Posted on 04/09/2013 12:55:22 PM PDT by Maelstorm
Controversy has surrounded the Boy Scouts of America this year, as same-sex activists have pressured the organization to abandon its long-held values and allow homosexual members. Now, they are trying to remove the Boy Scouts' tax-exempt status.
Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter to members of the California Legislature Friday to explain the significant legal and policy problems of a proposed bill designed to punish nonprofit youth organizations like the Boy Scouts of America. The bill would strip organizations like the Boy Scouts of their tax-exempt status if they won’t abandon their long-held values and allow themselves to be strong-armed into admitting people into membership who don’t hold to those values.
Thirty-nine California attorneys who are part of the more than 2,200 allied attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom worldwide also signed the letter.
“Youth organizations that have benefitted America for generations should be free from harassment by politicians who don’t agree with the very values that have made these groups successful,” said Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The Constitution protects the freedom of youth organizations like the Boy Scouts to promote the values that have defined them as an organization and to ensure that their leaders and members adhere to those values.”
Under the bill, SB 323, California would strip tax-exempt status from any “organization organized and operated exclusively as a public charity youth organization that discriminates on the basis of gender identity, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or religious affiliations.” Some of the public charity youth organizations at risk include Little League, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, Special Olympics, American Youth Soccer Organization, Future Business Leaders of America, and many religious organizations that serve youth.
The Alliance Defending Freedom letter explains that if the bill is passed, many non-profit youth organizations will be forced “to choose between following their core values and beliefs and losing their tax exemptions or abandoning their beliefs to comply with the law.”
“Freedom of association would prove an empty guarantee if associations could not limit control over their decisions to those who share the interests and persuasions that underlie the association’s being,” the letter states.
“The First Amendment protects the freedom of youth organizations to associate with members and leaders who share their values,” added Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “Our youth deserve to continue to benefit from these groups, and bills like SB 323 severely threaten their ability to do so.”
This is just the first step toward stripping religious organizations of their non-profit status.
Easier yet, just vote the communists out of office.
If they strip the Boy Scouts of their tax exempt status, then Planned Parenthood should be fair game.
“If they strip the Boy Scouts of their tax exempt status, then Planned Parenthood should be fair game.”
That would be SWEET! Think of all the lives saved and WANTED babies adopted into loving families!
Simple Solution. They Boy Scouts need to leave gay Cali-fornicate.
You’re exactly right. That should be next on the agenda in red states.
They will go after churches next.
If they force the gay men on the Boy Scouts as Pack Leaders, there’s going to be stripping, anyway...
Predators. The fox is in the henhouse!
The pedophile party is working to get access to the boys.
I really hope CA legislators are not that stupid.
I imagine the gay peoples republic of California has been poised to strip Boy Scouts for a long time
Get rid of all tax exempt everything. Get rid of Eic while you are at it.
Yeah but see the left don’t play that way. The punishment that is good for you is the punishment that is not good for them. They should reconsider this tack because it could very well backfire when they lose power.
I’m sure there are many in California who would like to strip the Boy Scouts of more than just tax exemption.
Take the whole thing off-radar. Go back to meeting in garages. Give up the corporate aspects.
They should keep it up. There is something called overplaying ones hand and they are doing it big time.
I’d agree but that is surrendering and of course it is behaving like Boy Scouts have something to be ashamed of when they do not.
It’s been obvious to me for years that the “gay agenda” is but a tool of the left to criminalize Christian beliefs.
Yes it is becoming more and more evident every day. Why is it that so few even in conservative media are reporting on it? Its as if they are afraid.
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