Posted on 12/27/2007 1:12:20 PM PST by AFA-Michigan
Finding an organization more all-American than the Boy Scouts would be hard. Take it from someone who is blessed to have not one, but two sons achieve the distinction of becoming Eagle Scouts -- this organization is up there with baseball and apple pie. According to its charter, it exists to “promote … the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others … and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance and kindred virtues.”
Since 1910, that’s exactly what the Boy Scouts have been doing. Thousands of men today in positions of leadership, from soldiers to salesmen, began learning lessons in responsibility when they were Scouts. Which makes it all the more curious that the city of Philadelphia is determined to kick its local Scout council -- the “Cradle of Liberty,” seventh largest council in the nation -- out of the building it’s been meeting in for 80 years.
The Scouts may not be facing a formal eviction, but that’s the upshot of an ultimatum that Philadelphia’s city council delivered to the group earlier this year. Eight decades ago, the Scouts made an agreement with the city to pay a nominal rent of $1 a year. How much is the city demanding that they pay now? $200,000. Sadly, that’s not a misprint. The Scouts really are facing a rent hike of $199,999.
The blatant unfairness of the situation is galling -- especially when you consider, as Robert Knight of the Media Research Center has pointed out, that the Scouts “built the building with their own money, and then gave it to the city in 1928.” The Scouts’ lease was “in perpetuity,” notes Bob Unruh, news editor for WorldNetDaily, but the city doesn’t seem to care.
You may be wondering: Have the Scouts done something wrong? Oh, yes. In our politically correct age, they have committed what liberals would call a major sin (if they believed in “sin,” that is): They prohibit openly gay men from serving as Scout leaders. And if this policy strikes you -- as it does me -- as just plain common sense, then welcome to Bizarro World.
“If the Boy Scouts were anti-God, championed homosexuality and were anti-establishment, I would venture to say they would find themselves welcome in Philadelphia,” Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie has commented. “It's the fact that they stick to and seek to promote a responsible and reasonable code of ethics that makes them a target of the anti-family left that tends to dominate urban governments such as Philadelphia’s these days.”
City Solicitor Romulo Diaz -- an open homosexual, according to media reports -- is spearheading the campaign against the Scouts. Officials defend the outrageously high rent hike with typical PC blather. “You cannot be in a city-owned facility being subsidized by the taxpayers,” Councilman Darrell Clarke told The New York Times, “and not have language in your lease that talks about nondiscrimination.” Never mind that the U.S. Supreme Court already ruled several years ago that the Boy Scouts are a private organization entitled to set its own membership policies. Clarke and Diaz apparently answer to a different authority.
Perhaps a bigger question is, who’s next? According to Jeff Jubelirer, a spokesman with the Philadelphia Scouts, dozens of other groups could be targeted next. Will, say, the tax-exempt status of some be questioned? Take the Catholic Church, which doesn’t allow women ministers. How would it fare under an extreme PC regime? As Jubelirer says, “How are [city officials] going to justify differentiation in treatment? There are wonderful arts organizations, museums, a public radio station. They’re on that list.”
The hypocrisy at work here is astonishing. How often do radical liberals lecture us about the First Amendment, insisting that it’s meant to protect unpopular points of view from censorship, only to turn around and find some sneaky way to try and muzzle an upstanding group like the Boy Scouts for daring to offend their leftist orthodoxy?
Besides, the Scouts happen to have a logical reason for their policy. “The Scouts bar openly homosexual Scoutmasters and members for moral reasons and for the sake of protecting young boys from possible harm, not because they are motivated by bigotry or prejudice,” Robert Knight says. Their opponents act “as if the Scouts have no rational reason for wanting to determine whether prospective leaders or members are attracted sexually to males.”
Fortunately, the city’s disgraceful campaign against the Scouts hasn’t gone unnoticed by the public. Indeed, writes Bob Unruh, “Citizens outraged by the city's ultimatum crashed the e-mail system of the Philadelphia mayor's office.” But, he also notes, Philadelphia isn’t alone: “City officials in San Francisco and Boston have made similar decisions to displace the Scouts because of the group’s behavior code.”
So whose “behavior code” makes more sense? The Boy Scouts, who make their communities better places to live, as they turn boys into responsible young men? Or PC government officials determined to push a warped social agenda on the rest of us? If you side with the Scouts, learn more and speak up -- responsibly but firmly. Our Scouts deserve nothing less.
Mitt was talking about the boys themselves, if I’m not mistaken. I believe he did not and does not support homosexual scoutmasters.
This article has nothing to do with Mitt.
The Flip Romney apologists on here will just drone on that he has the most conservative platform of all candidates...yadda yadda yadda..dribble dribble dribble. This fraud is so liberal he can never be allowed to get anywhere near the White House. U.S. Army Retired |
This is a cheap hatchet job of a posting. Why didn’t you just state your dishonest case in a vanity post instead of wasting everyone’s time reading a long article that has nothing to do with the use to which you put it.
End of discussion. It might cost some in attorney fees, but the Scouts will prevail.
“And unlike on a host of other issues, Romney has not yet flip-flopped or retracted his opposition to the Scouts’ national policy.”
He seems more loyal to his “gay” pledges than he is to most of his others. He won’t back off removing restrictions on homosexuals in the military either.
Becasue on this board, if it’s anti-Mitt, it’s Okee Dokee. Just ask the big man! (Hey, if I was running things, I would have an opinion and bias my board towards it too, so no big deal, but you must understand the field you are playing in)
WORTH REPEATING
In 1994, ROMNEY said: “I feel that all people should be allowed to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.”
hoser
| Is anything that he attributed to Mitt incorrect? If so what? U.S. Army Retired |
You are exactly wrong, as usual.
I believe he did not and does not support homosexual scoutmasters.
That is exactly what he supports.
Are you suggesting a federal takeover of the BSA?
We used to mock them with: "it's Bush's fault." Now it looks like Romney derangement syndrome.
I’m well aware of that of which you speak.
| I am for individuals being allowed to murder other individuals, but I also believe that it should be up to the individual states to decided. Using your logic, you would not hold my belief against me if I were running for president. Lame. U.S. Army Retired |
| FR does allow for the flaming of liberal public figures, regardless of their party affiliation. U.S. Army Retired |
LADY: “Mitt was talking about the boys themselves, if I’m not mistaken. I believe he did not and does not support homosexual scoutmasters.”
Lady, what you believe is interesting and...irrelevant.
Unless you can provide any evidence or documentation to back up your creative interpretation, given that Romney said “all people.”
Which, in English, does not mean just boys. And we know that Mitt has a very precise, parsing, Clintonesque approach to his use of the English language.
Even if you are correct, for which there is no evidence to my knowledge, your beliefs nonetheless would confirm Romney’s opposition to the BSA policy, since it applies equally to both boys and adults who openly identify themselves as being involved in homosexual behavior.
LADY: “This article has nothing to do with Mitt.”
Sure it does. It talks about a morals policy on which Romney agrees with homosexual activists (as he did on just about every aspect of their political agenda prior to running for president, which is why he was endorsed twice by the homosexual Log Cabin Republicans).
Or at least, provide compensation equal to the fair market value of the property?
The left hates the Boy Scouts. That alone is enough to prove that the differences between the left and normal people are irreconcileable.
DIONY: “...cheap hatchet job...dishonest case...wasting everyone’s time...”
Now that you’ve dispensed with Romney apologists’ first knee-jerk tactic, I stand ready to respond to any actual evidence you may be prepared to post to back up your characterizations.
Or must you also deploy the “religious bigotry” canard before conceding that you have no evidence?
P.S. No one compelled you to spend or “waste” one second of your time either reading or responding to the post.
Vanity.
Show me where he said he supports homosexual scoutmasters.
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