Posted on 02/28/2003 2:36:31 PM PST by laureldrive
Edited on 04/14/2004 10:05:53 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Are you saying that James Dale is willing to admit homosexuality is sinful?
Read the ruling and find out. It had nothing to do with employment or labor law.
If you are so anti-discrimination that you apply it to behaviors, why aren't you against religious discrimination?
If you want to make the argument that all sin is equal and therefore cannot be discriminated against then how about murder, robbery, rape, etc? If a person has paid their debt to society are they entitled to be Scout leaders too? Or how about on going but non-criminal sin like addiction to pornography or something? If a guy doesn't mention it to the boys but does brag about it in the newspaper is he still qualified to be a moral Scout leader.
A leader can be banned for any of these things, or for any other reason, by the unit's sponsoring institution.
Here's an extreme example. A physician who is an abortion provider applies to a unit to become a Scoutmaster. If the sponsor is a Roman Catholic parish, they'd probably say no. If the sponsor is a public school, they might well say yes. It's up to the sponsor.
The determination of whether or not someone is moral enough to be a Scouter is in some very limited cases set by National. In other cases, it's left to the sponsor.
Because the group discriminating against them says they are not discriminating against them, and because the PC discriminators discrimination carries with it government sanction and monetary costs. The scout's discrimination does not carry sanctions or costs to its "victims".
That is not what Jesus Christ is quoted as saying in the gospel of Mark. Are you saying that all men and women who divorce and remarry do so knowing that they are entering into an adulterous life?
And yet the national office took it upon itself to ban homosexuals as members and leaders for every single chartered troop. Let's take your example. What if troops chartered by Catholic churches demanded that anyone who supported abortion be denied a leadership post in the Boy Scouts? What if they said that children born of people who had divorced and remarried were illegitimate in the eyes of God and should be denied membership? Should the Boy Scout leadership then ban them from membership? Or should they let the local troop make that decision and not force their policies on the rest of the organization? And if the ledership allows individual troops latitude in that then why do they arbitrarily ban men like Mr. Dale?
I believe that the Scouts also deny that their policy is discrimination, too.
If you will look at my previous post you will see that I acknowledged that all people are sinners but that doesn't mean all sin is equal and good. It doesn't mean that relativism rules the day and since no one is perfect parents have no right to require morality from their children's leaders.
If James Dale wants to admit that homosexuality is immoral and wrong then fine. Otherwise, he is a bad leader for children.
Do you think a pornographer would be a moral scout leader? What about a murder, a rapist, a prostitute, a thief, or an alcoholic? There must SOME moral lines you would draw for the kids. Why do you continue to avoid MY questions?
That's a different issue. The fact is, Berkeley has a policy of subsiding -- if that's what you call it when they allow free use private groups that happen to be nonprofits. We can debate whether they should do that, but once they've started doing it, how can they withhold the benefit from the Sea Scouts simply because they don't like what the Sea Scouts stand for? Is the Salvation Army next? Maybe their tax-exempt status (a "public benefit" or "subsidy" in some people's minds) should be withdrawn merely because Berkeley doesn't like the fact that their soldiers and kettle holders have to believe in God.
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