Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Berkeley can boot Scouts, court says
Sacramento Bee ^ | Nov. 26, 02 | Claire Cooper

Posted on 11/26/2002 9:28:29 AM PST by churchillbuff

Edited on 04/12/2004 5:46:29 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

The city is allowed to rescind the free berth at the marina because of the group's ban on gays.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Sea Scouts are no longer entitled to a free berth at Berkeley's marina, an appeals court ruled Monday in a decision that lets the city enforce its policy of nondiscrimination toward homosexuals against an affiliate of the adamantly anti-gay Boy Scouts.


(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; US: California
KEYWORDS: berkley; boyscouts; bsa; bsalist; homosexuality; scouts; seascouts
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-79 last
Comment #61 Removed by Moderator

To: DrJET
Are there any Catholic churches in Berkeley built on city property? Anybody can go into a Catholic church, but a non-Catholic will be proscribed from participating in the service.

I'm not Catholic, but I've been to a few Catholic services and masses. The only part I can remember not taking part in was the wafer thing - but I didn't take part because I had no desire to. I don't remember the priest saying that you had to be Catholic to do it. How does this work in practice - does the priest ask people who is Catholic before certain services begin?
62 posted on 11/27/2002 10:35:59 AM PST by Stone Mountain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: WilliamWallace1999
You miss the point. If absolutely no other private group is getting any kind of assistance from Berkley, then this is completely kosher. OTOH, if the scouts were singled out from other "private" groups, then this is an outrage

This is a state and local issue just like the Ten Commandments case in Alabama should be.

63 posted on 11/27/2002 10:42:53 AM PST by Eternal_Bear
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Stone Mountain
If you are accusing me of being a low-life who attacks innocent patriotic boys (of which I myself was a member), kindly come out and say so. I don't appreciate your implication.

If the shoe fits...

64 posted on 11/27/2002 11:38:00 AM PST by PeoplesRepublicOfWashington
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]

To: Stone Mountain
Even God gave up on Soddom and Gomorrah and warned Lott and his family to flee. The area that is the topic of this post seems to have embraced the same habits as those two cities.

Lots of luck in turning it around.
65 posted on 11/27/2002 12:09:54 PM PST by F.J. Mitchell
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: PeoplesRepublicOfWashington
Wow.. you got all that from one phrase which turned out to be completely true. Amazing - have you considered taking your circus act on the road?
66 posted on 11/27/2002 2:48:44 PM PST by Stone Mountain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: Steve_Seattle
A BSA council in NJ just did that in thier new by-laws. Will not discriminate on basis of race...sexual orientation.

Their excuse was it was hurting fundriasing.

FOS, for our salary.
67 posted on 11/27/2002 2:59:15 PM PST by Coleus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: Coleus
The Boy Scouts were formerly recipients of United Way funding. I don't know if they still are as I stopped donating to United Way long ago as they could offer no real documentable proof that my money was not going to some of the left wing organizations they support. Anyway, I doubt the Boy Scouts are still part of United Way.
Rather than contribute to United Way which funds many left wing, anti gun groups I suggest you tell the United Way how you feel about their member organizations and that all further contributions you would have given to UW will go to the Boy Scouts in the future.
68 posted on 11/27/2002 3:24:47 PM PST by nomorecameljocks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 67 | View Replies]

To: laker_dad
There was another tie: an informal deal, "rocks for docks," in which the Scouts allowed Berkeley to take rocks from one of their camps to create fill at the marina in exchange for the free berths.

Seems to me, the Scouts PAID/BARTERED a berth...I see that the Darth side of the DemonRATs is now surfacing..."I have altered the bargain. Pray that I do not alter it further".

Seems to me the Scouts can, in court, show they have OWNERSHIP of a berth due to their arrangement.

Ergo, tell the Bezerkleys' to pound sand instead of some other orifice!

69 posted on 11/27/2002 4:14:19 PM PST by Itzlzha
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: nomorecameljocks
Yes, but why is this council in NJ allowing gays into scouting? For Money $$$. They are bucking National BSA and formed their own policy so they can fudraise easily and not deal with the issue at hand.
70 posted on 11/27/2002 8:57:12 PM PST by Coleus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: nomorecameljocks; Coleus
The Boy Scouts were formerly recipients of United Way funding. I don't know if they still are as I stopped donating to United Way long ago as they could offer no real documentable proof that my money was not going to some of the left wing organizations they support. Anyway, I doubt the Boy Scouts are still part of United Way.

There are 1600 local United Way chapters in the U.S. About two dozen of them, or about 1.5%, have stopped funding BSA Councils over this matter. The rest are still doing so.

My own local Council is an exemplar of this. Eleven UW chapters have historically provided funding to our Council. One of them stopped doing so over this issue. The other 10 still provide funding to our Council, over $116,000 this last year.

71 posted on 11/29/2002 4:49:50 PM PST by RonF
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: Stone Mountain
Having done that, I don't see why they should expect the City of Berkeley to pay for their docking fees, any more than the city should pay docking fees for any other yacht club that docks in the Marina.

Didn't the article say there was a quid pro quo with the city where the scouts did something with rocks to help fill a part of the marina?

So now the city is reneging on that in order to help the FAGGOTS.

72 posted on 11/29/2002 5:00:33 PM PST by saminfl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: RonF
It seems to me that the Berkeley City Council has every right to charge Ship 42 the same docking fee as any other NFP. .... the upper limit would seem to be what they charge a private party.

It's as if they think that since the BSA doesn't allow "avowed" gays or atheists as members, nothing about the BSA is good, and it deserves to have everything it has earned or paid for taken from it, and to be cut off from the public. It is, in fact, not at all far fetched to think that there are deliberate attempts to bleed it dry; the death of a thousand cuts.

Which is what Chad and I were trying to tell you on Salon "TableTalk", Ron: These are not nice people, under the rubric that "People who are nice to you but rude to the waiter, are not nice people."

Nice to see you again, and I think you got it right both times. No obligation on the part of Berkeley to treat the Scouts differently than other eleemosynary groups (taking a pass on the marina-fill issue), and no obligation on the Scouts to do what Berkeley's political leadership manifestly wants them to do.

On the whole, maybe the divorcement is a good thing. Maybe at the most basic level it's simply true, that Berkeley doesn't deserve the benefits of scouting, which ought to be redirected to other, nearby communities that appreciate Scouts and scouting instead.

73 posted on 11/29/2002 5:14:25 PM PST by lentulusgracchus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies]

To: Stone Mountain
The only part I can remember not taking part in was the wafer thing - but I didn't take part because I had no desire to.

If "the wafer thing" is how you think of it, then it would be better if you didn't participate. Practicing Catholicism isn't like signing up with Carnival Cruises for a five-day getaway to St. Bart's.

I don't remember the priest saying that you had to be Catholic to do it. How does this work in practice - does the priest ask people who is Catholic before certain services begin?

No. You're catechized and baptized into the faith if you're an adult, and you are further catechized, confessed, shriven, and given a penance of prayers to perform. Once this is accomplished, you may then share in Holy Communion. Baptism, confession, and Holy Communion are the three principal sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, and they don't play around with them.

74 posted on 11/29/2002 5:29:28 PM PST by lentulusgracchus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: nomorecameljocks
Many have stopped or considerably recduced funding. You would be better off in just giving to the individual councils or troops.
75 posted on 11/29/2002 6:00:08 PM PST by Coleus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: lentulusgracchus
Ha! Another TT'er. Oh, no, I have never been under the opinion that everyone condemning the BSA's policies had only the welfare of young people in mind. Some opponents would be quite pleased to destroy the organization, or greatly change it's nature to a mere youth recreational league.

If the Berkeley City Marina uses any Federal subsidies in their capital or operational budgets, I wonder if the Equal Access Act could be applied in such a way as to negate the local anti-discrimination policy?

Of course, using a Federal law to override a local one is not exactly conservative, is it?

76 posted on 11/29/2002 6:45:08 PM PST by RonF
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies]

To: RonF
Of course, using a Federal law to override a local one is not exactly conservative, is it?

Exactly -- my first thought on reading your suggestion, I had it before I reached the end of the sentence! It isn't exactly condemning the fascizing passions of the Left, to go out and imitate them. Of course, it was amusing to hear them start to chant "Stare decisis!" when the possibility of putting together five conservative votes on the Supreme Court began to loom large with the confirmation of Clarence Thomas. As if the liberals on the Supreme Court had ever done any such thing! "Penumbras" and "interstices", my happy ass!

William F. Buckley, Jr., has written a lot about the ideal of "subsidiarity", which is the idea that local problems should be settled at the local level, and so on. That ideal leaves open somewhat the possibility for debate about whether a given problem is local, state, or national -- if some repercussion can be shown -- which was the preoccupation of the Supreme Court during much of the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations, when the Court ran riot with laughable stretches of the Commerce Clause to justify Congressional and Executive invasions of Tenth Amendment rights and powers.

So I wouldn't be in favor of using federal law to pimp Berkeley, howbeit that that would be a summarily condign punishment for Leftist weenies who put that blunderbuss in the hands of a conservative Administration. That is why the Left, and especially the Left Media, hated Nixon's guts -- he used their tools, their beautiful Imperial Presidency that the Congress had built for JFK to sit in, to screw them! To me, Nixon was a great if perverse teacher -- he taught us why we shouldn't give presidents sweeping powers, and why their powers should be constitutionally circumscribed, and the office filled with circumspect men who respect the office, the Constitution, and the People. And since I've mentioned Bill Buckley, it's worth mentioning that he has publicly admired the Swiss in this, that their government officials so rarely exhibit the typical pol's hunger for fame and power, that ordinary Swiss citizens would be embarrassed by a request that they name their last four presidents.

Before leaving the point about subsidiarity, I would add that I've read that it's more a Catholic than a conservative, or a constitutional, or even an American idea, though I've never seen substantiation or documentation of that statement. Buckley is the person I most associate with its propagation, and he's a devout Catholic, so it could be true, or not. But subsidiarity would require that the problem be worked out at City Hall level, unless City Hall were violating state law or the California constitution.

77 posted on 11/30/2002 4:16:37 PM PST by lentulusgracchus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 76 | View Replies]

To: lentulusgracchus
Thanks for the info. I meant no disrespect by saying the "wafer thing" - I just couldn't remember what it was called at the time of the post. My question still applies though - my post was in response to someone who said that the Catholic church didn't qualify as a public accomodation since not everyone can take part in all of the services. You seem to be saying that only Catholics can take part in Holy Communion, Baptism and confession. I'm still curious as to how this works in practice. If the priest doesn't ask people who aren't Catholic to participate, how does he know that only Catholics are taking part?
78 posted on 12/02/2002 10:59:26 AM PST by Stone Mountain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy
economic terrorism facilitated by the judicial system.

I wonder if that is what's going on here.

There is a real good defense to that type of economic assault: don't hire a lawyer. No lawyer, no legal fees. Your not required to have a lawyer.

And you can turn that approach on the party waging legal econmic war by calling their lawyer several times a week - not to harrass but to "work the case."

Run up their legal bill with every sort of legitimate request imaginable. Document every request and take special note of any failure to supply what you have asked for. If you go to court, make the case for postponment on the basis their side has not been forthcoming. You can play this out for a long, long time (and run up one heck of a bill - for their side).

79 posted on 12/02/2002 11:10:20 AM PST by BJungNan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-79 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson