[sauropod]

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.

Not too biased an opening to the newsstory is it?

I've been tracking this story (my son is a member of the Boy Scouts).

For the BSA to accept open homosexuals (especially in leadership positions) would mean the end of the organization.

The Boy Scouts of America is a private organization. My recommendation to them would be to purchase/build/maintain a meeting place of their own. This is too important an issue to compromise on.

'Pod.

[Tenniel2]

There's an even bigger lie in the story: "... a municipal building where the Scouts have resided practically rent free since 1928."

As others have pointed out, the building belongs to the Scouts, who built it in 1928 at their own expense. Despite the dollar-a-year ground rent, the BSA has maintained the Beaux Arts (which, incidentally, is a legitimate architectural-historical landmark) for the last 80 years. And it was the Scouts, not the city, who undertook and paid for its $2.7 million renovation in the late '90s.

The conduct of the Philly city council, and of its proudly out-of-the-closet ringleader, is beneath despicable.