Posted on 04/04/2007 12:27:16 PM PDT by fgoodwin
Statement of Boy Scouts of America: Court Rules Boy Scout Jamboree to Go Forward
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-04-2007/0004559911&EDATE=
http://tinyurl.com/396mft
IRVING, Texas, April 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Boy Scouts of America is pleased that the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit dismissed the ACLU's lawsuit against the Department of Defense for supporting the National Scout Jamboree.
For more than 25 years, Boy Scouts have held the National Scout Jamboree every four years at Fort A.P. Hill near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Scouts from all over the country camp together for ten days and participate in activities emphasizing physical fitness, appreciation of the outdoors, and patriotism. Seven Presidents have attended the Jamboree since President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937. The Jamboree grounds at Fort A.P. Hill are open to the public, and an estimated 300,000 visitors attended in 2005 along with 43,000 Scouts and their leaders. The 2010 Jamboree will celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Boy Scouts of America.
The United States Congress has found that the military's logistical support for the National Scout Jamboree is an incomparable training opportunity for our armed forces. The Jamboree requires the construction, maintenance, and disassembly of a "tent city" capable of supporting tens of thousands of people for a week or longer.
Nevertheless, the ACLU sued the Department of Defense in 1999 over its support for the Jamboree. In 2005, a federal district court in Chicago concluded the Jamboree statute (10 U.S.C. section 2554) was unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause because Scouting has a nonsectarian "duty to God" requirement. DoD appealed the district court's injunction against military support under that statute for the 2010 Jamboree.
In today's ruling, the federal Court of Appeals in Chicago reversed the district court's decision, concluding that the taxpayers named as the plaintiffs in the lawsuit did not have standing to sue DoD in the first place.
"We are pleased that today's ruling preserves the training opportunity for the military that Congress wanted it to have," said Robert H. Bork, Jr., spokesperson for the Scouts.
"Today's decision allows everyone to get back to planning the centennial Jamboree celebrating Boy Scouts' 100th birthday," said George A. Davidson, the attorney for Boy Scouts of America who argued before the Seventh Circuit last year.
The case is Winkler v. Gates, No. 05-3451 (7th Cir. Apr. 4, 2007).
SOURCE Boy Scouts of America
SandRat, please ping yoru Scouting list.
Thanx
The big question is who pays the ACLU legal fees.
A win for the BSA and losses for the ACLU and male homosexuals looking for prey.
A win for our side!
It really is a strange world the ACLU wants to live in. Can’t see the benefit myself and really wish they’d just live how they want to, but somehow, they do seem to need to bend everybody else to their odd little planetoid.
Sad, actually. Not to mention wasting no end of resources fighting their legal assault. Could the BSA perhaps sue back for court costs? (the making universal of which would constitute the single best reform of the US legal system on offer, IMHO)
Now make the ACLU pay for all the legal fees!!!!!!
The bad part of this is that the ACLU is under no obligation ro reimburse the Boy Scouts or the taxpayers for the money it burned up in this lawsuit. However, if the ACLU did win, they would be allowed to bill the taxpayers for legal fees.
The ACLU adherents need:
a brain transplant
a life
We do.
The ACLU wouldn’t have a problem with it at all, if the Scouts would only pray to Allah 5 times a day.
or if they made Barney Frank an Honorary Scoutleader.
Those would be two of the strange elements of ACLU-world. Kind of like Bizarro-world without the charm.
Unbelievable how the aclu has nothing good to do with its time and feels that is should go around interfering with Boy Scouts’ right to gather as they please. The aclu is nothing more than an organization that promotes the conversion of the USA into an atheistic state.
I really love when the Federal courts dismiss cases because of “standing” or “justicability.” Both standing and justicability are keys to the courthouse door and without them, the courts cannot decide a case upon the merits. As a result, the Federal courts have used both standing, as it did in this case, and justicability to side-step important issues that the court would rather not decide on the merits.
Awesome news.
Sandrat, please add me to your Scouting Ping List.
You nailed it. The weasels are now living it up in the henhouse.
I would have been more pleased with the judicial reasoning though had it been on other grounds than lack of standing by taxpayers on how tax money is spent.
YAY!!!! for the Scouts!!!
A Federal law provides that the judge in a civil rights suit can direct the Federal Government (that is, you and me) to reimburse the legal fees of a winning plaintiff. The ACLU has benefited from this many times.
Good.
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