Merlyn_LeRoy

Well, that certainly wouldn't be me. I think most of my posts where I discuss when it's the right time to start killing politicians have been removed, though. well, at least this time Merlyn is not advocating anyone to kill right now OGE (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

Pappy, my example was to only refute your faulty association of "abnormal" with "morally wrong." Left-handedness is abnormal; if you do not consider it to be morally wrong, then you can't condemn something as immoral by merely stating it's abnormal. It has nothing to do with what I'D find moral or immoral, I'm just pointing out your lack of consistent reasoning.

Pappy, left-handedness is "abnormal" using your metric, and some people though left-handed people were "sinister" (which is where the word comes from). People also caused a lot of harm by trying to force kids into writing with the "proper" hand. So maybe the BSA should exclude southpaws next.

Of course, it isn't even Washington's birthday yet.

Beavah writes: So bringin' up the decision as case law is just a red herring. Unless you truly believe that the law is the only reference for what is right and wrong, and you agree with the law no matter what it decides. Well, I just told you I agree with the ruling. Your notion of a for-profit benefiting is also a red herring, because of course we're talkin' only about charities that qualify as 501©(3)'s. Sorry, no, it isn't a red herring where the BSA's argument is concerned; THEY argued that it was a violation of their first amendment rights. I have the same first amendment rights as they do, so if they could successfully argue that they HAD to be on the charity list because not being on the list limited their first amendment rights, I could make the same argument that my private, for-profit organization also must be on the list or my first amendment rights are also being violated. Luckily, the BSA lost that argument. Have yeh ever looked at the list of charities allowed by Connecticut? It includes religious charities, like Christian Military Fellowship, which "supports U.S. military & their families, encouraging them to love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ." It includes a number of charities like the African-American Self-Help foundation and Hispanic Scholarship Fund, that discriminate in their provision of services based on race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. There may certainly be other organizations that violate the Connecticut requirements; this doesn't justify the BSA one whit, of course. Yah, there are practical administrative limits for the state of Connecticut that prevent it from listin' every charity out there, eh? To that extent, Wyman has a point. But doesn't it seem to you like the deliberate exclusion of the Boy Scouts was just a wee bit unfair pursuit of a discriminatory agenda by the state, especially when every GSUSA council in CT remains on the list? I think the Boy Scouts made their discriminatory policies all too clear, and Connecticut officials decided they had to act on that.

Beavah writes: Nah, as we've discussed before, your rights stop when yeh try to drive all ideas other than your own out of the public forum. Well, since I've never done this (I'm a big supporter of free speech, and people may have noticed I enjoy arguing), it looks like my rights are doing just fine. I'm curious, do yeh think Wyman was decided correctly? Certainly. A state-run charity drive can set neutral criteria that apply to all organizations participating in that charity drive, and exclude organizations that exclude blacks, Jews, gays, atheists, etc. Should the state be permitted to make it harder for citizens to give money to charities it disagrees with? No, but that's not what the Wyman case was about. Being part of a state-run charity drive is NOT a first amendment right, and the state is only following its own criteria on what organizations can participate. If it WAS a first amendment right, I could sign up my own for-profit "Westley Foundation" and get added too, and pocket all the money people donate, because I have first amendment rights as well. Does that not amount to state-sponsored support one viewpoint over another? No. You'll notice the BSA has been losing lawsuits where they argue that receiving state funds or special deals is somehow a "right" they are entitled to.

Yes Beavah, the Chicago case was about a gay man rejected from a Law Explorer post, and it was blatantly illegal. It certainly wasn't a case where the defendant (Chicago) couldn't afford a lawsuit, the defendant (Chicago) didn't WANT to exclude gays, had no INTENTION to exclude gays, but found out (the hard way) that the BSA still would insist that gays be excluded from city-chartered Explorer posts. And there's no more reason Chicago could do this than to declare itself a Christian city and order all non-Christians to move outside of city limits.

skeptic writes: I know Merlyn, only those who agree with these tactics have any standing with you, and they can do no wrong, and you will let me know how ignorant those of us are that believe your rights stop when they trespass on ours. It seems a lot of you think my rights stop when it interferes with the government promoting your religion or your private religious clubs.

skeptic writes: The point is that if the ACLU would be far less likely to challenge many things they do, BSA and otherwise, if they knew that they would have to pay should they lose. And many of the suits threatened would most likely have lost, but the government or other entity would be required to spend huge sums to defend out of their own pockets, money that under current law would not be repaid if they won. Which ACLU suits would most likely lose? What cases are you talking about? San Diego initially stood with the scouts, but when the ACLU made it clear how much it might cost them in defense, they chose to back down and pay them almost a million dollars. No, the city decided to stop defending the Boy Scouts when the city was trying to defend the lease based on the Boy Scouts not being a religious organization, and, later in the hearing, the Boy Scouts stating that they were a religious organization. I posted about that in this forum at that time: http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=51146 The city of Ventura has a cross above the city; the city was founded by Father Serra in 1789, and a cross of some sort has been there ever since. But the city sold the property to a private entity in order to avoid the cost of a lawsuit. Is it a city reserved only for Christians? No? It is the same thing as the ambulance chasers, scam auto accident people, and fake department store injury threats. The civil rights of atheist students in public schools are a bit more important than that. Beavah writes: Which puts us back to "only those with a belief in Principles higher than law - ones which cannot be manipulated for selfish ends the way law can - are the best kind of citizens." Oh, you mean the type that fly airplanes into buildings?

Beavah writes: Yah, of course they are, eh? That's the point. Don't reckon they'd be pursued if the ACLU had won the Dale decision, do yeh? The point is to take whatever legal action possible to try to force the other person to conform to your views. Beavah, HOW would you have the ACLU act about public schools violating the constitution and chartering cub scout packs that exclude atheists? Are they supposed to ignore it? If another "private" club started having public schools "own and operate" groups that excluded Jews, should the ACLU then ignore that, too? If yeh can't do it directly with a public accommodation argument, threaten their COs and other supporters. Public schools were violating the rights of their own students. This isn't some kind of tit-for-tat battle, the BSA is a private club with religious requirements for membership, which automatically excludes public schools as operators for these private clubs. Try to cut their access to schools or public lands. Where has the ACLU done this? Everyone has "access" to schools and public lands. Try to cut their funding by restrictin' their access to employee payroll deductions The state of Connecticut did this; the BSA sued the state, so in this case the BSA started the lawsuit. And the BSA lost. United Way, Various United Ways have cut off the scouts; the ACLU has nothing to do with this, either. It's a war, eh? No rules, no restraint or polite disagreeement. Wrong. The "rules" are the laws of the United States. Get that through your head. Public schools cannot charter cub scout packs because they would have to violate the constitution to do so. All that matters is winning. Gotta make everyone believe the same thing the ACLU does. I haven't seen you cite ANYTHING that supports that. The ACLU pointed out to the BSA that public schools could not legally charter discriminatory BSA units. That isn't a "belief," and in any case the BSA didn't even try to contest it.

Last I checked "most areas of the world" were pretty lousy in the area of individual rights.

Beavah, the new barrage of lawsuits are based on the results of the Dale decision, where the BSA is a private, discriminatory, religious organization. The Balboa park lawsuit, for example, is due to the city leasing the BSA 18 acres of public land for $1/year without any competitive bidding. The city can't do that any more than they could give the Catholic Church 18 acres for $1/year. And "manipulating the law" is what the BSA is doing, if you'll check out the "Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act". And the BSA supporters have yet to explain how having public school charter packs and troops for five years after the Dale decision was ethical or honest.

Fred, how long would Blattman Elementary have continued to violate the civil rights of its own students by chartering your cub scout pack if the ACLU hadn't acted?

Yes Ed, they have enough muscle to force issues to be reviewed for soundness of law. The very idea!

I not only remember Godwin's Law, I remember Mike Godwin.

I don't even agree it's a difference of "scale" -- I'm trying to stop the BSA from acting dishonestly and stop misusing HUD grants. In short, I'm insisting that the BSA obey the law.

Nessmuk writes: As I read Hans Zeigers works that Pappy referenced, I am compelled to think that the enemies of our movement, and hence our values, succesfully gutted Candian Scouting from the inside Zeiger has no credibility; all he's done here is a typical post hoc fallacy. Scouts Canada membership had been dropping decades before gays were an issue. Consider Australia, and the UK too.. both failing tremendously.. Consider the BSA, cub scout membership down 22% over the past few years. Pappy writes: The ACLU has been effective in further damaging an already crippled scouting program in our area. THey helped get rid of United Way funding and scared the Public schools into not allowing scouters into the buildings. I'd like to know how exactly the ACLU "helped get rid of United Way funding"? They typically only concern themselves with laws. And if your public schools are not allowing scouters into their buildings but allowing other outside groups to use them, the ACLU would more than likely HELP you, because they don't like public officials treating groups differently depending on whether those officials agree with the views of that group or not.

Hey Poppy, HUD funds aren't just a big bucket of money that anyone can grab, organizations actually need to meet standards to get HUD grants, among them are the nondiscrimination requirements. As I've pointed out elsewhere, the BSA does have a nondiscriminatory subsidiary (Learning for Life) which can operate programs that meet the HUD requirements. But attempting to use HUD funds in any program that has religious requirements is simply dishonest. (If I am going to edit Pappy then I have to edit Merlyn as well, OGE) (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

awesome1_in_cc writes: [to Trevorum] So you don't believe that ACLU and other organizations by their actions of fighting the BSA in courts all over this country to have us removed from DOD installations, removed from schools that we too help pay for, taking our chartered sponsors to court to stop them from chartering BSA units is not trying to shut us down? I don't. The ACLU is making sure that the US government doesn't practice religious discrimination. The US military can no longer charter BSA units, because the government would have to practice religious discrimination to do so. Public schools can no longer charter BSA units, because the government would have to practice religious discrimination to do so. I haven't heard of any chartering organizations being taken to court apart from the DoD. The BSA and our chartered sponsors are spending tons of money each year to defend themselves from these "attacks" by those who disagree with our membership standards and I guess I am simple minded because I can't see how the diversion of funds from the program to fight court battles is helping us provide a quality character education program for our youth. Well, since the DoD agreed to stop chartering BSA units, and the BSA itself agreed to stop using government entities like public schools as chartering partners, it looks like the ACLU was in the right. You can have a private, discriminatory organization, but the US government can't support one that has religious requirements for membership. That pesky first amendment and all... I certainly believe that these organizations and their members have every right to associate with those who share the same values as they do but don't I have the same rights? Sure you do. You can have a private, discriminatory organization and pay for it yourself, just like everyone else. If someone starts a private, discriminatory group that only allows atheists, and ran it using HUD grants, or had public schools running their supposedly "private" clubs for students, or had military installations sponsoring their clubs, I think some people would object. I certainly would object.

awesome1_in_cc writes: C) We are under attack from those who feel they are being excluded and have a "right" to participate in our program. No, you are "under attack" from people who feel (rightly so) that they are being unlawfully excluded on the basis of religion from a HUD-funded program that requires no discrimination on the basis of religion. Lose the HUD funding or lose the discrimination. You can't have both.

Ed, (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

No Ed, (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

So Ed, (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

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Ed, (This message has been edited by a staff member.)