Posted on 12/06/2007 11:04:30 AM PST by yorkie
For three years the Philadelphia council of the Boy Scouts of America held its ground. It resisted the citys request to change its discriminatory policy toward gay people despite threats that if it did not do so, the city would evict the group from a municipal building where the Scouts have resided practically rent free since 1928.
Hailed as the birthplace of the Boy Scouts, the Beaux Arts building is the seat of the seventh-largest chapter of the organization and the first of the more than 300 council service centers built by the Scouts around the country over the past century.
But over the years the fight between the city and the Scouts was about more than this grandiose structure in Center City.
Municipal officials said the clash stemmed from a duty to defend civil rights and an obligation to abide by a local law that bars taxpayer support for any group that discriminates. Boy Scout officials said it was about preserving their culture, protecting the right of private organizations to remain exclusive and defending traditions like requiring members to swear an oath of duty to God and prohibiting membership by anyone who is openly homosexual.
This week the Boy Scouts made their last stand and lost.
At the end of the day, you can not be in a city-owned facility being subsidized by the taxpayers and not have language in your lease that talks about nondiscrimination, said City Councilman Darrell L. Clarke, who represents the district where the building is located. Negotiations are over.
Mr. Clarke said talks ended this week when the deadline passed for the local chapter to change its policy; on June 1 the group will be evicted.
Since we were founded, we believe that open homosexuality would be inconsistent with the values..
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
So let’s see now, the city supposedly has an ordinance that prevents discrimination, but of course it’s okay to discriminate AGAINST anyone who doesn’t agree with them...
As soon as it compensated for the value of the building...
I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me if they built the building, and maintained it, then they are due money from the city. I’m sure there are plenty of good lawyers who would put the city through hell.
Maybe you should go look at some statistics.....
Don’t forget that opposing abortion can probably also get you on a “watch list”.
"On May 31, the City Council voted 16-to-1 to authorize ending the lease, though Mr. Clarke and other Council members continued trying to negotiate a settlement. Those efforts ended this week, Mr. Clarke said, adding that he had shifted his energy toward trying to see if there was a way the city could reimburse the group for improvements it had made to the property over the years. Boy Scout officials said they do not have a cost estimate for the improvements, but Mr. Jubelirer said it would exceed $5 million."
Any homosexual act makes one an acting homosexual; therefore, if a man molests a boy then it is an act of homosexuality.
In some places if you reside there for decades and make significant improvements to the property, it is yours.
Now granted there was a lease agreement for the land but the building is still an “improvement” and has been maintained.
It’s called “Tolerance.”
Seems like a Catch-22. The Scouts own the building but the city owns the property it’s built on. Since the Scouts can’t take the building it would seem that they should be owed some compensation for it.
Why would the City of Phily want to throw gay people in with boy scouts?.....sounds like someones personal agenda.
On a parallel, I assume they would see nothing wrong with placing a serial rapist in a girls dormitory....So what if some boy scouts get raped it’s all for the cause of P.C.!
But there's not a monumental difference between "taking the government's money" and "getting something valuable from them for next to free."
There was a story of a couple in Boulder, Colorado who lost their property to a neighbor because the neighbor had used it for many years and grew emotionally attached to the property. Why can’t the Boy Scouts’ attorneys take the same approach?
Just give in, quit, surrender, capitulate and be done with it.
This is the liberals’ idea of “tolerance.”
...even if the man is married. In the past, statistics on molestations counted men who were married and abused boys as heterosexuals.
Looks to be a good investment for the Boy Scouts.
Pay market value for the land minus the value of the improvement that the Boy Scouts did and then sell the property in ten years for a large profit.
At that point the Boy Scouts can take there profit and move out of Philly and into the suburbs.
Land Grab - Adverse Possession
You may be on to something there, Nephi.
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