Posted on 11/23/2007 2:51:44 PM PST by wagglebee
The city of Philadelphia is threatening to end a nearly 80-year building agreement with the nation’s third Boy Scouts chapter if the group doesn’t change its policy to accommodate gay employees.
All members of the local Scouts chapter, which operates as the Cradle of Liberty Council, must take the Scout Oath and Law in which they promise to do their duty to God and to be morally straight, as well as to be clean in their thoughts, words and deeds.
While the organization does not inquire about sexual orientation at the time of membership, the group bars an avowed homosexual from leadership because they believe such an individual would not be a role model for the values espoused in the Oath and Law, according to a past news release from Boy Scouts of America.
A 2000 Supreme Court ruling upheld the right of the national Boy Scouts to exclude openly gay members from its ranks since it was a private organization.
However, Philadelphia City Solicitor Romulo Diaz said the group’s currently policy amounts to discrimination and has set a Dec. 3 deadline for the Boy Scouts to either renounce their moral standards or lose the headquarters they have rented from the city for $1 a year since 1928, reported the Washington Post.
According to Diaz, the Boy Scouts’ policy conflicts with a local 1982 “fair practice” law which prohibits employers from conditioning employment on the basis of “sexual orientation.”
"While we respect the right of the Boy Scouts to prohibit participation in its activities by homosexuals, we will not subsidize that discrimination by passing on the costs to the people of Philadelphia," the Post reported Diaz as saying.
City officials have suggested that the Scouts can stay at the Beaux-Arts building if they agree to pay the building’s market value price which is tentatively set at $200,000 a year.
If the Scouts refuse the ultimatum, Diaz said he will begin looking for alternative tenants to take over the property June 1, 2008.
While the offer may seem fair, Robert Knight of the Media Research Center wrote in a column posted on TownHall.com Tuesday that the Post report left out many key facts to the dispute.
The Beaux-Arts building was in fact built by the Scouts and later given to the city in 1928, noted Knight.
He added that the Scouts had a lease “in perpetuity” with the city, an agreement that was not upheld by the City Council.
Knight also suggested that that the city stands to benefit greatly from the youth organization, noting that most of the crimes dealing with murder and violence are committed by fatherless young men.
In an interview on “Hannity & Colmes” Tuesday, Jeff Jubelirer, spokesman for Boy Scouts of America, said the group had already modified its policy with a non-discrimination statement issued by city officials.
The non-discrimination statement reads: "Prejudice, intolerance and unlawful discrimination in any form are unacceptable within the ranks of Cradle of Liberty Council.”
According to Jubelirer, the group was assured “that if you adopt this, we'll be fine, and nothing has happened since that time.”
The local chapter has also in the past tried to renounce an affiliation with the national policy in hopes of saving its headquarters but has met difficulties.
“We were trying to be amendable to all sides, but National would not allow us to keep that language, so we rescinded it,” said Jubelirer in the Post report. “We can’t have a policy where we put in specific words that National won’t allow or we’ll loose our charter. We can’t afford not to be part of the national Boy Scouts.”
Choosy boys picked loose girls, when they chose to lose their virginity.
“Sadly, metro Philadelphia has been a high crime zone for decades. It seems like a responsible city council would encourage institutions like the Boy Scouts. In recent years, however, city government has been promoting Philly as a gay tourist destination”
What ?...San Frandelphia as a tourist attraction ?
How about a deadline for Philly to go pound sand ?
I am sensing asbestos, lead paint, etc that many poor children were exposed too.......The City knew this and did nothing about it ?????
Well the multi-million dollar lawsuit by all the scouts and scoutmasters and "staff" (that have worked in that contaminated city property) against the city should provide enough funds to build a new headquarters and compensate all those more young men exposed over all those years.........:o)
Play the cities game, play it better than they do.......
The common link between liberals and Jihadis:
Demand of submission or destruction.
No matter how virtuous or innocent their target.
If there is a lease, move out as demanded, then sue the city for the full value of the lease, something the city has determined to be $200,000 a year, in perpetuity. (less what they had been paying, of course).
Philly has bigger things it ought to be worrying about, doesn't it?
A Scoutmaster is not an employee.
For most of his career, he lived in Washington, DC, he was appointed by President Clinton to serve as assistant administrator for management at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is a Charter Fellow of the Federal Bar Association; Treasurer of the Hispanic Bar Association of Pennsylvania
The architect of the harassment against the Scouts, City Solicitor Diaz, is openly homosexual, as has been reported in the Philadelphia press.
· The Scouts built the building with their own money, and then gave it to the city in 1928.
· The Scouts had a lease “in perpetuity” with the city, an agreement the City Council broke.
The chief bully, Diaz, got the last quote: “If I do not receive an executed lease, signed by the Boy Scouts, to remain as tenants paying a fair market rent, we will begin looking for alternative tenants that can take over the property June 1, 2008.”
Philadelphia had 406 homicides in 2006, courtesy of fatherless barbarians who could have benefited from character building offered by the Boy Scouts.
Bump
We should find a way to welcome the Boy Scouts to Delaware County, just to stick it to those *ssh*l*s in Philly.
The City of Philadelphia has an openly gay top lawyer. The job title for the position is solicitor. Philly’s gay solicitor is one Romulo L. Diaz Jr. Mr Diaz is a former Clinton appointee to the EPA. A liberal Democrat, Mr. Diaz believes that putting young b0ys at risk by pressuring the Boy Scouts to hire gay scout masters is something that will benefit the gay community; indeed it will.
The Boy Scouts in Philadelphia are housed in a building that they have leased since 1928. The original agreement with the city said that the Boy Scouts could use the building ‘in perpetuity.’ That was before the national Boy Scout organization realized that putting adults who lusted for ‘twinks’ out in the woods with a group of young boys was obviously a very bad idea. Why would anyone knowingly subject children to potential molestation? The national Boy Scout organization said that gay adult men could not cavort with the young boys in it’s organization and the Supreme Court agreed in 2000.
As part of the arrangement that the City of Philadelphia has had with the Boy Scout organization since 1928, the city would bill the Boy Scouts $1 dollar annually for leasing the aging building. This is common practice with not-for-profit organizations. Everything has run smoothly for the organization that has helped so many young men and the city. That was, until the city hired an openly gay city solicitor.
Now, the city solicitor, Mr. Diaz is using his position to leverage the gay agenda. It is just too convenient for a gay man, who is also the top lawyer in a major city to pass up the opportunity to strong-arm the Boy Scouts. Mr. Diaz is demanding that the Boy Scouts pay the city $200,000 a year to lease the quarters that has been theirs since 1928. He claims that the Boys Scouts attempt to keep gay men away from their twinks amounts to discrimination. How dare anyone attempt to protect young boys!
City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. said a recent push to force the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts Council to denounce the national organization’s antigay policy had nothing to do with his own homosexuality.
“My own sexuality, my own sexual orientation, has never been hidden and never played into my decision,” Diaz said in an interview yesterday with The Inquirer. “It has, perhaps, made me more sensitive to the issues.”
Diaz said he sent another letter yesterday morning seeking a meeting with William T. Dwyer III, council chief executive officer and president. Diaz, the city’s first openly gay solicitor and a former Cub Scout, said he hoped to have a “direct dialogue” with the council.
“I’m trying to figure out what their policy means. Do they intend to discriminate against openly gay Boy Scouts?” he said.
Last week, the Street administration threatened the scouts with eviction...
ping
“It’s been reported that the solicitor is openly homosexual — and who cares — but I wonder if it’s something that he and members of the activist gay community want: to kick the Boy Scouts out of their building.”
Diaz declined to answer questions about his sexual orientation, but said it was irrelevant because his job was to enforce what the city has voted and agreed on.
“I’m doing my job,” he said. “I’m taking it on because I was directed by the mayor, City Council and the Fairmount Park Commission.”
The Beaux Arts 1928-era building stands on land owned by the city, and Philadelphia officials say they can’t legally rent taxpayer-owned property for such a low sum to a private group known to discriminate. The Boy Scouts have use of the entire historic building and its parking lot, according to Diaz.
“Wouldn’t you expect the Cradle of Liberty Council to really set the example for what in 2007 we would expect in a modern civil society, to be inclusive and welcome everyone to their ranks?” the solicitor said.
“The Girl Scouts of America do not discriminate,” Diaz said. “They pay for the use of city facilities. Why wouldn’t you expect the Boy Scouts of America to meet the standards of the Girl Scouts? There is no major non-profit that I’m aware of in Philadelphia that allows that kind of discrimination.”
Romulo L. Diaz Jr., the first openly gay appointee for Philadelphia city solicitor, never thought about hiding his sexual orientation when his appointment was announced last week.
“I know who I am, and I’m confident about who I am, which includes my sexual orientation,” Diaz told PGN. “And, frankly, I don’t want to be a member of any club that doesn’t accept who I am.”
His sexual orientation is a fundamental aspect of his being, and he’s honored to serve as a role model for others, particularly gay youth who are troubled by their sexuality, he said.
But if Diaz were ever tempted to be secretive about his gayness, that option was taken from him 12 years ago when he was outed in a Washington Post news story about gay officials within the Clinton administration.
Diaz’ partner of 20 years, Dennis James, could not attend the press conference, due to work obligations as a hair stylist. But James most likely will have a role in Diaz’ formal swearing-in ceremony, he said.
“He (James) is an incredibly important part of my life,” Diaz said.
Diaz and James live in a Center City high-rise apartment, and enjoy the many amenities of city living, Diaz said.
The couple loves to travel, and will vacation in Acapulco, Mexico, later this month.
“We try to get there every year,” he said.
He’s also contributed financially to several advocacy groups for sexual minorities.
“I support a lot of g/l/b/t organizations here, because I believe in them,” he said. “They all have a role to play in our community.”
He has an affinity for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. He serves on its board of directors. The D.C.-based group assists service members affected by the U.S. military’s anti-gay “don’t-ask, don’t-tell” policy.
“It’s a terrible, tragic policy,” Diaz said, pointing to the alleged waste in money, resources, and human life caused by the policy.
He said the policy disproportionately affects youth, women and minorities.
“It’s something that definitely needs to change,” Diaz continued. “You have people killed by it (the policy), due to the homophobia.”
Diaz is unsatisfied, declaring that the COL policy is too vague. “It’s as a consequence of [COL’s] refusal to clarify their policy that we’ve taken the steps that we have.”
Diaz said he believes that the policy’s language came from the policy of another Boy Scouts council in New York City.
“The problem is that the language says that they will not engage in ‘illegal’ discrimination. That could be interpreted to mean that under the [Supreme Court] decision in Boy Scouts of America vs. Dale, they could discriminate and that would not be considered illegal.”
The irony here is boundless,” said Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center, which is also the parent organization of Cybercast News Service.
“The City of Brotherly Love, home of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, is punishing the Cradle of Liberty Council for the crime of upholding timeless moral standards. They are treating the Boy Scouts of America, who teach kids personal responsibility and respect for others, as if they were the Ku Klux Klan.”
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