Boy Scouts Lose Philadelphia Lease in Gay-Rights Fight

[Jack]

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 issue became a local concern in Philadelphia in May 2003 when the national Boy Scouts held their annual meeting in the city. During the conference, a local scout challenged the organization’s policies by announcing on television that he was gay and that he was a devoted member of the organization. He was promptly dismissed by the local chapter, which is called the Cradle of Liberty Council. Municipal officials drew the line at the Beaux Arts building because the city owns the half-acre of land where the building stands. 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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/us...=1&oref=slogin

Since the scouts are a nominally Christian organization and wish to maintain their religious attitudes toward gays, perhaps it would be more appropriate for them to rent space in a church for their meetings. It's nice to see a city willing to risk the scorn of the religious lobby to act in accordance with their obligations to all their citizens.

[Kamehameha34]

Churches and all places of worship shouldn't get tax breaks for the same reasons mentioned in the article.

[Osborn F Enready]

I agree Kameha.

[Elminister]

Quote by: Isherwood http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/us...=1&oref=slogin Since the scouts are a nominally Christian organization and wish to maintain their religious attitudes toward gays, perhaps it would be more appropriate for them to rent space in a church for their meetings.......

Keep their preferences and their opinions to themselves.....in a closet perhaps?

[ladyphoenix]

No, Elminister. Not receive monies paid by taxpayers and be allowed to exclude those taxpayers from it's benefit.

[Winter wind]

What I don't get is why these people think that being gay means you can't keep your hands to yourself and where being straight means you can?

[Jack]

I think it's a matter of straight men who suspect that if they were gay, they wouldn't be able to keep their hands to themselves (since they feel they couldn't in a similar situation involving females) then projecting that suspicion onto gays. Gay men have spent years, in many cases, learning how to control themselves in social settings. They've become experts in determining appropriate situations, with the possible exception some of gay priests, who for some unexplained reason haven't learned those lessons.

[Winter wind]

with the possible exception some of gay priests, who for some unexplained reason haven't learned those lessons.

Probably just thought they could get away with it or something.