San Francisco judges cut ties to Scouts over gays

Washington Times ^ | 8/07/02 | Ellen Sorokin

[kattracks]

San Francisco's judges have become the first in the United States to cut ties with the Boy Scouts of America because of the organization's refusal to admit homosexuals.

The city's Superior Court judges and commissioners

[Looking for Diogenes]

Statewide ethical standards, adopted by the state Supreme Court in 1995, forbid judges to join organizations that discriminate against homosexuals, unless they were "nonprofit youth organizations," which was an exception designed for the Boy Scouts.

Religious groups were also exempted.

[MedicalMess]

Under the new policy, the judges and commissioners cannot be Scoutmasters, troop leaders or be a member of a governing board that is in any way affiliated with the Boy Scouts

Hey the San Francisco chapter of scouts are safer already.

[lavaroise]

The city's Superior Court judges and commissioners — in response to a resolution from a local bar association — have adopted a policy that prohibits them from participating as members in a chapter or branch of any organization that "discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation by excluding members on the grounds that their sexual orientation renders them 'unclean,' 'immoral,' or 'unfit.'"

So the public court can discriminate but the private Boy Scouts cannot??? The Stalinized upside down world of San Francisco.

[Nuke'm Glowing]

From Kookiefornia, what a shock (not). And you folks in the land of fruits and nuts wonder why those of us back east would gladly trade ALL of the politicians in your state for anything or anyone, hell, even a beat up 1987 Honda Civic. If Commiefornia is always leading the way in this nation, I guess I must learn "The Internationale" or be prepared to go to a camp.

[Lancey Howard]

Any parents who would deliberately raise children in San Francisco should be jailed for child abuse. The place is sick beyond hope.
C'mon, earthquake!!

[American in Israel]

"The San Francisco bench has always appreciated the diversity of its own members and of the citizens who have occasion to deal with the court system," Judge Quidachay said. "We are pleased to have the opportunity to reconfirm that commitment."

Funny that the way they confirm their commitment to diverstity is to ban a group of people who will not go along with their definition of diversity. Rather Orwellian eh? You look in the dictionary and diversity is about allowing differences, not ordaining which are allowable from the judicial bench.

[TxBec]

Under the new policy, the judges and commissioners cannot be Scoutmasters, troop leaders or be a member of a governing board that is in any way affiliated with the Boy Scouts, or any other organization that excludes homosexuals.

hmm, will they not be allowed to attend church next?

[evad]

Hey the San Francisco chapter of scouts are safer already

My sentiments exactly!

A definite positive for the scouts. The ONLY organization, besides FR, that I make sure I donate to on a scheduled basis.

[JonH]

I guess that our left coast has not learned a thing from the media attention to the Catholic Church's problems with gay prists that have an apparently uncontrollable affection for young boys!

The scouts were right to exclude gay scout troop leaders when this started and they are even more obviously right today.

[Mfkmmof4]

Yet the same judges will sue if their children are touched by gays in the priesthood.....yet be upset that gays ARE NOT allowed in the scouts.

[Free the USA]

Index Bump

[Coleus]

The Library of Congress

On my honor I will do my best
to do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the scout law;
to help other people at all times;
to keep myself physically strong;
mentally awake, and morally straight.

The Boy Scout Oath

Boy Scouts in Front of Capitol,
Washington, D.C.,
John Rous, photographer,
circa July 1941.
FSA/OWI Photographs, 1935-1945

On August 21, 1912, Arthur R. Eldred of Oceanside, New York achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America. He was the first person to earn the award.

The Boy Scout movement began with the 1908 publication of British Lieutenant General Robert S.S. Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys. In 1902, nature writer Ernest Thompson Seton advocated organizing a boys' club called "Woodcraft Indians." Seton inspired Baden-Powell's efforts to marshall existing boys' groups into scout patrols. Baden-Powell's book describes the games and activities he developed to train cavalry troops during the South African War and suggests an organizational framework for scouting. The appeal of Scouting for Boys reflected the popular fascination with nature-based recreation as a means of character development.

The Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910 with President William Howard Taft as honorary president. By 1912, every state could claim a band of Scouts. Soon, the organization inaugurated its program of national civic Good Turns--promotion of a "sane and safe" Fourth of July was among the earliest of these campaigns. Congress granted the Boy Scouts a Federal Charter in 1916, authorizing a Scout uniform similar to a U.S. armed services uniform.

In the 1930s, Vito Cacciola, an Italian immigrant living in New England, extolled the virtues of scouting to Merton Lovett in an interview for the Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration. According to the conventions of the day, Lovett attempted to capture Cacciola's accent by transcribing his words in dialect:

I thinka de Boy Scouts is good for boys . . . de Italian boys maka good Boy Scouts . . . It maka de boys strong. It maka them acquainted with nature. Some Italian boys does not know de flowers and de trees. The wilds animals and birds they does not recognize. Yes, it is better than playa on de street. And I thinka they learna some good lessons, what?

"Interview with Vito Cacciola," circa 1936-1940.
American Life Histories, 1936-1940

In 1912, Juliette Gordon Low started the Girl Scouts in Savannah, Georgia. Her efforts to bring fresh-air activities to girls proved popular. By the following year, national headquarters were established in Washington, D.C. The Girl Scout cookie sale quickly became an important fund raiser for the organization. Initially homemade, by the 1930s Girl Scouts peddled precursors of the commercially-baked delicacies we know today.

Use the American Memory Collection to learn more about the roots of Scouting in the United States:

• Learn more about the conservation movement and its influence on scouting. Track down Ernest Thompson Seton's best-selling book Wild Animals I Have Known (1898) in the American Memory collection Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920.

  
  "The Boy Scout's Dream,"
  V. Paul Jones, music
  1915.
  Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920

• The South Texas Border: The Robert Runyon Photograph Collection contains a wonderful panoramic photograph of Texas Boy Scouts from May 20, 1916.

• Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America, 1935-1955 holds a series of interior and exterior shots of the Girl Scouts of America's former headquarters at 3rd Avenue and 51st Street, New York City. Search the collection on Girl Scout to access these photos.

• Search on the keyword boy scout in the collection Prosperity and Thrift, 1921-1929 to find an address given by President Calvin Coolidge to the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America in 1926, and to see an image of Coolidge with 1500 boy scouts who visited the White House in 1927.

• Search across all the American Memory collections on the term scout to see images, not only of boy scouts and girl scouts but also military scouts. See, for example, A Gentleman of the "Old West": Scout, Indian Figher, Hunter, Trapper from the collection The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920 and Scouts Report from Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian.

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Sources

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