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GAY ACTIVISTS DEFEND ANTI-GAY SUPREME COURT CASE: [From] Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DCPO Box 75265Washington, DC 20013202-667-5139www.glaa.orgequal@glaa.org August 12, 2003 [To] Kenneth SaundersActing DirectorOffice of Human Rights441 4th Street, NWWashington, DC 20001 Dear: Mr. Saunders: We have learned through news reports that Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) has filed a complaint with the Office of Human Rights alleging discrimination by the National Education Association (NEA). According to the reports PFOX has been denied the opportunity to set up booths at NEA's last two annual conventions. Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DC (GLAA)...

Phila. council flouts Scouts' antigay stanceA new policy on sexuality is likely to bring discussion as the national convention starts here.By Linda K. Harris and Miriam HillInquirer Staff Writers Defying the national Boy Scouts policy of refusing membership to gays, the board of the Scouts' largest Philadelphia-area council has unanimously voted not to discriminate against homosexuals.The decision puts the local council at odds with the national organization, which holds that homosexuality is inconsistent with the traditional moral values espoused in the Scout Oath and Law.But the Cradle of Liberty Council, the nation's third largest - serving 87,000 youths in Philadelphia,...

<p>Pivoting his body with his right arm and holding a neon-green ruler in his left hand, James Milam, 10, crawled from grave to grave at Nashville National Cemetery yesterday morning, carefully placing an American flag exactly one foot from each gravestone.</p> <p>The energetic fourth-grader took the task seriously.</p>

Sunday, 05/25/03 Cub Scout crawls grave to grave, honoring the dead By HOLLY EDWARDSStaff Writer10-year-old ditches wheelchair to plant flags in front of headstonesPivoting his body with his right arm and holding a neon-green ruler in his left hand, James Milam, 10, crawled from grave to grave at Nashville National Cemetery yesterday morning, carefully placing an American flag exactly one foot from each gravestone.The energetic fourth-grader took the task seriously.''I don't think that's straight at all,'' he said, holding the ruler to a flag and making a minor adjustment. ''There, that's better.''With that pronouncement, James swung back into his...

A spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America said the new Venturing Crew 911, a youth program sponsored by the Centre County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue, is subject to the same exclusionary practices as the Boy Scouts. The Venturing Crew 911 is for young men and women between the ages of 14 and 20 years old who have an interest in search and rescue and law enforcement. ... However, Centre County Sheriff Denny Nau said his office does not "discriminate against anybody or anything." Nau said he supported the Crew, but said it is technically associated with Centre Search...

New Scout leaders face background checks 03/29/2003 Associated Press TWIN FALLS - In the past, Scoutmasters were often the only adults supervising Boy Scout troops on outings. Times have changed. Boy Scout policy calls for a minimum of two adults to be present for all activities. Starting Tuesday, the Boy Scout organization will start conducting criminal background checks on all new applicants for volunteer leadership, carried out by an Atlanta-based company. Steve Nelson with the Snake River Council of Scouts in south-central Idaho says everything is being done to protect the young.

<p>SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Supreme Court announced Wednesday it will step into a case that's being viewed as the next major legal test of the Boy Scouts' stand against homosexuality. By a bare majority, the justices said they'll review lower court decisions that let Berkeley rescind half-century-old free-berthing privileges at the city marina to the local Sea Scouts chapter. The city acted in 1997, after the chapter refused to renounce the anti-gay position of its parent Boy Scouts.</p>

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The California Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to review Berkeley's decision to discontinue free berthing at the city's marina for a group affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America.</p> <p>The justices agreed in their private conference to hear the Sea Scouts' challenge. The scouts are fighting a 1998 city decision that halted free berthing for the nonprofit group because of the scouts' membership and leadership policies against gays.</p>

What began three years ago as part of a highly-publicized program to help troubled boys has been quietly dropped by the 19th Judicial Circuit Court. The charter of Boy Scout Troop 19, based at the Depke Juvenile Justice Complex in Vernon Hills, was allowed to expire March 1 in response to concerns by the American Civil Liberties Union. "We decided it probably would be best served not to continue," said Bob Zastany, executive director of the court's administrative office. "We thought we were doing some good things out there." The ACLU and others, most notably Buffalo Grove resident and well-known...

Blacklisting the Boy Scouts By: Mark Pulliam The Boy Scouts of America are under attack—again—this time from an unlikely source: the organized bar. Notwithstanding the 2000 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America vs. Dale, affirming the constitutional right of the Boy Scouts to exclude avowed homosexuals as adult leaders, the battle is not over. Groups opposed to the traditional values espoused by the Boy Scouts continue their campaign of intimidation and pressure. In California, several local bar associations are seeking to ostracize the Boy Scouts by prohibiting state court judges from participating in the organization...

<p>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.</p>

"Let me show you something," a co-worker said to me the other day. She is the mother of a 7-year-old who is a newly enrolled Cub Scout. She handed me her son's Wolf Cub Scout Book and told me to look at the first two dozen pages. What I saw astounded me. I remember being a Cub Scout almost 40 years ago. I learned how to wear and care for my blue-and-gold uniform. I learned the Cub Scout salute, the Cub Scout handshake and the Cub Scout motto: "Do your best." All of that was in the book. But that's...

BSA vs ACLU - Continuing BattleDate Sunday, February 23 @ 10:58:55 Topic BSA ACLU Unveils A Troubling New Tactic: California Court Decision Would Set A Bad Precedent Robert B. Carleson A California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a new and particularly troubling attack on Scout funding. They have filed suit against the Ontario, California, Old Baldy Scout Council, alleging that the Council fraudulently accepted a federal grant to fund outreach efforts to disadvantaged boys. In their suit the ACLU alleges that the Council’s position on excluding homosexuals and atheists as leaders (which is identical...

Story by Adam Cohen 12:03 AM, 2/5/2003 A legal brawl between the Sea Scouts and the Berkeley City Council may soon head to the California Supreme Court this year, taking the five-year fray to the state’s highest judicial authority. For six decades, the Berkeley Sea Scouts, a subsidiary group of Boy Scouts of America that trains children in seamanship, were allowed to dock their boats in the city’s marina free of charge. That changed in 1998, when the Berkeley City Council voted to withhold docking fee waivers from the organization because of the Boy Scouts policy forbidding open homosexuals from...

<p>On March 24, former West Mifflin resident and McKeesport High School graduate Mitchell Paige will join 208 other worthy recipients in a ceremony in Florida to receive the rank of Eagle Scout from the Boy Scouts of America.</p> <p>While that in itself is a distinguished honor, the fact that Paige is an 83-year-old war hero and Medal of Honor recipient makes it a one-of-a-kind event.</p>

George E. Freestone, who joined the Boy Scouts when the organization was just starting in the United States and who was still active 92 years later, has died in Mesa, Ariz. He was 104. Mr. Freestone was the United States' oldest known living Scout, said Brandi Mantz, a spokeswoman for the Boy Scouts of America at its U.S. headquarters in Irving, Tex. Mr. Freestone remembered persuading his mother to part with $4 for his first uniform -- a Canadian Mountie-style hat, a shirt, breeches and leggings -- when he joined a Scout troop in Los Angeles in 1910, at the...

With nearly 30,000 scouts attending the World Scout Jamboree in Sattahip, in the Chonburi Province of Thailand, it would make sense that a tiny contingent of less than 300 scouts, who cancelled at the last minute, would not be missed. Not so. The Israeli contingent was missed. Every four years, in a different host country, scout organizations for youth, from approximately 100 countries around the world, get together at tremendously large campsites for twelve days, to participate in programs of non-competitive sports, survival adventures, science expos and religious encounters. The scouts see this event as a chance for youth, ages...

On a deadly foggy day in London in late 1909, Chicago businessman William D. Boyce was hopelessly lost while searching the streets for the location of a business appointment. Then, at his elbow, a young man appeared, wearing a uniform. "Can I help you, sir?" When Mr. Boyce explained his problem, the young man guided Mr. Boyce to the address he was looking for. Mr. Boyce reached into his pocket and offered the young man a tip for his service. Much to his surprise, however, the young man refused. "I am a Scout, sir. I'm not allowed to take money...

Complaint alleges federal grant was accepted fraudulently.RIVERSIDE — A recently unsealed federal complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union accuses a local Boy Scout Council of fraudulently accepting federal funds because it signed an agreement stating it would comply with federal and state anti-discrimination laws in order to get a grant. Glenn Goodwin, a Claremont resident and ACLU member, filed the suit in a Riverside Federal Court in July of last year. The suit seeks damages in accordance with the Federal False Claims Act on the grounds that Boy Scouts of America knowingly signed an agreement stating it would...

In California, bar associations in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Santa Clara have urged that state's Supreme Court to prohibit California's 1,600 judges from being members of the Boy Scouts of America because that organization discriminates against gays. California's high court is seriously considering this proposal. ======================================================= In California, bar associations in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Santa Clara have urged that state's Supreme Court to prohibit California's 1,600 judges from being members of the Boy Scouts of America because that organization discriminates against gays. California's high court is seriously considering this proposal. California judges are already forbidden to join...