Boy Scouts Proposed Regulations Comments

[fgoodwin]

Merlyn_LeRoy writes:

Hey Fred, do you think that a public school like Blattman Elementary can "own and operate" Pack 2003, and exclude boys who want to join who are atheists? That's your Pack. Do you see nothing illegal about a public school running a youth group that practices religious discrimination?Again, whether or not you or I see a problem with that is irrelevant to the rules under consideration. Nothing in the proposed rules requires public schools to sponsor a Cub Scout Pack.

 

But the proposed rules specifically provide that Packs and Troops cannot be excluded from school meeting space simply because of BSA's membership requirements.

 

Fred Goodwin

[Bob White]

"This was changed for all groups last year so now a $25 fee per hour is charged to all groups.

 

That's fine as long as they do it for ALL groups. The modification says that cannot charge some groups less but Scouting groups and other simialr programs MORE than the least amount it charges others.

 

"Should an aerobics instructor who wants to use the gym for her high priced clients be treated the same as a Cub Scout Pack for the use of the gymnasium for 1.5 hours?"

 

That is not what the rule says, you need to read it again.

 

"But, ultimately, a CO is required to provide a place to meet. Unless the school is the CO and they're not letting a unit meet there, this seems to be a tempest in a teapot..."

 

This is not just about meetings. It also oncludes recruiting. if a school allows the 4-h to recuit within the school it must alow the BSA. This is about tying the loss of funding to illegal reverse discrimination being practiced by some government funded public facilities funding.

 

Merlyn's argument as usual is a red herring. The BSA's right to determine its own membership is legal and has been upheld by the Supreme Court. The discrimination against the BSA and other patriotic organizations is illegal and has be proclaimed so by the courts.

 

This rule merely threatens facilities that take part in such illegal acts with the loss of funding.

 

The law already is on the books, what this act does in determine the penalty for violation of the law.

 

Bob White

 

 

 

 

[acco40]

"This was changed for all groups last year so now a $25 fee per hour is charged to all groups.

 

That's fine as long as they do it for ALL groups. The modification says that cannot charge some groups less but Scouting groups and other simialr programs MORE than the least amount it charges others.

 

They do not do it for all groups. The PTA is not charged to meet. However, most are.

 

"Should an aerobics instructor who wants to use the gym for her high priced clients be treated the same as a Cub Scout Pack for the use of the gymnasium for 1.5 hours?"

 

That is not what the rule says, you need to read it again.

 

I'm was not arguing what the "rule" (proposed legislation stated) but what was desired.

 

Now, I have an unrelated question. Is the CO of a CS Pack obligated to provide a meeting place for den meetings? For Pack meetings? For Pack committee meetings?

 

If you force schools to allow recruiting to all groups, the schools may not have any time to teach!

 

Again, the language if rife with "gotchas." What is a youth group? What does similar organizations mean? What is a patriotic organization? Should the non-profit Merlyn WWJD (what would Judas do) atheist group be allowed to recruit? {Sorry that was in bad taste for all. } How about the young republicans? The list can go on and on. I say, let's have some faith in the school administration (which we vote on by the way) to have their own guidelines.

[NJCubScouter]

If some of you want to believe it is a coincidence that a rulemaking process that started in 2002 took exactly long enough that the Department of Education could issue a regulation implementing the "Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act" exactly 20 days before the presidential election, go right ahead.

 

ProudEagle, maybe it is getting no play in the press, but we know about it, don't we? It's the magic of the Internet. Someone found out about it, and posted it, and now a group of Scouters know about a government action to "support" the Boy Scouts right before a presidential election. Maybe the same thing is happening in other Scouting-related forums. The "press" is gradually becoming less and less important, as we all have a "mass medium" at our fingertips now.

 

Bob asks,

 

As far as its proximity to the election, what do we do, shut down every step of the legislative process for 2 months prior to any election so that nobody can call foul?

 

First of all, it's not the "legislative process," that's Congress. This is the administrative regulatory process.

 

Second of all, no, we don't shut it down, but I think we all need to realize that NOTHING comes out of any federal government agency at the policy-making levels this close to a presidential election without having a political calculation attached to it. I don't think a Cabinet official takes a drink of water at this point without an analysis of how it will affect the election. That goes for both parties.

 

As for the rest of your post, Bob, I do love it when you try to lecture me about the law. As a matter of fact, your statements (in both your posts in this thread so far) about what these regulations are, and what they represent, are partly correct and partly incorrect. I don't have time to educate you right now, but I will point out in response to your second post, these regulations do a lot more than "determine the penalty for violation of the law." (In fact, they don't seem to do that, they just cross-reference compliance procedures elsewhere in the Code of Federal Regulations.) The very first paragraph of this notice says that sections of the federal regulations are being added and amended "to implement the previsions of the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act." The implication is that while the law has been on the books since January 2002, there has been no mechanism in place to enforce it, some terms were left undefined, and some things apparently were not clear enough, and these regs take care of all that.

 

As for the regulation itself, Fgoodwin, I have no plans to submit any comments, so my postings here are not slowing the forward march of the administrative process. I have mixed feelings about this whole issue about use of public facilities. If it turns out that the BSA's constitutional rights extend to being able to use public facilities on an equal basis even though they violate state or local anti-discrimination rules governing the use of the facilities, so be it. As far as I know, no such decision has been made and I am not sure one is pending. Short of that, I do have an issue with the federal government using its funding hammer to tell a state or local government that it cannot apply its public policy prohibiting discrimination by users of public facilities, if the state has such a public policy. (In the area of sexual orientation, some states do, some don't. Mine does, that is why the Dale case exists in the first place.)

 

But my bottom line is, I don't want to see a Boy Scout unit made to meet in a place that does not make sense for its members, or to use its hard-earned funds to pay for facilities rather than program. That is not because I like what the BSA has done on the issue of sexual orientation. It is because I don't think the boys should suffer because of the incredibly poor and un-Scoutlike decision that has been made by a bunch of so-called adults at BSA national headquarters.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

 

Fred Goodwin writes:

Again, whether or not you or I see a problem with that is irrelevant to the rules under consideration.

 

I wasn't talking about the rules, I was talking about being treated equally (something you've also been talking about). Are atheists in Blattman Elementary being treated equally when the school itself runs a Cub Pack that excludes atheists? Your definition of equality comes from Animal Farm, where some people are more equal than others.

[fgoodwin]

Merlyn_LeRoy write:I wasn't talking about the rules, I was talking about being treated equally (something you've also been talking about).With all due respect, I started this thread to announce the rulemaking and to give interested persons an opportunity to file comments. It really doesn't matter to me whether folks support the rules or oppose them, but its obvious you aren't really interested in them anyway -- you appear to have an agenda entirely unrelated to the subject of this thread.Are atheists in Blattman Elementary being treated equally when the school itself runs a Cub Pack that excludes atheists?If you feel that strongly about it, why don't you form a group of atheist kids that excludes Believers, and ask a school to give you a meeting room? If they do, then everyone is being fairly and equally. If you want to argue just for the sake of argument, kindly find someone else.Your definition of equality comes from Animal Farm, where some people are more equal than others.It's not my definition. Like I said, I'm not here to argue about BSA's policy. The Supreme Court has affirmed it. If you have a problem with it, take it up with them.

 

Fred Goodwin

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Fred Goodwin writes:

Are atheists in Blattman Elementary being treated equally when the school itself runs a Cub Pack that excludes atheists?

 

If you feel that strongly about it, why don't you form a group of atheist kids that excludes Believers, and ask a school to give you a meeting room? If they do, then everyone is being fairly and equally.

 

No, they wouldn't be treated equally. To be treated equally, the SCHOOL would have to "own and operate" another student group that only allows atheists. After all, right now, they "own and operate" a youth group that only allows theists.

 

You're comparing apples and oranges, and I see that all the time in this forum. It's like people are too stupid to understand the difference between a school allowing discriminatory outside organizations to use rooms, versus a school running such a discriminatory organization itself.

 

Do you think Blattman Elementary would agree to "own and operate" a youth group that only allows atheists? Or that excludes Jews? Or that only allows Catholics?

 

[fgoodwin]

Merlyn_LeRoy writes:It's like people are too stupid to understand the difference between a school allowing discriminatory outside organizations to use rooms, versus a school running such a discriminatory organization itself.Save your personal attacks.

 

Like I said, the rule isn't about sponsorship of any organization, its about equal access to all organizations.

 

Fred Goodwin

[Bob White]

NJ I double checked and nothing I said about the content or purpose of the modifications is incorrect. Not sure where you feel you were lectured?

 

Do you really believe this process was begun over two years ago to come to a pont where it would be open to public opion in an effort to sway a presidential election? Can the stealth helicopters be far away?

 

 

Acco, the CO has always been responsible for providing a meeting place. Which organizations are included are in a related portion of the rule which they explained was not related to the input they were looking for.

 

What the rule says is not that the school must allow everyone, just that if they allow anyone they cannot disallow organizations such as the BSA or other patriotic groups.

 

If the PTA doesn't pay then if these rules are added they will not be allowed to charge the scouts or other similar organizations.

 

Why would the Young Republican want to recruit members who were too young to vote???

 

 

"Do you think Blattman Elementary would agree to "own and operate" a youth group that only allows atheists? Or that excludes Jews? Or that only allows Catholics? "

 

RED HERRING ALERT! This is not about who a school can sponsor or what group it can operate. The text is specific about that. This is about access only.

 

Read the text again.

 

BW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Both Fred and Bob can't understand principles. They defend the BSA's right to discriminate, yet turn a blind eye when public schools practice discrimination by chartering Packs.

 

Yes, I know that isn't what the proposed regulations are about; if either of you would read what I write, you'd know that I already knew that. I'm pointing out your hypocrisy and lack of principles.

[fgoodwin]

Merlyn_LeRoy writes:Both Fred and Bob can't understand principles. They defend the BSA's right to discriminate, yet turn a blind eye when public schools practice discrimination by chartering Packs.I understand that your personal attacks on me and Bob don't fit any of the twelve points of the Scout Law.

 

If you want to debate the issue of school sponsorship of Cub Scout Packs, you are welcome to start your own thread and debate to your heart's content.

 

But that's not the subject of this thread.

 

YiS,

 

Fred Goodwin

 

[BadenP]

Merlyn,

 

Why must you always be a voice for hate and anger. If you dislike the BSA so much why not find another website to spew your venom. Your posts are counter productive and so full of biased misinformation that they degrade all the threads in which you participate. I hope you realize very few, if any, in here think you have any credibility. I must say though your posts are always good for a laugh because they are so ridiculously extreme and illogical. Peace!

[eisely]

I don't know, but I suspect that this rulemaking is normal follow on activity to the Helms rider on equal access that was proposed as an amendment to other legislation as a direct response to certain school districts in Florida kicking BSA units out of its facilities.

 

I can easily believe that it took two years for the Education Department to draft up rules. I deal with the IRS on a variety of issues and it routinely takes the IRS years to propose rules and typically more years to finalize them. Sheer inefficiency is a better explanation for the timing of this release.

 

There are some very broad and serious principles involved here and BSA is not the only organization affected. There have been cases involving student organizations at the college level, supported by compulsory student "activity fees" (aka taxes), where students attempting to organize groups based on religious belief have been discriminated against, denied official recognition, etc.

 

It is amusing and ironic that the same mind set that promotes and exalts "cultural diversity" in schools and curricula generally, is unwilling to accept that diversity includes religious belief.

 

In other words, you can be different as long as you agree with me on everything that I say matters.

[Hunt]

I took a look at the proposed rules, and I was somewhat surprised to see that they aren't really "equal access for all" rules. They simply say that access can't be denied to certain patriotic groups (including BSA) based on their views. Presumably, the schools could exclude other groups with the same or different views without violating the rules. It's an odd rule, and I'm not sure that the rule is itself constitutional, since it requires public forums to favor particular g

[fgoodwin]

Hunt writes:I took a look at the proposed rules, and I was somewhat surprised to see that they aren't really "equal access for all" rules. They simply say that access can't be denied to certain patriotic groups (including BSA) based on their views. Presumably, the schools could exclude other groups with the same or different views without violating the rules. It's an odd rule, and I'm not sure that the rule is itself constitutional, since it requires public forums to favor particular gIf you feel that strongly, please consider posting your comments to the Dept. of Education. Thye need to hear all points-of-view.

 

Fred Goodwin

Alamo Area Council