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Boy Scouts Lose Philadelphia Lease in Gay-Rights Fight
New York Times ^ | December 6, 2007 | Ia Urbina

Posted on 12/06/2007 11:04:30 AM PST by yorkie

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..

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: activistcourts; antichristian; bluezone; boyscouts; bsa; churchandstate; citycouncil; cityofbrotherlylove; civilrights; cradleofliberty; discrimination; gaystapotactics; homosexualagenda; lavendermafia
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To: Altura Ct.; Bubba Ho-Tep; yorkie
Here's a better link to the original TownHall column Post Sugarcoats Thuggery Against Philadelphia’s Boy Scouts . From the article,

· The architect of the harassment against the Scouts, City Solicitor Diaz, is openly homosexual, as has been reported in the Philadelphia press.

· The Scouts built the building with their own money, and then gave it to the city in 1928.

· The Scouts had a lease “in perpetuity” with the city, an agreement the City Council broke.

· The Scouts bar openly homosexual Scoutmasters and members for moral reasons and for the sake of protecting young boys from possible harm, .....

· Philadelphia suffers from the leading murder and violent crime rate among top 10 cities in the United States. Most of it is being committed by fatherless young men.

As for the ongoing slaughter in the streets, Philadelphia had 406 homicides in 2006, courtesy of fatherless barbarians who could have benefited from character building offered by the Boy Scouts. .....

Over at City Hall, the City Council and the mayor are doing their part by blessing the city solicitor’s ambitious social agenda. If the Scouts are forced out of town, it might not make Philadelphia a more livable place. ...
121 posted on 12/06/2007 7:21:03 PM PST by Girlene
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep
If it was another private organization, say the ACLU, or NAMBLA, that was getting free rent from the government, are you honestly saying that you'd be fine with it? Wouldn't you say that they're getting something valuable from the government, and that that a cash value could be applied to it? Or are you only okay with goverment handouts to private organizations that you agree with?

You are aware, are you not, that the Boy Scouts themselves built the building in 1928, then gifted it to the city, in return for a perpetual lease back to them to use it for $1 per year?

122 posted on 12/06/2007 7:34:13 PM PST by Balding_Eagle (If America falls, darkness will cover the face of the earth for a thousand years.)
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To: All
Here is an interseting article by World Net Daily (yeah, I know. But check the links. This article is full of viable information.)

Boy Scouts ignore 'pay-up-or-move' ultimatum.

123 posted on 12/06/2007 7:56:13 PM PST by yorkie
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To: yorkie

Where is the squeeze from the Prez on the city?


124 posted on 12/06/2007 8:29:28 PM PST by Pikachu_Dad
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To: Girlene

I had no idea you found all this info. Thanks for the ping.


125 posted on 12/06/2007 8:31:08 PM PST by lilycicero (What about Frank?????)
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To: SandRat
Guess the City of Brotherly Love really does mean “Brotherly Love (ala NAMBLA).”

The City of (insert a perversion here).

126 posted on 12/07/2007 5:20:23 AM PST by Greg F (Duncan Hunter is a good man.)
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To: Owl_Eagle; brityank; Physicist; WhyisaTexasgirlinPA; GOPJ; abner; baseballmom; Mo1; Ciexyz; ...

ping


127 posted on 12/07/2007 5:21:10 AM PST by Tribune7 (Dems want to rob from the poor to give to the rich)
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To: Balding_Eagle
You are aware, are you not, that the Boy Scouts themselves built the building in 1928, then gifted it to the city, in return for a perpetual lease back to them to use it for $1 per year?

Yes, I am aware of that. Are you aware that the lot was city land, and that the lease included a clause that allowed for the termination of the deal with one year's notice?

128 posted on 12/07/2007 8:52:39 AM PST by Bubba Ho-Tep
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

I was not.

However, from the information you presented upthread, it isn’t entirely clear who owned, or now owns, the land on which the building was built.


129 posted on 12/08/2007 9:13:32 AM PST by Balding_Eagle (If America falls, darkness will cover the face of the earth for a thousand years.)
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To: Balding_Eagle
However, from the information you presented upthread, it isn’t entirely clear who owned, or now owns, the land on which the building was built.

I don't think there's any dispute that the city owns the land now. If they didn't, how could they claim rent? From what I can figure out from the bits and pieces is that the land was owned by the city, part of the same parcel that the large adjacent park and the nearby museums were built on. The Scouts offered to build a building on one lot, then give it to the city in return for the $1/year rent, which was "perpetual," but included a clause that allowed the city to end it with one year's notice.

What I've noticed in all of this is that the Scouts don't seem to be claiming any particular legal leg to stand on. They're making a moral argument instead. It seems that if they did have some legal grounds to fight this, they'd be all over it.

130 posted on 12/10/2007 9:32:19 AM PST by Bubba Ho-Tep
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To: Girlene

But surely the rampant homophobia of an organization that won’t send boys on camping trips with homosexual men is the most pressing problem in Philadelphia today. Granted, if someone hangs a noose in a warehouse and a black guy wanders in and sees it, it might rival the Scout horror. But to even think that murders, rapes, muggings, assaults, armed robberies, urban decay, drug dealers, STDs, teen pregnancy, illegitimacy, and neighborhoods that resemble the Third World are an equivalent problem shows your lack of perspective.


131 posted on 12/10/2007 9:41:32 AM PST by puroresu (Enjoy ASIAN CINEMA? See my Freeper page for recommendations (updated!).)
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

Just for the record, do you support “gay rights” legislation and do you favor booting the scouts out of these facilities unless they agree to accept homosexuality?


132 posted on 12/10/2007 9:46:22 AM PST by puroresu (Enjoy ASIAN CINEMA? See my Freeper page for recommendations (updated!).)
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To: puroresu
Just for the record, do you support “gay rights” legislation and do you favor booting the scouts out of these facilities unless they agree to accept homosexuality?

Hmm. "gay rights legislation" covers a lot of territory. You'll have to be more specific. Let's say I don't believe in special privileges for anyone, and I don't like discrimination in general. On gay marriage, I usually come back to asking why the government's in the marriage business at all. Do I favor booting the scouts out in this case? No, I don't. I think the Scouts do good work. But since I'm neither a Scout nor a resident of the Philadelphia metro area, I don't feel much passion for this particular issue either way. I'm just an interested onlooker.

133 posted on 12/10/2007 10:42:36 AM PST by Bubba Ho-Tep
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep
It seems that if they did have some legal grounds to fight this, they'd be all over it.

I agree that if that's true they should be all over it, but there are a lot of examples of where they clearly are on the moral and legal side, and yet they do nothing.

I can't come up with a specific case right now, but I do remember O'Reilly taking the Scouts to task for just letting someone run all over them when they had the legal high ground without as much as a whimper.

134 posted on 12/10/2007 10:55:22 AM PST by Balding_Eagle (If America falls, darkness will cover the face of the earth for a thousand years.)
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To: Balding_Eagle

The problem facing the Scouts legally is the precedent set in the Berkeley Sea Scouts case, which I linked to above in the thread. It’s a similar case in that the Sea Scouts were getting free dock space at the city marina, but when the city decided they didn’t like the Scouts gay policy, they took away that deal, offering instead to let them rent at normal market rate. The Scouts lost in the California Supreme Court (no surprise there), and the USSC declined to review, so there it stands.


135 posted on 12/10/2007 11:11:54 AM PST by Bubba Ho-Tep
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To: SycoDon

Easily done. Just hire former Philly mayor Wilson Goode. He’s an expert in firebombing Philadelphia city blocks.


136 posted on 12/10/2007 11:19:04 AM PST by cschroe
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To: puroresu

Yes, I guess I do lack that kind of perspective. :-).


137 posted on 12/10/2007 11:33:06 AM PST by Girlene (Merry Christmas)
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To: yorkie
That says a lot about our elites telling people traditional values are "discriminatory." Its an assault on Judeo-Christian values - and the Boy Scouts temerity in upholding them is the real crime in the City Of Philadelphia's eyes.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

138 posted on 12/10/2007 11:38:11 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: yorkie

City of “Brotherly” Love.


139 posted on 12/10/2007 11:38:54 AM PST by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts and guns made America great.)
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep
Let's say I don't believe in special privileges for anyone, and I don't like discrimination in general.

The problem with laws against discrimination, is that to enforce some of them, you have to engage in other types of discrimination. For example, this Philadelphia ordinance forbidding "discrimination" against homosexuals, requires discrimination against people of faith who do not sanction homosexuality. You can only access certain public facilities, or avail yourself of certain public benefits, if you reject your faith's teachings on homosexuality. This is an inherent problem when you start banning "discrimination" based on conduct.

The city of Philadelphia is basically saying that traditional moral values which find unnatural sexual conduct to be immoral are not something to be encouraged. In fact, they're to be marginalized or suppressed on behalf of male-on-male sodomy, which the city has chosen to honor and elevate to a position of legitimacy.

140 posted on 12/10/2007 12:30:06 PM PST by puroresu (Enjoy ASIAN CINEMA? See my Freeper page for recommendations (updated!).)
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