The Constitution and the Boy Scouts

Stratosphere ^ | 5/12/05 | Unknown

[RonF]

A panel of leading constitutional scholars, including Dean Kenneth Starr, will debate "The Constitution and The Boy Scouts: Equal Access to Government Land and the First Amendment,” on Wednesday, May 18 from noon to 2 p.m. Pacific Time.

The public and the media are invited to attend the program or to watch and participate in the Internet. For those attending in person, lunch will be served free of charge.

The program is sponsored by the Federalist Society on Law and Public Policy and will be held at the Wyndham Hotel at Emerald Plaza 400 West Broadway, San Diego, CA, in the Crystal Ballroom. If you want to attend in person, you are asked to register for the event by calling (202) 822-8138 or by sending an email to rsvp@fed-soc.org

Specific cases affecting the Boy Scouts will be discussed, as well as the constitutional rights of charities to have access to public forums and government property.

The 90-minute program will be webcast live from San Diego, California, the site of important litigation between the ACLU and Boy Scouts of America. A panel of leading constitutional scholars will debate the issues from both the pro-ACLU and pro-Boy Scout perspectives:

Professor Vikram Amar, University of California Hastings College of Law Professor Alan Brownstein, University of California Davis School of Law George Davidson, Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, BSA National Counsel Professor John Eastman, Chapman University School of Law Dean Kenneth Starr, Pepperdine University School of Law Dean Daniel Rodriguez, University of San Diego Law School (moderator)

After the Supreme Court's decision in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, holding that Boy Scouts have the right to decide leadership standards based on observance of the Scout Oath and Law, the ACLU argues that leases of parkland to Boy Scouts by the City of San Diego are unconstitutional. The Boy Scouts argue, on the other hand, that it would be unconstitutional for the City to refuse to lease to the Boy Scouts when it has more than 100 leases to other non-profit groups on similar terms. (For more background on the San Diego case, please visit BSA's legal issues website www.bsalegal.org )

The 90-minute webcast begins live promptly at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time (1:30 p.m. Mountain, 2:30 p.m. Central, 3:30 p.m. Eastern). You will be able to send questions to the panelists during the program. To access the webcast, open your browser and go to this URL: http://www.vcnetcast.com/fed.

You will need high-speed Internet access and either Windows Media Player or RealPlayer.

To send questions to the panel during the program, send an email to scoutpanel@fed-soc.org Questions may be edited for length and clarity or condensed from several similar questions. If you do not want the moderator to say your name when asking the question, please say so in your email.

We hope that you will log on, watch, and participate in this important debate.

Visit www.BSAlegal.org

[RonF]

This is an e-mail I received. I thought it would be of interest to the BSA supporters out there. If someone has a BSA ping list I'd love for them to ping this.

I am not familiar with the organization sponsoring this and have no idea if they take an advocacy position on this issue.

[RonF]

Ping to the list

[AFPhys]

http://www.fed-soc.org/

The Federalist Society is one of the members of TownHall.com.

A highly recommended organization.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping

[MacDorcha]

Thanks for the ping!

[moog]

I wish I could be to this. It would be most interesting, though I have to wonder what the "debate" is because there should not be any. The Boy Scouts should be left alone.