I Just Don't Get It!!

[Eamonn]

Merlyn_LeRoy posted:

atheists have the same rights as theists, which includes things like not having their own schools own & operate youth groups which exclude them based on their religious views.

Eamonn Posted:

Why can't atheists get together and have their schools and youth groups?

I sent my Son to a Catholic School and the church has it's own youth group.

To Which Merlyn_LeRoy posted:

I'm referring to public schools chartering Cub Scout Packs, which exclude atheists.

My son is now in a public school. The School allows all sorts of different organizations to recruit their students for different activities. The local Camp Fire Girls are there they don't take boys. The Girl Scouts are there and they don't take boys. The local Soccer Club is there and they require $125.00 to sign up they don't have the staff or the facilities to accept handicapped students.

I have no idea if they would or would not allow an Atheist Youth group to recruit. The reason why I don't know is that none have ever tried.

I for one would be more than happy for an Atheist group to start a program along the same lines as Scouting. I'm happy for them to go out and work finding groups that would be willing to charter or sponsor them. I don't have any problem with them recruiting volunteer leaders. If any school wanted to charter or sponsor them, that would be fine with me.

Merlyn, why don't you start such an organization?

If you find that public schools are unwilling to allow you to recruit or that they are chartering BSA units and are unwilling to charter an Atheist youth group. I will join you in saying that discrimination is rampant in our public schools. I will join you in saying that what is happening is wrong.

As things are how can we discriminate about something that isn't there?

I just don't get it.

Eamonn

[SemperParatus]

You go Eamonn.

 

I think it all boils down to not enough atheists to go around.

[NJCubScouter]

Eamonn, don't you get the difference between a public entity (like a school) allowing various organizations to USE its facilities (for recruitment or meetings) and the public entity OWNING an organization? All of the quotations from Merlyn that you have referred to are about a public entity owning (that is, being the chartered organization for) an organization (that is, a BSA unit.) The standards are different, specifically, a public entity has considerably more rights and obligations when it comes to actually owning an organization, than when merely allowing use of its facilities. Different standards produce different results.

[evmori]

NJ,

I understand you point. I don't agree with it but I understand it. Atheists don't meet the membership requirements of the BSA therefore can't join. That's not discrimination. Public schools don't have to accept a student who doesn't live in their school district. Same thing.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Here's an analogy:

 

Suppose Bobby Fischer, the famous chess grandmaster, decided to franchise chess clubs around the world. You could join a Fischer chess club and find other people to play chess with, have tournaments, read the latest club newsletter with a chess article by Fischer, etc.

 

Now suppose some public school administrators decided that their schools ought to have chess clubs to encourage analytical thinking, and, instead of starting from scratch, decide to franchise Fischer chess clubs in their schools.

 

Fine so far.

 

Now, Bobby Fischer, aside from being a genius at chess, is also pretty far along on the lunatic scale. He has for years railed about Jews secretly running the world. So suppose he, as head of his private chess franchise, says that Jews can't join his chess clubs, and he successfully fights for the right to exclude Jews in court, on the basis that his clubs are private and can do that under the first amendment.

 

Now you have public schools running "no Jews allowed" chess clubs.

 

Public schools can't practice such religious discrimination. And since Fischer successfully argued in court that his clubs can discriminate, the only legal recourse is to have all public schools stop their Fischer club franchises.

[NJCubScouter]

Merlyn, by interesting coincidence, while you were typing your post with the Bobby Fischer analogy, I was watching an episode of "Law & Order" on USA Network about a chess grandmaster who had achieved fame as a teenager in New York but who threw his career away as an adult because he wouldn't follow the rules of the chess authorities and then became an incredibly paranoid lunatic. After that point the story diverges from Bobby Fischer's actual life (since even Bobby, the Jewish anti-Semite, hasn't gone so far off the deep end that he would be the "main guest star" on an episode of "Law & Order," though funnily enough the last name of the Fischer character was Blake, and I have a suspicion the writers were thinking they had merged Bobby Fischer and Robert Blake) but I don't think there is any question that the character was based on Bobby Fischer plus some literary license. Were you watching it too?

 

Ed, I have to tell you, Merlyn's analogy is right on target. Unfortunately, yours is not. The BSA does "discriminate" against atheists, and public school districts do "discriminate" against youths who do not live within their district, but both instances of discrimination are lawful. However, a school district could not lawfully exclude a student from attending the school's educational program on the basis that he or she is an atheist, or black, or Christian. That would be unlawful discrimination under the United States Constitution. (It would also no doubt be unlawful for other reasons under state law, but that is off the point.) When a school becomes the chartering organization (in other words, the owner) of of a BSA unit, the unit in effect becomes one of the programs of the school district. That program (the BSA unit) cannot exclude an atheist boy any more than the school could exclude the boy from Algebra class.

 

The problem is easily fixed, at least from a constitutional point of view: BSA units must be chartered to non-public entities. As others have pointed out in the past, this is not really the BSA's problem, it is the problem of the school district, military unit or other governmental entity that wishes to be a CO. But the end result is the same: A non-public entity must be the CO. I don't really see why that is such a troublesome issue. It might cause some inconvenience and expense, but complying with the Constitution is not always convenient or free.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

 

No, I hadn't seen that episode; sorry I missed it.

 

A postscript on my analogy: of course, even if a school had to drop a Fischer chess club, they could still have their own chess club, in case some people would whine about how the ACLU is unfair to kids by taking away their chess club, by litigating over the "no Jews allowed" clubs in schools.

[evmori]

So if a school district can "lawfully discriminate" against a student who doesn't live in their school district, why can't that school district charter a BSA unit since the BSA also "lawfully discriminates"?

 

In Merlyn's analogy what you have is a public school district allowing a club to meet. Now this club has membership requirements. All clubs do. And so does the BSA.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

See why I say you're ineducable, Ed? Well, no, of course not; if you did, you wouldn't be.

 

Public schools can discriminate IN SOME WAYS, and they are likewise prohibited from discriminating IN OTHER, DIFFERENT WAYS. The area where a student lives is in the first category; a student's religious views are in the second category.

 

Ed, do you think it would be legal for a public school to refuse to admit any Episcopalians? Notice I'm not asking if it would be wise, or fair, or likely - only legal.

 

Using your "logic", since public schools can discriminate in one way, they can discriminate in ALL ways, including the above. Or they could keep all black students out, something that was popular with some public schools a few decades ago.

 

And here you show you can't read:

In Merlyn's analogy what you have is a public school district allowing a club to meet.

 

No, Ed, in my analogy I clearly state that the chess club is THE SCHOOL'S CLUB. The school is NOT just allowing a club to MEET, the SCHOOL is running the club. The SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS decided to start a chess club.

 

I have successfully taught a box of rocks this distinction; when will you finally learn it?

[Eagledad]

>>And since Fischer successfully argued in court that his clubs can discriminate, the only legal recourse is to have all public schools stop their Fischer club franchises.

[FScouter]

"The solution is start another chess club and allow the families to choose who they want to associate with."

Sounds good to me. Let the discriminated Jews start a Jews only chess club. Everybody's happy. It might be different if the school told the Jews "NO, YOU MAY NOT START A JEWS ONLY CHESS CLUB!" That's discrimination.

 

Kicking out the Fischer club doesn't make anyone happy. Are we really better off with no chess club at all?

[Eamonn]

So if we were to agree that the BSA does discriminate.

Where does the fault lie?

At this time the District I serve doesn't have any schools that are chartered partners. For the sake of this discussion let's say that I through all the proper channels and asked a School District to charter a unit and it came to be.

I wouldn't have told any lies. The School, the School District, the School Board and anyone else that attended the School Board meeting would be aware that a BSA unit was becoming part of the school.

If we want to put fault on anyones doorstep it has to be at the doorstep of the School District.

Much the same as if I had gone into the local 711 Convenience store and bought a copy of Playboy. The Playboy Magazine is clearly marked that it contains photographs of naked females. The Sales clerk tells me that I have picked up a copy of Playboy and it isn't Scouting Magazine.

I get home and decide that I am shocked that this magazine is full of pictures of naked ladies. Of course I would be at fault. To my very simple mind I couldn't blame the 711 Store. They had it clearly marked as being what it is. I couldn't blame Playboy, they never tried to fool me in any way.

Wouldn't the same rules apply to a School District? You don't have to be very clever to find out what Scouting and the BSA is all about. The BSA doesn't try to hide the fact what it stands for in what is known as the traditional programs.

Then of course there is the elected members of the school board. If they were to allow a not so nice organization or an organization which was perceived to be not so nice (This might include the BSA.) The local community of taxpayers could voice their dissatisfaction with the boards decision and when the time came vote in a new board that would act in the way that they see as being right.

Eamonn.

[packsaddle]

For a few moments I sort of wished I had seen that episode of Law and Order. But after I nearly fell out of my chair reading the last few exchanges, I'll take this forum any day.

I really like the chess analogy. In chess (and I can consistently beat the computer on a really low skill level) the only thing that really counts is a certain type of thinking skill. Unless someone knows of evidence to the contrary, I believe that such skill has never been associated with race or creed (although the very best players do tend to be, well, quirky...putting it mildly). Same for science. And if you were to substitute 'science' for 'chess' in the analogy, it would still work fine except that Bobby and his ideas have nothing to do with science. And in reality, anyone with a board can play chess. And anyone with a mind can engage in science. But one has to join BSA to be a Boy Scout. And there the analogy sadly fails.

 

Edited part: Eamonn, could you send that Playboy over to me when you're done? I'll swap you for my copy of Scouting Magazine. And I won't remove the centerfold if you won't.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

eagledad writes:

>>And since Fischer successfully argued in court that his clubs can discriminate, the only legal recourse is to have all public schools stop their Fischer club franchises.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Packsaddle, I don't see where the analogy fails. Anyone with a chess board can play chess, but Jews can't join the Fischer chess federation and be in their own school's Fischer chess club; anyone with a tent can go camping, but atheists can't join the BSA and be in their own school's Boy Scout unit. If public schools can charter BSA units, they can also charter my theoretical "no Jews allowed" chess clubs.

 

And if you don't think anyone has ever suggested that certain races or creeds are better at things like chess or science, you need to get out more.