Posted on 12/03/2003 10:07:30 PM PST by fight_truth_decay
After his 6-year-old son started attending school in Portland this fall, David Hilton discovered that being a parent these days means sorting through all the papers that get stuffed into children's backpacks at school.
For Hilton, though, the problem is not the quantity but the content. Some of the papers come from the Boy Scouts of America, a group that prohibits openly gay men from participating.
Hilton said the practice gives the impression that the school department endorses a discriminatory organization, and he is lobbying the School Committee to stop it. The committee will take up the issue tonight.
School Committee Chairman Jonathan Radtke said the fliers pose a dilemma. If school officials ban Boy Scout notices, he said, they will be legally required to ban notices from all other groups. That means Girl Scouts, Little League, soccer clubs, 4-H clubs, hockey clubs, Boys and Girls Clubs. All of those groups would lose a cheap and easy way to communicate with the city's children and their parents, he said.
"We have to have a policy that says everything goes out or nothing goes out," he said.
Most Maine schools allow Boy Scout notices to be sent home, said Duane Havard, assistant scout executive of the Pine Tree Council Boy Scouts of America. Kittery and Gorham are exceptions. They don't allow any groups to send fliers home if the groups aren't connected with the schools.
Kittery instituted the policy this fall without much controversy. Gorham's policy has nothing to do with Boy Scouts. Gorham officials believe that fliers from too many groups dilute the impact of notices from the schools, and that the extra notices were consuming too much staff time.
Hilton said it's a moral issue.
"Young gay and lesbian persons growing up in America . . . have a high rate of depression," he said. "To start in elementary school hearing this unwritten message that it's not OK to be gay, well, that's really upsetting."
City Councilor Peter O'Donnell supports Hilton's efforts. He said the fliers contradict the gay-rights ordinance that Portland voters approved in 1992.
The issue is similar to a controversy that occurred two years ago when some wanted to bar the Boy Scouts from using school facilities.
The School Committee voted to let the Scouts keep using facilities because members believed that banning just one group would be discriminatory. The committee's lawyers cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2000 that said the Boy Scouts is a private organization that has a legal right to exclude homosexuals. If the committee wanted to ban the Scouts, it would have to ban all other groups, the lawyers said.
At the same time the committee voted to let the Boy Scouts keep using school facilities, it decided to post notices stating that groups using the buildings do not represent the views of Portland public schools or their employees.
It appears the School Committee is moving toward the same legal solution for fliers.
Two weeks ago, committee member Kim Matthews, who heads the policy committee, proposed allowing fliers from youth and civic groups as long as the notices have a disclaimer saying the groups' views are not necessarily the views of the school system.
Hilton said the proposed disclaimer does not address his concerns. If a group discriminated against other groups, such as Jews, the School Committee would not let the group put fliers in children's backpacks, he said.
School Committee member James DiMillo, who said he agrees with everything the Boy Scouts do, said committee members want to add a disclaimer just to make themselves feel better. He opposes it.
"My problem with the whole thing is, why change it when we only have one complaint?" he said.
The homosexual "father" claimed the school violated the First Amendment by offering his sons an opportunity to swear, "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country" and to remain "morally straight."
Waaaa! Wouldn't want anyone to be "upset" would we? Oh, no... of course not. Gotta pander to every little group that comes along lest anyone become "upset"...
I love watching, however, when the pandering to one special interest group leads to difficulties with another special interest group... ;0)
Will this voice of reason be heard? Not interested or don't like it, throw the flier away.
This poor kid has quite a father - - he's the kind of father who will enthusiastically let a homosexual take his little boy off into the woods. If I ran the local FBI office, I'd kick this guy's door down in the middle of the night and see what kind of stuff he has on his computer. It is entirely possible the father is a pedophile.
One thing's for sure - - you can bet the other neighborhood Dads won't want their sons playing over the Hiltons' house. I sure wouldn't.
I was in the Girl Scouts for years (Brownie and Junior) and there was more to it than just selling cookies, let me tell you. I'm still friends with some of the girls that were in my troop and I have great memories of the activities we shared. We went camping, we went horseback riding, we worked with the elderly...wouldn't trade any of that. I think that people have just gone insane to want to keep children away from wholesome organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. My old Jr. Girl Scout sash is still displayed in my old bedroom with the many badges I earned, along with a framed picture of me and my troop members the day we all graduated from high school. My brother still keeps in touch with the friends he made in Boy Scouts. You'd have to be a sicko to want to keep young men and women away from experiencing something like that. It was, plainly put, FUN. Good clean FUN.
http://www.girlscouts.org/adults/justforvolunteers/index.html
Volunteer to help your local Boy Scouts:
http://www.scouting.org/nav/enter.jsp?c=ss
Now more than ever these organizations need our help, as they are under threat from the ultra-PC crowd.
Famous Boy Scouts:
Neil Armstrong, James Brady, Steve Oswald, Gerald Ford, James Lovell, Dan Jansen, JFK, Nolan Ryan, Hank Aaron, Mark Spitz, George Strait, Ross Perot.
Famous Girl Scouts:
Laura Bush, Margaret Bourke-White, Rosalyn Carter, Marion Anderson, Katie Couric, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Candace Bergen, Elizabeth Dole, Kay Granger, Julie Eisenhower Nixon, Marilyn Quayle, Nancy Reagan, Sandra Day O'Connor, Jane Pauley, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Martha Stewart, Bonnie Blair, Peggy Fleming, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Ann Landers.
So they're in GOOD company.
Because some people are allergic to peanuts. Funny how 20 years ago you almost never heard of people who were allergic to peanuts...sure, they existed, but they were freakishly rare. I miss dem peanuts.
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