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]
We think of the frontiers of freedom as being patrolled by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. But these days, the Boy Scouts of America and affiliated groups also stand guard. In courtrooms across the country, they're resisting a domestic strain of tyranny - the totalitarian impulse to police thought and enforce a government-sanctioned orthodoxy on social and cultural issues.The Scouts are loathed by many self-styled progressives for transmitting a code of commitment, stressing God and country, that was supposed to be marginalized by now. But they're not giving in to bureaucratic bullies who try to force them to shed "outmoded" beliefs on matters of sex and social values. Lovers of liberty - even those who might disagree with Scouting's principles - should toast their tenacity for the First Amendment and the right not to be PC.This controversy was supposed to have been settled by the U.S. Supreme Court three years ago. In Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, a five-justice majority said that as a private, belief-based organization, the Scouts are free to craft their own membership rules; in particular, government can't order them to admit homosexuals as leaders. It follows that they're also within their rights to require that members profess a belief in God.But an alarming number of local and state officials refused to listen. In 2001, for instance, District of Columbia officials ordered the local Scouts to readmit two gays as adult leaders and pay $100,000 in damages. This decree was overturned by an appeals court, which noted that D.C. should take another look at Dale.Most of the current government assaults on the Scouts take the form of indirect coercion. There's shunning, as in San Francisco, where local judges are now barred from participating in Scouting. There's stigmatizing, as Connecticut and Portland, Ore., have attempted by excluding the Scouts from the charities that public employees may support through payroll deduction.There's also selective denial of public benefits. Berkeley leads the way by singling out the Sea Scouts for a fee to use the city's marina. After being permitted free use for 50 years, the Sea Scouts in 1998 were suddenly hit with a charge of more than $500 per month. No other nonprofit is required to pay to berth at the marina. The fee is imposed explicitly because of the Sea Scouts' affiliation with the Boy Scouts.High school teacher Eugene Evans, skipper of the Berkeley Sea Scouts' ship, pays the fee out of his pocket, so he can no longer cover membership costs for teenagers from poorer neighborhoods. Some have had to drop out.Unfortunately, a California court of appeal upheld Berkeley's punitive policy in November. The Sea Scouts have now asked the state Supreme Court to take the case. They cite the constitutional rule against "viewpoint discrimination" in the public sector. In other words, if Berkeley decides to offer free berthing to nonprofits - which it has done - it can't pick and choose recipients based on their beliefs or the beliefs of those they're associated with.Several recent "graduates" of the Berkeley Sea Scouts are now Marines stationed in the Persian Gulf. One of these young leathernecks is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Berkeley's anti-Scout policy. All are following in a long tradition of Sea Scouts stepping forward in the nation's hours of need. More than 100,000 Sea Scouts volunteered after Pearl Harbor. Admiral Chester Nimitz reportedly said that the Sea Scouts were crucial to the Navy's ability to regroup after that disaster. But if Berkeley officials feel any remorse at targeting such a worthy group, they haven't revealed it.Today, the Boy Scouts' and Sea Scouts' fight is for the survival of a free and robust private sector, a sphere where all may choose their beliefs and affiliations without preclearance, editing or censorship by the state, and without fear of official discrimination or reprisal. For defending this basic principle of a free society, the Scouts deserve a hearty salute.
(Excerpt) Read more at 2.ocregister.com ...
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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