We've known for a while now that the Boy Scouts of America is not an equal opportunity organization. They discriminate against gays. In 2000, the Supreme Court gave them the right to continue their discrimination, and they have done so.
But the city of Philadelphia does not discriminate in this way. The city has been letting the Cradle of Liberty Council of the Boy Scouts rent city-owned office space for their headquarters. The COL Council has been paying $1 a year in rent. Now the city wants to raise the rent to $200,000 a year, which is the fair-market value of the space.
The city says they cannot legally give an organization that discriminates any kind of reduced rate for rent. To do so would make the city a party to the discrimination. The Boy Scouts must pay the fair-market value, or vacate the space by May 31.
To their credit, the COL Council passed a non-discriminatory policy in 2003, but the national organization forced them to rescind the policy. The National Council said the local councils cannot decide on their own to stop the discrimination. If the National Council wants to discriminate, then everyone in the organization must discriminate.
I applaud this decision by the city of Philadelphia. Just because the Scouts want to discriminate, doesn't mean the city can or should follow suit. The city made the only legal and decent decision that they could.
It simply would not be right for the "Cradle of American Liberty" to deny that liberty to any segment of our population.
They also discriminate against atheist and agnostics.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing happened in CA with regards to docking boats that belong to the local boy scouts. I'm behind the law 100%. If you're a private entity that want to engage in discrimination fine, but the people don't have to subsidize your behavior.
Its ridiculous anyway- 99% of the men who abuse boys are in the closet anyway or aren't even actively homosexual. It's not like they are openly gay. The Boy Scouts position is not a policy to protect the kids from actual harm, but just to prevent them from having a genuine role model who is openly homosexual.
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