Posted on 06/17/2010 6:36:51 AM PDT by NYer
PHILADELPHIA, PA, June 16, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) On Tuesday opening arguments were heard in a case involving the Cradle of Liberty Scout Council, which is challenging the city of Philadelphia's decision to evict the Council from a building that it built and has maintained since 1929. The city said it would carry through with the eviction unless the Council rejected the Boy Scouts of America's policy banning open homosexuals from membership.
In the Boy Scouts of America v. Dale case of 2000, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) were constitutionally permitted to prohibit open homosexuals from being members or troop leaders.
The city argues, however, that while the Council is free to exercise its First Amendment right to create its own policies, it is not free to benefit from the city while violating city anti-discrimination policy.
The city had told the Scouts that unless they cough up $200,000 a year in rent for the land, they must either leave or change their rules.
The Cradle of Liberty Council says that the city council is being "selective" in its application of the anti-discrimination ordinance.
They argue that other private groups that discriminate in their membership, such as a Roman Catholic parish and the Colonial Dames of America, also enjoy subsidized leases and have not been threatened with the end of their lease agreements.
The Colonial Dames, for instance, limit membership to Americans with a direct descendent who lived in a colony before 1750 and who served his country before July 4, 1776.
The building in question was constructed with money raised by the Scouts 80 years ago. Since that time, the Council has paid all costs associated with the maintenance, repair, and improvement of the building. The land on which the building sits had been turned over to the city by the Scouts with the understanding that the Scouts would be able to stay in the Beaux Arts style building "in perpetuity."
Cradle of Liberty officials have since renovated the building for over $2 million. The Cradle of Liberty Council serves over 87,000 youths in the area; the Philadelphia building is one of its two headquarters.
The Boy Scouts call for members to be "morally straight" and "clean in thought, word, and deed," which a 1991 BSA statement says excludes homosexual conduct.
Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter will oversee the trial. Buckwalter issued an injunction in 2009 banning the scouts from being evicted before the trial.
See related stories on LifeSiteNews.com:
Philadelphia Boy Scouts to Lose Historic Building for Not Accepting Homosexuality
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07121107.html
Philly City Council Ends 79-Year Boy Scout Lease Over Refusal to Accept Homosexual Leaders
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jun/07060104.html
Ping!
Leftists are not “activists”, they are INFECTIVISTS.
They can’t be satisfied until their perverse and twisted worldview pervades every aspect of our lives.
why would anyone want a homo in the boyscouts?
Scouts under attack again!
Funny how the left does not want to start the “Gay Boy Scouts” but instead have to destroy anything that does not agree with their point-of-view...
Somehow the idea of allowing homosexual men taking little boys into the woods overnight doesn’t strike these folk as supremely stupid.
Poofters!
The city isn't doing the Boy Scouts any favors. The Boy Scouts have a legal claim on the property. I'm sure some "legal scholar" will come along and explain how the homophiles have all the rights, and homosexual pedophiles have a constitutional right to other people's children.
Despite the growing media consensus that Catholicism causes sodomy, an alternative view -- adopted by the Boy Scouts -- is that sodomites cause sodomy. (Assume all the usual disclaimers here about most gay men not molesting boys, most Muslims being peaceful, and so on.)
It is a fact that the vast majority of the abuser priests -- more than 90 percent -- are accused of molesting teen-age boys. Indeed, the overwhelmingly homosexual nature of the abuse prompted The New York Times to engage in its classic "Where's Waldo" reporting style, in which the sex of the victims is studiedly hidden amid a torrent of genderless words, such as the "teen-ager," the "former student," the "victim" and the "accuser."
Meanwhile, no spate of sex scandals is engulfing the Boy Scouts of America. Inasmuch as the Boy Scouts were not taking risk-assessment advice from Norman Mineta, they decided to eliminate a whole category of potential problems by refusing to allow gay men to be scout leaders. Perhaps gay scout leaders just really liked camping. But it was also possible that gay men who wanted to lead troops of adolescent boys into the woods were up to no good.
For their politically incorrect risk-assessment technique, the Boy Scouts were denounced as troglodyte bigots in all outlets of appropriate liberal opinion. Cities and states across the country dropped their support for the scouts. The United Way, Chase Manhattan Bank and Textron withdrew millions of dollars in contributions.
And hell hath no fury like a New York Times editor spurned. The Times denounced the Supreme Court decision merely permitting the Boy Scouts to refuse gay scoutmasters as one of the court's "lowest moments." The Times "ethicist" advised readers that pulling their sons out of the Boy Scouts was "the ethical thing to do.
The Boy Scouts should be made into a campaign issue. I think most Americans think highly of the Scouts. I doubt that many know how the left is arrayed against them.
Soon: Leather and Fisting merit badge.
The filthy disease-ridden queers want to be in the Boy Scouts in order to scout boys.
So to speak ...
It's supremely stupid from the POV of a Boy Scout, or from the POV of a Boy Scout's father.
From the POV of a filthy, disease-ridden, child-molesting pervert, though ...
Ask your liberal friends this: Should male leaders be able to take teenage girls camping without a female adult as chaperone?
The Scouts have a legal claim to the building. The city owns the land it sits on, and have been allowing the Scouts to use it rent-free. Since there was only a hand-shake agreement on the rent-free status to begin with then the city is free to change it at any time. So if the Scouts lose the case then I assume the city has to give them something for the value of the building they're forcing the Scouts to abandon?
In my town, the Boy Scouts have exploded in popularity. The unit into which my son just bridged went from 13 active members to 30. And that’s just after bridging!
Now, if the BSA has to go all girly-rainbows just watch for the inverse.
That's what the libs want because "gay men are no more likely to molest young boys than are straight men". They think the symbolic value outweighs any (no doubt unlikely) costs of that change. I don't think their logic even needs a response.
I was expecting you.
If the rent deal is invalid, so should the transfer of the land be invalidated...property reverts to the Boy Scouts.
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