City of Philadelphia Adds $199,999 to Boy Scout HQ Rent Due to Gay Ban

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http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/new...Boy_Scouts_rent_by__199_999_over_gay_ban.html

City hikes Boy Scouts’ rent by $199,999 over gay ban

By Joseph A. Slobodzian

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The Boy Scouts of America's refusal to bend its rules to permit gay scouts will cost the organization's local chapter $200,000 a year if it wishes to keep its headquarters in a city-owned building on Logan Square.

Representatives of the Boy Scouts of America's Cradle of Liberty Council were notified that to remain in their 79-year-old landmark headquarters, they needed to pay the city a "fair market" rent, Fairmount Park Commission president Robert N.C. Nix said Wednesday. Currently, the rent is $1 a year.

The city decided on the rent proposal after it was unable to reach a compromise with the local scout council in talks that have gone on since May.

"Once we know what the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts want to do, we'll probably want to weigh in with the city about how to proceed," Nix told the park commission.

Barring a resolution, the Cradle of Liberty Council - about 64,000 scouts in Philadelphia and parts of Delaware and Montgomery Counties - must vacate the property at 22d and Winter Streets after May 31.

"It's disappointing, and it's certainly a threat," said Jeff Jubelirer, a spokesman for Cradle of Liberty Council, referring to the rent's impact on the scouts' chances of staying on the site.

Jubelirer said that $200,000 a year in rent "would have to come from programs. That's 30 new Cub Scout packs, or 800 needy kids going to our summer camp."

Nevertheless, Jubelirer said, scouting officials will ask City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. for details on the real estate appraisals that yielded the $200,000 rent figure.

Cradle of Liberty officials have said they could not renounce the scouts' long-established policy of not opening membership to atheists or openly gay people without running afoul of their charter with the scouts' National Council.

City officials have said they could not legally rent taxpayer-owned property for a dollar a year to a private organization that discriminates.

The land belongs to the City of Philadelphia but has been leased since 1928 for that token sum to the scouts, who built the landmark Beaux Arts building.

That lease came into question only after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2000 in a New Jersey case involving an openly gay scout who was barred from serving as troop leader.

The high court in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale ruled, 5-4, that the scouts, as a private organization, have a right of "expressive association" under the First Amendment to set their own membership rules.

The scouts have long required members to swear an oath of duty to God, and their rules prohibit membership by anyone who is openly homosexual. For that reason, scouting officials initially greeted the Supreme Court's ruling as a victory.

That mood quickly evaporated, however, as local government officials around the nation began reexamining long-standing preferential relationships with scouts.

Unlike the scouts, public officials are also bound by a line of Supreme Court opinions barring taxpayer support of any group that discriminates.

In Philadelphia, officials wrestled for months for a way to let the scouts remain at their longtime headquarters.

At one point in 2005, the city and scouts seemed poised to agree on a policy statement adopted by New York scouts. That statement, while not renouncing the bars against atheist or gay members, affirmed that "prejudice, intolerance and unlawful discrimination in any form are unacceptable."

But last year, Diaz wrote Cradle of Liberty Council officials to say the suggested policy statement could not be reconciled with the city's own anti-discriminatory fair-practices ordinance.

Again, both sides began trading proposals. That ended May 31, when City Council voted 16-1 to authorize ending the lease with Cradle of Liberty Council.

The resolution was introduced unexpectedly by Councilman Darrell L. Clarke and passed, 16-1, with no debate.

Both Clarke, a Center City Democrat whose district includes the scouts building, and Diaz, a prominent member of the city's gay community, said they hoped the resolution would spur talks to resolve the dispute.

Nix said Wednesday that those talks had apparently failed, leading to the lease proposal.
 
IS this just this chapter of scouts or ALL scouts in america?

I was in scouts as a kids, and we had a gay scout troop leader (he was soooooo funny!) and i would NEVER have swore allegiance to god *coughsplutter* in fact i don't think there was one religious thing in scouts!

we just went camping, tied knots and made fires!
 
dazzlingamy said:
IS this just this chapter of scouts or ALL scouts in america?

It's "Boy Scouts of America" policy, so every chapter that belongs to this association (which is the largest in the US according to wikipedia) is barring atheists and gays from being member.

This reminds me of the South Park episode that dealt with the topic. Apparently this organisation is lead by some dickheads.

I loved being with scout groups to Hungary in 1993. We got the opportunity because my father was asked to drive a bus there, and he said "Only when I can bring my family." It was Danish and German scouts, but neither religion nor sexuality was any topic there.
 
Agreed. While I think scouting is a good thing for boys, I have a problem with the no gays/no athiests thing.

I didn't realize that scouts couldn't be gay, I knew scout leaders had to be straight but I didn't think/know that extended to the scouts.
 
indra said:


That sounds mighty kinky! :ohmy:

:wink:

hahahaha

come to think of it... one time we were camping, (me being the only girl in a 5 strong boy troop) we played dare double dare, and one of the boys was dared to run around the campfire with his pants around his ankles. I was might unimpressed by what i saw that night! (mind you he was 12 at the time! hahaha)
 
i think the BSA discrimiation against gays and atheists is unconscionable.

however, my first boyfriend was an Eagle Scout, so, obviously it's not closed to gay kids. i don't think.
 
Irvine511 said:
i think the BSA discrimiation against gays and atheists is unconscionable.

however, my first boyfriend was an Eagle Scout, so, obviously it's not closed to gay kids. i don't think.

Actually, I think it is. They forbid atheists, since they insist on belief in a higher power, and they forbid gays, since they insist that it goes against their oaths to be "morally straight" or something or the other.

Where this all gets really stupid is that, theoretically speaking, you could easily get a religious person whose denomination has absolutely nothing against homosexuality at all, since the Scouts don't demand everyone be Christian. However, as usual, it seems like "morality" is defined by (*shock* :rolleyes: ) a group of conservative Christians. I guess everyone else's beliefs don't count.
 
I think that the Boy Scouts organization already gets a lot of crap from everyone to have be forced to do something like that. It's a delicate subject, really, because, like in the army, you do get to spend a lot of time with the other boys in your troop. :shrug:
 
so what? im sick and tired of people acting like men are just pathetic can't keep it in their pants type of people. Oh women can't be in special ops because they're around men so much that all the emn will do is wanna screw em, and not keep their mind on the job
oh you can't wear a short skirt, or top cause men will get all in a tizz and attack you
oh you can't be gay and go camping with other guys because you'll start getting all brokeback mountain on them
oh you can't be on a team with guys when your a homo because everytime you have a shower with them, you want to jump all there asses.

its such utter bullshit. This belief that men are all predators and can't keep it in their pants to EXCLUDE people from things is so fucking pathetic.
 
dazzlingamy said:
its such utter bullshit. This belief that men are all predators and can't keep it in their pants to EXCLUDE people from things is so fucking pathetic.

The irony about homophobia, really, is that it's truly "misandric" in nature. All those archetypes about straight men being nothing but stupid, fat, sex-obsessed, irresponsible slobs...well, gosh, two (gay) men together must mean that we'll have twice the stupidity, obesity, sex-obsession, and irresponsibility!
 
dazzlingamy said:
so what? im sick and tired of people acting like men are just pathetic can't keep it in their pants type of people. Oh women can't be in special ops because they're around men so much that all the emn will do is wanna screw em, and not keep their mind on the job
oh you can't wear a short skirt, or top cause men will get all in a tizz and attack you
oh you can't be gay and go camping with other guys because you'll start getting all brokeback mountain on them
oh you can't be on a team with guys when your a homo because everytime you have a shower with them, you want to jump all there asses.

its such utter bullshit. This belief that men are all predators and can't keep it in their pants to EXCLUDE people from things is so fucking pathetic.

:love: :love:

Great rant!
 
You know there are some college fraternities, and other social organizations that also require members to declare a belief in "God".

Curious if we should enact laws or come up with other creative ways for these groups to change.

Is there a point when clubs can or can't dictate certain membership criteria?
 
MadelynIris said:
You know there are some college fraternities, and other social organizations that also require members to declare a belief in "God".

Curious if we should enact laws or come up with other creative ways for these groups to change.

Is there a point when clubs can or can't dictate certain membership criteria?

I think that this issue is more complicated than it seems. For one, private organizations are completely free to discriminate in its membership for any reason, it seems. This is the criteria, for instance, that allows the KKK to exist legally.

On the other hand, whether formally or informally, certain organizations have long existed under the perception of "inclusion," and, as such, governments often feel comfortable in giving them benefits or breaks that, while remaining private, gives these organizations a kind of de facto "public" status--i.e., United Way, Big Brothers & Big Sisters, etc.

The Scouts used to exist under this same kind of status--private, but de facto public--because of the goodwill it generated. Nonetheless, who feels "good" about granting public money and favors to an organization that literally fought its way to the Supreme Court for the arbitrary right to exclude atheists and homosexuals?

Nobody does. And now the Scouts are going to learn the consequences of expending its goodwill, and will have to operate like any other ordinary "private organization." In essence, by fighting for its right to discriminate--as accorded to any private organization--it basically ceded its "quasi-public" status in the process.

As I stated before, for an organization that does not discriminate against non-Christian theists--they officially recognize all kind of obscure religions that few people have heard of (and it was where I first read the word "Zoroastrianism," for instance)--it makes little practical sense to suddenly define "morality" by conservative Christian definitions. Some of these same religions that the Scouts recognize have zero problems with homosexuality. Essentially, on this point, that makes them a complete hypocrite on the issue of their own religious diversity policies.

As for banning atheists, again, it seems rather silly. It may very well be that their traditional policy is to only accept "theists," but this is very easily a category that they could have just turned a blind eye to, since Scouting, practically speaking, has no real religious component to it.

That's probably what makes this whole long running controversy so maddening. There's no practical reason as to why this group had to shoot itself in its own foot. But it has, and now has to understand that there are consequences for those actions. The Scouts cannot have their cake and eat it too.
 
nathan1977 said:
It doesn't. That's not true.

By the way...

"If a youth comes to a Scoutmaster and admits to doing wrong, like stealing, lying, cheating or vandalizing, the normal procedure is to counsel the youth privately and sympathetically...If the youth admits to being a homosexual, the Boy Scouts' policy is to instantly terminate his association with Scouting." - Findings of fact, in a DC court case

So, yes, the Scouts discriminate both in their leadership and membership.
 
MadelynIris said:
You know there are some college fraternities, and other social organizations that also require members to declare a belief in "God".

Curious if we should enact laws or come up with other creative ways for these groups to change.

Is there a point when clubs can or can't dictate certain membership criteria?
When they are getting support from the state.
 
MadelynIris said:
You know there are some college fraternities, and other social organizations that also require members to declare a belief in "God".

Curious if we should enact laws or come up with other creative ways for these groups to change.

Is there a point when clubs can or can't dictate certain membership criteria?

I think it's very hard to compare a fraternity, or some exclusive private club, to an organisation like the Scouts.
I don't think there is any discussion about public funding of any organisation that discriminates against any group of people; they just don't deserve it.

Legally you can't force them to accept any minority group, as has been ruled by the Supreme Court, but as citizens praising the freedom and tolerance and whatnot of your country it would be mightily contradictory to accept an organisation like the Scouts to deny gays or atheists the membership, when on the other hand Scout organisations are meant to teach children and teenagers values of living together responsibly and everything that goes with scouting.

In my opinion Scout organisations take some responsibility when they are claiming to educate children, and normally they do so.

At least there are other organisations independent of the BSA and it would be good if those organisations could attract more members, giving out a clear sign that intolerance isn't acceptable in these times.

But sadly, what I've learned from reading here there are many people who still see atheists and gays as something inferior you don't have to accept, nor tolerate.

So, at least, they lose there public funding and benefits.
 
dazzlingamy said:
so what? im sick and tired of people acting like men are just pathetic can't keep it in their pants type of people. Oh women can't be in special ops because they're around men so much that all the emn will do is wanna screw em, and not keep their mind on the job
oh you can't wear a short skirt, or top cause men will get all in a tizz and attack you
oh you can't be gay and go camping with other guys because you'll start getting all brokeback mountain on them
oh you can't be on a team with guys when your a homo because everytime you have a shower with them, you want to jump all there asses.

its such utter bullshit. This belief that men are all predators and can't keep it in their pants to EXCLUDE people from things is so fucking pathetic.

Way to twist what I said into something that it's not.

See, you forget that girls and boys DON'T shower together. And the girls troop sleeps in a different tent. It's the same thing. How does that not make sense?
 
MadelynIris said:
You know there are some college fraternities, and other social organizations that also require members to declare a belief in "God".

Curious if we should enact laws or come up with other creative ways for these groups to change.

Is there a point when clubs can or can't dictate certain membership criteria?

In this case no one is telling the boy scouts they can't discriminate. They are simply no longer going to subsidise their office space if they do. If they want to have the rights of a private organisation they should be prepared to accept the responsibilities as well. Paying market value rent is one of those responsibilities. I thought responsibility was a big boy scout thing.
 
BrownEyedBoy said:
See, you forget that girls and boys DON'T shower together. And the girls troop sleeps in a different tent. It's the same thing. How does that not make sense?

It doesn't make sense, because it isn't the same situation. Chances are, if you have ever been in a group showering situation, at least one of those people has been gay and you didn't know it. Now did it kill you?

Frankly, this whole hypothetical situation is ridiculous. This kind of discrimination doesn't eliminate homosexuals; it just keeps them hidden. So if you're worried about them lusting after you behind your back, guess what? It's could still be happening!
 
I was a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout

and being 'morally chase' and unsympathetic to gays went - hand in hand (figuratively speaking)

"Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man"


HitlerYouth.jpg
 
BrownEyedBoy said:

See, you forget that girls and boys DON'T shower together. And the girls troop sleeps in a different tent. It's the same thing. How does that not make sense?

Boys and girls (at least in the Western setting) have not been culturally groomed to shower together, and therefore it is seen as unacceptable much like walking around topless (for women) is not something you would see on our streets.

Boys do shower together and women shower together and there are gay men and lesbians among them that you may be unaware of.
 
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