No Brotherly Love for the Boy Scouts

[UPDATE] Link for Scouting Legal Defense Fund

Update on a story we brought you back in October.

I've never been one to advocate boycotts on business. I do understand, however, the power of the boycott and how that they can be an effective tool in changing things. I'm advocating, for the first time, the boycott of an entire city. I call for this in an effort to affect this city's tourism dollar. I do this because I find this city to be in contempt of the United States Constitution.

I do this because I was a Boy Scout.

It's time to send Philadelphia a clear and strong message that they are out of line in making demands of a private organization to change their policies.

Boy Scouts Lose Philadelphia Lease in Gay-Rights Fight

By IAN URBINA
Published: December 6, 2007

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 4 — For three years the Philadelphia council of the Boy Scouts of America held its ground. It resisted the city’s 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 that we want to communicate with our leaders,” said Gregg Shields, national spokesman for the Boy Scouts. “A belief in God is also mentioned in the Scout oath. We believe that those values are important. Tradition is important. Our mission is to instill those values in scouts and help them make good choices over their lifetimes.”

In 2000, the Supreme Court decided a case — Boy Scouts of America v. Dale — involving an openly gay scout from New Jersey who was barred from serving as troop leader. The court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision that, as a private organization, the group had a First Amendment right to set its membership rules.

The City of Philadelphia is in clear and direct violation of the civil rights of the Boy Scouts of America.

John F. Street, Mayor
City of Philadelphia
Room 215 City Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Primary Phone: 215-686-2181
Fax: 215-686-2180
E-Mail: John F. Street, City of Philadelphia

This isn't over. Not while I draw breath.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man


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Philadelphia Punishes Boy Scouts of America

I was a Boy Scout. When my son entered Cub Scouts, I took on the mantle of Cub master, and later held other positions with Scouting while he was involved with the organization. According to the Supreme Court of the United States, Scouting, as a private organization, is protected by the Constitution of the United States to screen it's membership, i.e. leadership, and bar membership to whomever they see the need to bar.

Obviously, the "City of Brotherly Love" has taken on a new meaning in Philadelphia, where the city has taken punitive action against Scouting for their stand on not allowing homosexuals into their ranks. Hat tip to Miss Beth's Victory Dance for this one:

Boy Scouts' Rent Skyrockets in Philadelphia to $200K Over Gay Ban

Friday, October 19, 2007

By Catherine Donaldson-Evans

The Boy Scouts' anti-gay policy is turning out to be a pricey proposition for its Philadelphia chapter — one that will cost about $200,000 a year, to be exact.

The city has ordered the organization to pay a fair-market rent of $200,000 — $199,999 more than its current $1 annual rate — to maintain its longtime offices in a landmark Philadelphia building because of its refusal to allow openly gay Scouts and Scout leaders.

City Solicitor says Romulo L. Diaz Jr. contends that Mayor John Street, City Council and the Fairmount Park Commission (which oversees historic properties) have been asking the Scouts for the past year to submit a clear-cut anti-discrimination policy, and they haven't done so. In order to comply with Philadelphia laws, he said, he has given the Scouts a choice: agree definitively in writing to stop discriminating, or pay a new rent at market value.

"They had been put on notice over the last year by the mayor, the City Council and the Fairmount Park Commission that they had a choice to make," Diaz said in a phone interview. "They need to provide evidence that they would not engage in discriminatory practices against gays as either Scout masters or Boy Scouts. .... They have either not responded or essentially played the victim."

The Boy Scouts' Philadelphia branch, called the Cradle of Liberty Council, argues that its hands are tied because of the national chapter's refusal to reverse its anti-gay policy — even though, it says, it tried to fight it a few years ago.

The city Scouts say they agreed on a compromise with the prior solicitor — which involved the adoption of a promise not to engage in "unlawful discrimination" similar to one the New York chapter has — and claims the current solicitor has an ulterior motive because he himself is openly gay.

"We adopted a non-discrimination policy in 2005 with the city's help, which is ironic now," said Cradle of Liberty spokesman Jeff Jubelirer. "Since that time, there's been no one challenging the policy, no reports of discrimination. Nothing has come to the public's attention. And yet the current solicitor thinks this language is not clear enough.

"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..."

Methinks some people take great pleasure in doing their jobs. I doubt very seriously Mr. Diaz ever uttered THESE words that I will now post because I know them so well by heart, having learned them long ago: "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the scout law; to help other people at all times, and to keep my self physically straight, mentally awake, and morally straight." For those of you unfamiliar with that oath, that's the Scout's oath. Those who know me best will tell you I'm still a Boy Scout to this day. I don't take that as an insult, nor do I find that oath in conflict with the oath I took when I became a soldier.

Run over to Miss Beth's site and click on the link to contact the City of Philadelphia.

Boy Scouts of America

Girl Scouts of America

Support Scouting. It's an organization that really IS for the children.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man


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