Posted on 03/08/2004 11:26:44 PM PST by JohnHuang2
LAW OF THE LAND
Supreme Court rejects Boy Scouts' appeal
State can exclude group due to policy against homosexual leaders
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
The U.S. Supreme Court today allowed Connecticut to exclude the Boy Scouts of America from a state charitable program because of the Scouts' policy barring avowed homosexuals from leadership.
Critics said the high court's refusal to revisit the ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals threatens not only the First Amendment right to expressive association but also the right to free exercise of religion.
The decision has "far reaching implications that could threaten the constitutional rights of religious-based organizations that seek to promote and preserve their organizational values, particularly with regard to the issue of homosexuality," said the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.
For more than 30 years, the Boy Scouts had participated in the Connecticut State Employee Campaign Committee, which allows private groups to receive charitable donations through voluntary payroll deductions from state employees.
State officials denied the Boy Scouts access to the program, claiming the organization violated state non-discrimination laws by excluding avowed homosexuals from positions of leadership.
The organization says "such employment would interfere with scouting's mission of transmitting values to youth."
"Permitting this decision [Second Circuit Court of Appeals] to stand would in effect allow governments to legally extort organizations and individuals to give up basic beliefs," said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, prior to the ruling.
Thompson noted homosexual activist organizations such as the Lambda Legal Defense Fund are allowed to participate in the state charitable campaign.
Lambda Senior Staff Attorney Evan Wolfson has said, "As long as the Boy Scouts' leaders are insisting on an exclusionary membership policy, the rest of us, especially public schools, parents, and donors, are going to dissociate ourselves from discrimination against our kids."
The Law Center said this decision, coupled with the Supreme Court's ruling less than two weeks ago allowing the state of Washington to discriminate in its scholarship program against a Christian college student who majored in theology, is evidence of a "disturbing anti-Christian trend in the federal courts."
"It suggests that the Supreme Court has taken sides in the culture war facing our nation," Thompson said.
In 2000, the Supreme Court affirmed by a 5-4 vote the Scouts' policy of excluding homosexuals from leadership.
The decision, Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, held the youth organization had a constitutionally based right to discriminate on the basis of "sexual orientation." James Dale was an Eagle Scout whose adult membership in the Boy Scouts was revoked when the organization learned that he was an avowed homosexual and homosexual-rights activist.
The organization, founded in 1910, has more than 2.5 million youth members and 1 million adult members.
I'm sure you and the rest of your "Let's Roll Over and Die Party" are going to have plenty of disappointments the rest of your lives.
I'm happy for you, truly I am. Sitting back and doing nothing to change the situation is so much easier then actually doing something...or even trying to do something.
And since you've already come to the conclusion that your doomed, you're never be disappointed politically. You might not be happy but hey, that's just one of the minor costs of the "Let's Roll Over and Die Party".
Oh, and what you consider a glib attitude...well, that simply the will and determination to keep up the struggle. I know that concept might appear glib to you but hey, just sit back a coast along with the ride. Where you end up...well, that doesn't matter...you don't care. All your roads lead to doom.
President Bush isn't one of your 77.7%.
Why? Just because the rule of thumb I've observed for the past 30 years or so is that the conservatives are always right (about predicting what will follow if such-and-such happens) and the liberals always win? Then by the time the conservatives are proved right, no one (read mainstream media and "opinion makers") cares. Of course, the dire predictions of conservatives might have been what they wanted all along.
But I've always made the votes necessary to best "advance" my ideals and desires, and always will. And that has included a few libertarians at the local level.
I refuse to throw my vote away in protest and I won't just give up.
Like you, Governor Bush wasn't my first choice, but two things changed that.
1) He became one of two choices, and
2) The more I studied what he had done in Texas the more I became interested in the man. He does what he thinks is right, regardless of whichever party he offends.
And while he doesn't do everything I want, and does things I don't like, I don't think he's doing a half bad job and if the Republicans in Congress had any spine I think he'd do a far better job.
And I don't have any illusions about November. There are two choices: President Bush and John Kerry. Now I'm going to do everything in my power to get the President re-elected, and to get him and the GOP to do what I want them to.
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| Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1) |
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| The Stamp of Normality |
Kerry, who is personally endorsed by Yasser Arafat, Haiti's Aristide, Iran's Mullahs, Traitor "Red Jane" Fonda, Kim Jong Il, (& Kim Il Jong), Mugabe, Marxist thug Chavez of Venezuela, Castro of Cuba, & France's Jacques Chirac, is a weapon of mass economic destruction.
He'll destroy the troops in Iraq, the War on Terrorism,
& the U.S. stock market with all his negative talk and whiny-leftist-liberal sour-puss troop-bashing, Bush-bashing, America-bashing talk & self-aggrandizing, ultra-negative sourpuss whiny elitist personality.
Wasn't that his dad who gave us Thomas?
Nominated by President Bush as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court: took oath of office October 23, 1991.
In this regard I think George the first did a far better job then Ronald.
And THIS court was shaped by Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and George H.W. Bush. Not exactly a stellar track record for the GOP.
And any way you slice it, even Reagans picks have been better then those justices we've gotten from third party presidents.
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