Boy Scouts Lose Philly Home
From the NY Times:
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.
…
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 violates a fundamental principle on which the Scouts were founded and the organization refused to compromise in order to maintain a financial arrangement favorable to the group.
“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.
The Boy Scouts refused to compromise their values and for that I applaud them. As in most stands we take on principle, there will be a price that the Boy Scouts have to pay:
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.”
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Stacey Sobel, executive director of Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, a gay-rights advocacy group based in Philadelphia, said: “Allowing the Boy Scouts to use this building rent free sends a message that the city approves of their policy. We are not looking to kick the Boy Scouts out. We just want them to play by the same rules as everyone else in the city.”
In my opinion, this last sentence is untrue. What Sobel and other gay advocates really want is for the Boy Scouts to be forced to give in to financial pressure and surrender unconditionally in the form of accepting gay troop leaders and members. Hopefully this will never happen.
Ironically, and not surprisingly, it’s the children, the Scouts themselves, who will be the ultimate loser in this fight:
The Boy Scouts erected the ornate building and since 1928 have leased the land from the city for a token sum of $1 a year. City officials said the market value for renting the building was about $200,000 a year, and they invited the Boy Scouts to remain as full-paying tenants.
Jeff Jubelirer, a spokesman for the local chapter, said it could not afford $200,000 a year in rent, and that such a price would require it to cut summer-camp funds for 800 needy children.
“With an epidemic of gun violence taking the lives of children almost daily in this city, it’s ironic that this administration chose to destroy programming that services thousands of children in the city,” Mr. Jubelirer said. He added that the organization serves more than 69,000 young people, mostly from the inner city, and that its programming focuses on mentoring and after-school programs instead of camping trips.
Such is the price of trying to please everyone.
Strange. I thought they summed things up quite well here:
The Boy Scouts are a great organization, they just happen to be discriminatory against gays and atheists. As such they’re not qualified for tax-payer funded leasing agreements.
Maybe I’m looking at this from the wrong angle (being atheist, and thus ineligible to join the Scouts anyway), but it as much as this may suck, as many kids as will be screwed by this decision, it’s the only one the city could legally come to. The Scouts made their choice and stood up to their principles. Good for them, but they have to deal with the consequences of that choice like any other private club.
The BS (Boy Scouts) can continue to be mindlessly wrong about non-heterosexuals and smarter people like me can tell people to stay the North Korea away from them. Why screw with a great system just to state the obvious fact that homophobia and separatism sucks ass?
Should homophobes and discriminatory morons get to stay in municipal buildings as long as they obey laws and earn their place by being a genuine organisation that does… Um, municipal things? Sure, because if they want a don’t ask don’t tell policy then that is fine, I guess. They’re not the government, they can be allowed to discriminate. Should I be allowed to create an organisation that sits in town buildings and denies christians entry? Sure, if that is the result of our organizations belief.
I don’t think any level of government should threaten an organization with loss of exigencies for meetings and activities just because they are stupid and think homosexuality is not as good as heterosexuality (an idiotic notion) and therefore denies outed gays any place. I think it can offer people who are upset by this stupidity to leave a petition that the municipality can give the BS so that they know people feel hurt or think they are wrong. It also can give priority to a non-exclusionary organization if there aren’t enough locales for both on one occasion. But it shouldn’t tell organizations that they are illegitimate just because they are morons – no organization has to care for the feelings of others. If official BS policy was to tell children that gays should be marginalized or incorporate anti-gay verses into handiwork that was to be exhibited things would become more gray. But don’t just kick them out. That makes you a prime douche.
I do NOT admire the Boy Scouts for their stance. Imagine if instead of Gays, the Boy Scouts were refusing to allow black troopers and leaders. Would you then applaud them for "standing on principle"? What if it were an Islamic scout group that taught the inferiority and subservience of women? Standing on principle is great, but the content of that principle matters as well. Sure they do gain a point for not being cynical and suddenly having a change of heart in the face of financial loss. They are principled, but I think they are the wrong principles.
I’m certainly not happy that the kids will have to lose out, they are certainly the biggest victims, but you can’t defend bigotry using children as human shields. The city has a law it must follow, and the scouts have a discriminatory practice they don’t wish to end. In the face of insurmountable differences, divorce is the only option.
. Would you then applaud them for "standing on principle"?
This will seem like I’m splitting hairs, but yes I would. What it would also make me do is exercise my right and not support them in any way shape or form.
"I’m certainly not happy that the kids will have to lose out, they are certainly the biggest victims, but you can’t defend bigotry using children as human shields. The city has a law it must follow, and the scouts have a discriminatory practice they don’t wish to end. In the face of insurmountable differences, divorce is the only option."
If they go against the law of the municipality, then I can’t complain. Apparently there are municipalities where the tax money of non-christians is used to put the commandments up on a courthouse.
If the Boy Scouts are a private institution, which they are, then they should be required, just as all other private institutions, to abide by the eligibility rules to gain tax payer funded support. It’s clear.
"to abide by the eligibility rules to gain tax payer funded support. It’s clear."
And invoking a religious foundation to the point where you ban certain people for doing something completely legal shouldn’t net you tax money? I think so, and so the boy scouts can’t really complain.