duplicate post deleted](This message has been edited by Merlyn_LeRoy)

Hey Ed, if it's clear, why do people not agree on the meaning?

HICO_Eagle writes: No spin. Most of the participants in Scouting pay taxes. They are therefore as entitled to use available public facilities as any other citizen group, whether it's the school band or a chess club or drama club. However, AUSCS and *sexual lobby groups have taken it on themselves to deny Scouting that right rather than create their own groups Cite even ONE case where any of these groups has tried to deny a scout group equal access to public facilities. As DanKroh says, scouts are being denied SPECIAL access, like free or reduced rates while other groups have to pay more, or access not available to the general public.

Yes it does, Ed. I think that's where we disagree.

If American A and American B, both who cannot speak Spanish, are looking at a sign in Mexico City confused as to what it says, does not make the sign unclear. I'd say it's unclear TO THEM. And that's related to the bible & homosexuality, because rare words like 'arsenokoitai' and 'malakoi' are involved; people don't agree on what they mean. If all people who spoke Spanish dropped dead, and all dictionaries vanished, then A and B are in more of a position analgous to what the bible says about homosexuality. I'm sure the person(s) who wrote it knew what they meant, but that isn't much help to A and B now.

In an abstract argument, sure, if you want to ignore my requirement about A and B being equally fluent. You can try to argue that the bible is clear on homosexuality, and every single disagreement between Christian sects in their differing interpretations is due entirely to their followers somehow unable to read supposedly "clear" statements about homosexuality in a way that agrees with all other interpretations, but I'll just go with the straightforward dictionary definition that multiple interpretations meets the definition of "unclear".

jblake47 writes: To call the comment a straw man argument leads me to believe that one doesn't understand that I was not attacking the person, I was questioning the logic applied to the situation. That isn't what a straw man argument is; sounds like you're referring to an ad hominem argument. A straw man argument is when you don't respond to the argument as stated, but a different, similar argument. For example, I never referred to statement X as wrong (or right), yet you added that. And in your mathematical example, that would seem to violate my condition that both A and B are equally fluent in the language X is written in. Of course, person A or B (or both) could be deficient in understanding statement X in some way, but that doesn't preclude the possibility that X actually is unclear. Your statement: if there's nothing wrong with X then either A and/or B are wrong has two problems -- first, my example doesn't say X is wrong or right (or even has a logical truth value), it just says X is unclear. Second, even if there's "nothing wrong" with statement X doesn't mean that the fault must lie with A and/or B. In my Prime Minister example, statement X could be wrong or could be right, depending on which PM is being referred to. But X is unclear, because there's no way to tell from what's been given. The online Roget's Thesaurus on unclear says "Liable to more than one interpretation", and since there are Christian sects with differing interpretations, that meets the definition.

Ed, you're still changing the argument; I said "unclear", not "flawed or unclear". If you want to talk about the argument I've been making, don't change my argument.

Both you and jblake47 keep adding "wrong" or "flawed" as if that was part of my argument. It never was. You are arguing a straw man. If you want to argue with ME, address arguments I actually make.