United Way of Cleveland moves to pull funding in 13 for Boy Scouts over group's prohibition of gays

United Way of Greater Cleveland moves to pull funding in 2013 for Boy Scouts over group's prohibition of gay members

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Officials with United Way of Greater Cleveland announced Tuesday they are moving to pull their funding next year from the Boy Scouts of America after the group recently reaffirmed its prohibition of openly gay youth and adults.

At issue is nearly $100,000 that goes to the Boy Scouts of America Greater Cleveland Council for Scoutreach, a program that brings scouting to about 1,600 inner-city youth with an eye on physical fitness and citizenship.

United Way is just one of several sources of funding for the program, a Boy Scout official said. United Way will continue to fund the program through June 30, 2013, but likely not after that because of the Boy Scouts ban on openly homosexual leaders and youth.

That ban violates a new United Way of Greater Cleveland equal opportunity and diversity policy.

Barry Norris, the top executive at the Boy Scouts Greater Cleveland Council, indicated he was saddened by the break. He said the two local institutions have been working together since 1913.

The 81-member United Way board voted Sept. 12 to add sexual orientation to the policy that requires that people will be valued and given opportunity regardless of race, sex, age, disability, among other things. Though not all board members were present, the vote was unanimous, officials said.

"The implication is that they're not going to get funding," said Bill Kitson, United Way's president and chief executive officer. Kitson added that the decision on funding for the Boy Scouts won't come until next spring, but added, "They've told us they're not going to change. We've told them we're not going to change."

At the Boy Scouts, Norris said the Scoutreach program will continue, and hopefully grow as others step forward with funding.

"We respect the right United Way has to make their policy," Norris said. "But we didn't change our policy. They changed theirs."

Norris said the organization's stance isn't meant to be a social commentary and it doesn't inquire about anyone's sexual orientation.

"Keep in mind that most of our youth members are under the age of 12," Norris added. "And the majority of parents we serve do not believe that scouting is the right forum for same-sex attraction to be introduced and discussed. It's just not in our purview."

Paul Clark, board chairman of Greater Cleveland United Way, said the Boy Scouts of America is the only organization in the more than 100 programs that the local United Way funds that has a discriminatory policy. Clark is a regional president for PNC Bank.

Clark said United Way officials met with local Boy Scout leaders Monday and informed them of the move.

"I think they view their policy as one of protection," Clark added. "I think the premise of the protection idea is that anyone who is homosexual is a pedophile. I abhor that. I think it's indefensible."

The announcement came as United Way of Greater Cleveland is kicking off its 2012 fundraising campaign with a goal of raising $41 million, officials said. Clark said his agency was hearing from donors, particularly young people and corporate leaders, who said the Boy Scouts policy on people who are openly gay differed from their workplace policy.

Clark indicated that the move would likely have a mixed effect on donations, with some people cutting their donations and others giving more.

Those who contribute to United Way can still designate the Boy Scouts on their donation form and the group will continue to receive those contributions, which total about $180,000 annually.

But an additional $100,000 that United Way provides through its allocation process --specifically for the Scoutreach program -- is expected to cease July 1, 2013, the start of United Way's new fiscal year.

The decision here follows similar funding cutoffs in a couple dozen other communities nationwide, although other reports are that the Scouts have continued to receive significant money from other sources.

The Scouts have been facing growing opposition after the national organization recently reaffirmed its exclusion of homosexuals from scouting. The Boy Scouts executive board in July had announced it would continue its policy of banning openly gay boys as well as gay adults from scouting.

The policy "reflects the beliefs and perspectives" of the organization, the Boy Scouts said in a news release from its headquarters in Irving, Texas. That policy had been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000.

The Boy Scouts reaffirming their ban on openly gay members came as the group braced itself for a wave of bad publicity that is expected from the release of decades of records of confirmed or alleged child molesters within the organization across the nation.

About 1,200 files dating from 1965 to 1985 are set to be publicly released in the next few weeks under a June order by the Oregon Supreme Court.

The Los Angeles Times reviewed some of those files and reported earlier this month that the Boy Scouts failed to report allegations of sex abuse of scouts by adult leaders and volunteers to police in hundreds of cases from 1970 to 1991.

In some cases, the Boy Scouts helped the accused "cover their tracks," the paper said.

Paul Mones, a Portland, Oregon lawyer among those who represented the plantiff in the Oregon lawsuit, declined to comment specifically on the Boy Scouts ban, but said that it's a myth that homosexuals pose more of a threat than others to children. Mones has represented children in abuse and molestation cases for 30 years.

"There's nothing to that," he said. "The reality is that we're talking about people who are pedophiles. Unfortunately, vast numbers of [people] want to lump these two groups together. But one doesn't have anything to do with the other."

The battlefield has shaped into 2 opposing lines consisting of ...

1. Christian denominations which stand by orthodox Christian teachings on sexuality and which charter Cub Packs and Boy Scout Troops, e.g., LDS Church, UMC (Methodist - they are becoming wobblely), and RCC.

2. Small private businesses with traditional values which continue to financially support BSA.

vs.

1. Christian denominations which oppose orthodox Christian teachings on sexuality and which charter Cub Packs and Boy Scout Troops, e.g., ELCA (Lutheran), PCUSA (Presbyterian), TEC (Episcopal), and UCC (United Church of Christ). It is probably only a matter of time before these denominations are directed to cancel their unit charters with BSA.

2. Corporate America which has rapidly adopted diversity/anti-discrimination employee/charitable donation rules. Two CEOs on the BSA national executive board, James Turly of Ernst & Young and Randall Stephenson of AT&T, pledged to work inside BSA to change its membership policy to include homosexuals. Stephenson is expected to be selected as the BSA national president in 2014.
http://www.charter.net/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9VCBA581%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=931

http://issuu.com/humanrightscampaign/docs/hrc-cei-2011-final
The Human Rights Campaign’s 9th annual (2011) Corporate Equality Index

http://nglcc.org/files/nglcc-splash/index.html
National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce

3. United Way chapters in the largest metro areas, on the left coast, north central mid-west, and northeast. One of the UW charity receiving agencies, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, implemented a policy in 2002 that bans discrimination against open homosexuals as volunteers and mentors of children at its 500 affiliates around the United States
http://www.bsa-discrimination.org/html/UnitedWay-Top.html
United Way BSA Chapters Deal w/ BSA

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/7/18/142725.shtml
Big Brothers Approves Homosexual Mentors

4. Hollywood, Madison Avenue, academia, MSM, and the Democrat Pary.

S Steven Spielberg, aged 65 – film-maker, mogul extraordinaire, 1 of the 3 founders of DreamWorks SKG which was launched in 1994. He was an Eagle Scout and a member of the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) national board of directors until he resigned in protest in 2001 because of BSA’s membership policy which excludes open homosexual members. (One cannot avoid making the connection between this action and his business relationship with DreamWorks SKG partner, David Geffen.)

K Jeffrey Katzenberg, aged 61 - film producer, 1 of the 3 founders of DreamWorks SKG which was launched in 1994. Currently CEO of DreamWorks Animation.

G David Geffen, aged 69 - record executive, film producer, theatrical producer and philanthropist. He is 1 of the 3 founders of DreamWorks SKG which launched in 1994. He is openly homosexual. In 2004, state senator Barack Hussein Obama (D-IL) delivered the keynote address at the Democrat Party Convention. Geffen told him afterwards that he would support him for President in 2008 and later made good on his word when he switched his support from Hillary Clinton to Obama in 2006.

Mitt Romney - 2012 GOP Presidential candidate
 Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910.
 LDS Church adopted BSA as its official male youth program in 1913. It remains so to this day.
 LDS Church condemns active homosexuality.
 Mitt Romney’s family line goes back several generations in the Mormon Church. He is a lifelong Mormon and is very active in his church having served as a bishop and stake president.
 Mitt Romney’s 3 youngest sons are Eagle Scouts. (A Mormon in the White House?: 10 Things Every American Should Know about Mitt Romney, by Hugh Hewitt, © 2007, Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington, D.C.)
 Mitt Romney served on the BSA national executive board of directors during the 1990s.
 Mitt Romney (R) ran for (and lost) the U.S. Senate seat in MA against Ted Kennedy (D). While campaigning in 1994 (and still sitting on the BSA national executive board) he publically stated that open homosexual youths and adults should be admitted as members into BSA. During the campaign he proclaimed his support of the homosexual agenda in MA (partner state benefits and civil unions).
 Boy Scouts from the Atlanta Area Council participated in large numbers at the 1996 Summer Olympic games in Atlanta. Cobb County, which is adjacent to Fulton County/Atlanta had previously passed anti-homosexual legislation. Homosexualist activists organized the "Olympics Out of Cobb County" campaign which successfully diverted the 1996 Summer Olympics torch relay (which preceded the start of the games by a few days) away from Cobb County, Georgia.
 Around 2000, the LDS Church surpassed the UMC Church as the denomination with the largest number of chartered Cub packs and Boy Scout troops. There are many allegations that many of the registered youth members are not active in the units, i.e., their families are members of the Wards but the boys do not participate in Scouting.  0n June 28, 2000 the SCOTUS ruled on Boy Scouts of America et al. v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640. It held that the BSA, with respect to the right of freedom of association, had the right to exclude a person from membership when "the presence of that person affected in a significant way the group's ability to advocate public or private viewpoints. The court ruled that opposition to homosexuality and atheists are part of BSA's "expressive message", and allowing homosexuals or atheists as adult leaders would interfere with that message. The documentation submitted during the case revealed that several local BSA councils were already implementing what essentially was a “Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell” membership policy during the early 1990s.
 LGBTQ activist groups vocally opposed Utah's 2002 Winter Olympic bid because of the Utah State Legislature's imposition of a ban on same-sex marriage in 1995. Utah has the largest concentration of Mormons within the United States. The Mormon Church headquarters is in Salt Lake City. The Olympics Out of Utah Committee staged protests on Interstate 15, which included the use of slow-driving cars to disrupt traffic.
 Mitt Romney was asked to take over as chairman of the financially plagued Salt Lake City Olympic Organizing Committee in 1999 He resigned his job as president of Bain Capital to do so. BSA’s Great Salt Lakes Council anticipated participating heavily with Scouting volunteers - youths and adults. The Olympic Organizing Committee, under Mitt Romney’s leadership, denied the Boy Scouts from participating. Olympic Organizing Committee spokesperson, Caroline Shaw, stated that the organizing committee had rules against involving under-age (<18 years of age) volunteers. Yet (1) adult Scouters were denied the opportunity to volunteer while wearing their uniforms, and (2) all Scouts and Scouters were permitted to volunteer individually out of uniform (many did so). It was seen clearly for the red herring that it was because of how the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta (which were much larger in size – the number of Olympic athletes competing, the number of events held, and the number of ticketholders to watch the different events) permitted involvement by the Boy Scouts. Mitt Romney refused to ever meet or talk with professional and volunteer Scouters from the Great Salt Lakes Council. Mitt Romney was roundly praised for turning around the troubled Olympic games in Salt Lake City into a successful business venture.
 Mitt Romney was elected governor (R) of MA in 2003. On his watch, MA becames the 1st state in the nation to approve homosexual marriage in 2004. It was done through the state government and not by ballot/public referendum. Romney was roundly criticized by social conservatives for how he mis-handled this issue.
 In 2006 Mitt Romney proclaimed that homosexual couples have legitimate interests in adopting children.  Romney spokesperson, Andrea Saul, wrote in an e-mail in AUG 2012 that Romney’s 1994 position for inclusion of open homosexual members in BSA remains his position today.

5. Rogue BSA councils whose Scout Executive and/or Executive Board openly defies BSA's national membership policy.
http://www.scoutsforequality.com/

As the article explains, if you currently donate your "fair share" to UW, you may check the UW form to direct your gift directly to the local BSA council which uses the $ for (1) salary of staff, (2) maintenance of council properties (e.g., service center and summer camp), (3) maintenance of the Scout Shop in the service center, and (4) funding local scouting events/programs. UW funding does not go to individual Scouting units. Of course, if your UW chapter does not support BSA, it will withold any previous funding it used to donate while honoring your direct gift. Of course, direct giving is nothing but a shell game. The UW chapter already has its allocation budget in place and will make every effort to stick to it.

Many in corporate America are heavily pressured to support the UW. Directing your giving to BSA may be your only option.

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