Posted on 02/15/2002 6:50:19 AM PST by DoSomethingAboutIt
Libertarians in Santa Barbara, California have scored a victory for freedom of association by helping to nullify a resolution that censured the local Boy Scouts chapter.
On November 14, county supervisors approved a statute forbidding the government from discriminating against private organizations -- even if that group has "incorrect membership requirements," said Santa Barbara LP Secretary Robert Bakhaus.
"Even the U.S. Supreme Court had said the Boy Scouts have the right to associate, and make their own internal rules as they choose," he said. "If LPers could not lead in such a case as local government censuring the Boy Scouts, who would?"
The new statute invalidated a resolution adopted in March by a 3-2 vote, which censured the Boy Scouts for refusing to allow gay men to serve as scoutmasters.
County commissioners said the Boy Scout's policy violated the country's anti-discrimination law. The censure would have allowed county officials to prevent Scouts from using local camp grounds, leasing property from the city, or passing out leaflets on school grounds.
However, the Boy Scouts of America said the gay lifestyle violated the organization's oath, which requires members to be "morally straight." It won a U.S Supreme court decision in June 2000, which affirmed its right to decide who could be a Boy Scout.
Bakhaus said Libertarians support the right of the Boy Scouts to set their own membership requirements without government interference -- even if some Libertarians personally oppose those requirements.
"Even bigots have rights," he said. "Private organizations [should have] the right to make their own membership and leadership rules."
After the commission passed its resolution in March, "libertarian sympathizer" Michael Warnken and local LP members collected 20,000 signatures to put an initiative on the ballot to overturn it.
Libertarians helped drum up publicity for the campaign by sending letters to the editors of local papers, appearing at meetings and rallies, and speaking out on local television shows, said Bakhaus.
A number of conservative Republicans also joined the effort, which shows that small organizations "can't afford to be shy about having allies," he said.
"[Our LP affiliate is] too small to abolish taxation or achieve other radical reforms outright. We must first develop our clout by helping enforce the current good laws limiting government, while rallying better liberals and conservatives to uphold the best American traditions of freedom," he said.
However, the coalition ran into opposition from the county attorney's office, which filed a suit to stop the petitioning.
The attorney claimed the initiative language was "vague," and that only a statute or regulation -- not a resolution -- was subject to invalidation by initiative.
In response, activists changed the language of the measure meet state initiative requirements, and hired their own attorney to defend them from legal attacks, said Bakhaus.
With the initiative back on track and a large public turn-out at the commission's November meeting, county commissioners decided to nullify the anti-Boy Scout resolution, said Bakhaus.
"[It] was approved as law without a vote of the people, thanks in part to a large public showing -- but mostly by the fears of an electoral backlash if it went to a vote," he said.
Most importantly, Libertarians learned valuable lessons from the experience, said Bakhaus.
"The [Santa Barbara LP] learned that a countywide petition drive is not outside the bounds of doability," he said. "We also learned that a 1% investment ratio can be leveraged into victory, if that investment consists of extensive knowledge and experience about the intricacies of real politics."
Racial discrimination in housing and employment is illegal.
> Racial discrimination in housing and employment is illegal.
This is the point I was trying to make. The wolves have eaten the sheep, no matter what the Constitution says about eating sheep.
And I don't think they'll quit. Next, they'll make it illegal for White men to refuse to marry Black women. Then, it will be agains the law for White men to refuse to marry Black MEN!! As long as they control the media, they can force anything on us. They can even get the Constitution itself repealed if they want to!
That is, as long as they are more powerful than we are. It's all up to US.
This is the point I was trying to make. The wolves have eaten the sheep, no matter what the Constitution says about eating sheep.
Your reply to Roscoe's nonsense hits the mark - and I like the way you put it. The BoR is pretty clear - its not ambiguous. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th and 10th amendments have been violated on a daily basis for years, and all because of an apathetic public who are at the mercy of an out of control legal system where lawyers, many of which have no legitimate marketable skill, use chicanery and lies to convince the masses that they serve a purpose that is good for individuals, while only enriching and impowering themselves and their friends.
You're seconding that?
That's the sort of racist rhetoric David Duke uses. Are you agreeing with it?
I just love his moral backbone.
Is that immoral?
You can't & won't, - as usual.
Not that part, just to equate defending the scouts right to practice morality in excluding sexual deviants to defending Larry Flynt's right to print his material.
What an "interesting" position to take.
big·ot
n.
One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
[French, from Old French.]
Word History: Bigots may have more in common with God than one might think. Legend has it that Rollo, the first duke of Normandy, refused to kiss the foot of the French king Charles III, uttering the phrase bi got, his borrowing of the assumed Old English equivalent of our expression by God. Although this story is almost surely apocryphal, it is true that bigot was used by the French as a term of abuse for the Normans, but not in a religious sense. Later, however, the word, or very possibly a homonym, was used abusively in French for the Beguines, members of a Roman Catholic lay sisterhood. From the 15th century on Old French bigot meant “an excessively devoted or hypocritical person.” Bigot is first recorded in English in 1598 with the sense “a superstitious hypocrite.”
A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. In an extended sense, a person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion.
-- You're late to the party '79. -- It is already estabished that it takes more backbone to fight for a slimeballs rights that to cheer for the king.
Glad you feel that way about our boyscouts. Is this a common Libertarian opinion you hold?
What if 51% of the people determine that the type of society they want to live in includes a landlord being forced to rent to certain individuals, or an employer being forced to hire certain people against his will, or one that restricts your right to practice your religion? Don't these types of laws constitute the very principals you advocate -- people determining what kind of society they want to live in?
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