The ACLU and Scouting

[skeptic]

How many suits would the ACLU be filing if we changed our court system to make them liable for the costs of themselves and the organization sued if they lost the suit? That is why they would not survive with their tactics in most areas of the world.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

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

[Beavah]

Beavah, the new barrage of lawsuits are based on the results of the Dale decision

 

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. If yeh can't do it directly with a public accommodation argument, threaten their COs and other supporters. Try to cut their access to schools or public lands. Try to cut their funding by restrictin' their access to employee payroll deductions, United Way, and other things. Vilify 'em in the media if yeh can.

 

It's a war, eh? No rules, no restraint or polite disagreeement. All that matters is winning. Gotta make everyone believe the same thing the ACLU does.

 

And yep, the BSA Equal Access Act is a defensive response of similar nature, eh? As such things go, it's fairly mild. A more ACLU-like response would be to start bringin' a campaign to cut funding for gay and lesbian programming at public colleges and universities, to cut support for such folks in public social service providers and publicly administered insurance programs, and to increase funding for enforcement of public decency statutes. Can't let folks who disagree with us receive public dollars or get away with breakin' the law, eh?

 

I don't think that sort of approach on either side makes for good citizenship.

 

Beavah

 

[GernBlansten]

I'm not sure that loser pays all costs is a good solution either. Net result of that would be no average Joe would ever sue a well funded, deep pockets corporation or person. They would just lawyer up and drive the complainant into bankruptcy. Risk would be too high. The rich guys would get away with anything they wanted.

[OldGreyEagle]

And Gern, that is different than now how?

[GernBlansten]

In practice, perhaps. But at least give me my fantasy that everyone in America deserves their day in court without the threat that that day might cost them dearly if the court disagrees with them.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

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.

[skeptic]

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. 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. 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. The cross on the seal of L.A. was so small you barely could see it unless it was reproduced in a large size; but the cost of fighting it, even though it represented part of the history of the city, was too high.

 

It is the same thing as the ambulance chasers, scam auto accident people, and fake department store injury threats. I worked in retail as a manager for over 20 years. I actually witnessed, and would have testified for the store, a woman purposely fall over a furniture cart and immediately start screaming how badly hurt she was. Actually, she barely scratched herself, but the store would rather pay a settlement than the cost of litigation.

 

If we had the ability to turn the cost back on the frivolous suer, most would not happen. And it surely could still allow legitimate suits to be brought without high risk to the attorney and his client.

 

 

[Beavah]

The "rules" are the laws of the United States. Get that through your head.

 

It is in my head, eh?

 

If followin' the law is our ultimate end in ethics, then manipulating the law in order to get what we want becomes big business. It's worth spendin' big bucks or usin' smear tactics to get the "right" legislator elected or judge appointed. Worth usin' the laws to intimidate and try to force one viewpoint out. If yeh can't win on one argument, raise additional arguments and cases in different venues in order to try to get your way.

 

It's your interpretation that such funding is unconstitutional, eh? But the courts have split and danced and waffled haven't they? In fact, they've found repeatedly in favor of public funds going to private and religious bodies, or public funds discriminating between people, when the application of those funds primarily serves a public purpose. In fact, lightening up on the 3rd part of Lemon v. Kurtzman is the trend.

 

It's the trend in part because the ACLU-style "take no prisoners" litigation has generated a backlash leadin' to more conservative judicial appointees. How's that workin' out for you? Do yeh think that kind of polarization based on tryin' to manipulate the law to get your own way is really doin' the country good? Now of course there's CIR and St. Thomas More and the other conservative litigators, too, eh? Proliferatin' "attack litigation" really helped the nation, has it?

 

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."

 

B

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

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?

 

 

[skeptic]

"Which ACLU suits would most likely lose? What cases are you talking about?" asks Merlyn.

 

Most likely all the ones brought against local government entities protesting the symbol of the cross when it has been part of the entity's history from the outset. But taking it through all the appeals processes and so on makes it too expensive to fight. Believe it or don't, but religious symbols that are of historical nature would and should be allowed to remain, and the highest court probably would rule as such.

 

In the case of the Ventura cross, the so called damaged party lived almost thirty miles away. The city council publicly admitted that it was the desire of the huge majority of the city that it be defended, but they did not have funds to carry through all the years of litigation the ACLU promised.

 

And, of course, these are the tactics they use in many of their suits, knowing full well they can make it almost impossible for the city or county economically. And each time they go find another unknown threat to defend, often bringing litigants with seriously questionable standing. An example is the Balboa Park suit; the people supposedly harmed somehow, never even attempted to use the facilities. Worse, Napolean Jones, the judge who made the decision refused to accept the U.S. Department of Justice's statement of support.

 

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.

[packsaddle]

"And make no mistake -- if BSA would only bend to the will of the ACLU, the lawsuits would magically disappear."

 

Nah, the lawsuits would disappear if dah government entities stopped breakin' dah law. An' dat wouldn't be magic. It'd be doin' dah right thing.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

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.

[Beavah]

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.

 

I'm curious, do yeh think Wyman was decided correctly? Should the state be permitted to make it harder for citizens to give money to charities it disagrees with?

 

Does that not amount to state-sponsored support one viewpoint over another?

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[evmori]

I'm still trying to figure out how schools were violating the rights of their students by chartering BSA units? Are the students of a school forced to join a BSA unit chartered by their school? And why all of a sudden is chartering a BSA unit a violation of anyone's rights? Could it be because of the Dale case? And had the ACLU won the Dale case would this be an issue?

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10