Berkeley can boot Scouts, court says

Sacramento Bee ^ | Nov. 26, 02 | Claire Cooper

[churchillbuff]

The city is allowed to rescind the free berth at the marina because of the group's ban on gays.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Sea Scouts are no longer entitled to a free berth at Berkeley's marina, an appeals court ruled Monday in a decision that lets the city enforce its policy of nondiscrimination toward homosexuals against an affiliate of the adamantly anti-gay Boy Scouts.

[HamiltonJay]

This is wonderful.... Boy Scouts will no longer be harrassed by yet even more Seamen.

[Steve_Seattle]

I remember many years ago when I discovered that a local YWCA was controlled by militant feminists who used the Y's facilities to promote abortion and other left-wing feminist causes. The women who ran the center were atheists, some were Jewish, and none had any sympathy whatsoever for Christianity. If/when the Boy Scouts drop their ban on homosexuals and their requirement for a belief in God, the organization will slowly but surely be transformed, just as that YWCA was many years ago. It will eventually be turned on its head to espouse values totally contrary to those of its founders. That is what is at stake in these controversies.

[IYAS9YAS]

Actually, Berkeley could get in serious trouble...if this is the reason they yanked the free dock, then ANY group they support with other "fee or rent" waivers would have to meet the same "non-discrimination" policy.

It is city money, but if they yank it from one because they are in violation of "A" and grant it to another also in violation of "A", they are in the wrong. Berkeley is not a private entity and what they do with their money IS subject to the rule of law.

[churchillbuff]

If/when the Boy Scouts drop their ban on homosexuals and their requirement for a belief in God, the organization will slowly but surely be transformed, just as that YWCA was many years ago

This is very insightful.

[IMHO]

Yeah, except for the fact that it is not "Berkeley's" money. This is money that is coerced from everyone, and so Berkeley should use it for everyone's benefit, or else close the "family planning" clinics, or anything else that someone might find offensive.

[F.J. Mitchell]

It would seem that "Sexual disorientation" rather than "Sexual orientation", as applied to the life styles of various and sundry perverted sexual appetite consumed groups, would come more closely to defining them.

Move away if you are not gay,
from that sick city by the bay,
who's motto seems to say,
"It's the gay way or the highway."

Soddom and Gommorah's sister city,
feels neither mercy or pitty,
for parents who dare shield their male kiddie,
from deviates whom lust has drove giddy.

Fresh victims for perverts is what it's about,
this assault by the far left upon Scouts,
they want our boys early, before they find out,
there's really a heaven, but only girls know the route.

Pitty poor Berkley and all who live there,
where politically correct is polluting the air,
and those who make babies, all move to else where,
let the lights be turned off, as eternity calls,
the last lonely surviving queer.

[Stone Mountain]

Well, you can't fight sin without being where sin is...

[RAT Patrol]

Sad but not surprising. It just amazes me that liberals think it's a good idea to pick on boy scouts.

[PISANO]

Seems like it is ok for the ANTI-SEA SCOUT GAYS to discriminate against ANTI-GAY SEA SCOUTS but not vice-versa. I thought the SCOTUS decided this kind of freedom of association case last year? PC gone amok! Insanity reigns!

[WaveThatFlag]

Who do we make a check out to for private funding contributions?

[zip]

Why the hostility?

How about this?? "rocks for docks," in which the Scouts allowed Berkeley to take rocks from one of their camps to create fill at the marina in exchange for the free berths.

[zip]

Why are you favoring the "gay" segment? It is a gay vs straight issue not private vs public.

[cavtrooper21]

Actually, in several of these cases, legal costs and the lawyer were donated by former Scouts! We take care of our own. If you have a problem with the Gubmint's use of your taxes, TELL 'EM!

[Lunatic Fringe]

I agree- they have the right to deny free marina fees.

[Pompah]

What do they park there.?
Mostly FairyBoats I suppose.

[Libertina]

destroy their organization through economic terrorism facilitated by the judicial system
Already happening across thenatino to anyone who disagrees politically. Small businesses, unpopular political groups, mouthy US citizens of the conservative persuasion... Hmmm, if we could declare conservativism as a sexual "preference" we could probably make out like bandits! ;)

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

The "out of their way" phrase seems agenda-laden to me...specifically, an anti-BSA agenda. I don't think kindly of low lives who attack innocent patriotic boys.

I'm trying to think why anyone would assume BSA to be a public organization.

[RonF]

The BSA is a private organization. Their status as a private organization vs. public accomodation has been litigated in 5 states. In each case, the highest court to rule on the subject has ruled them to be a private organization, invalidating any contradictory findings by a lower court.

It's interesting to compare this situation with that in some public schools. As you might recall, some public schools started to deny local units the right to use their facilities on the basis that the BSA discriminated against homosexuals and atheists, in violation of those schools' non-discrimination policies. In response, Congress added an amendment to the latest education act; schools that did this would from now on lose their federal funding. So, the practice has stopped. OTOH, the schools can charge units the same rates they charge any other not-for-profit (NFP).

It seems to me that the Berkeley City Council has every right to charge Ship 42 the same docking fee as any other NFP. It may very well be that there is no other NFP that owns a boat and pays a docking fee. In which case the upper limit would seem to be what they charge a private party.

This talk of "Breach of Contract" sounds interesting. Was there any kind of agreement that the BSA would get preferential treatment in perpetuity due to providing fill for the marina? There are cases like this all over the country. Very often the BSA has put buildings and other improvements into public facilities in exchange for preferential use of those facilities. Now people decrying the BSA's policies want to remove those privileges, without recognizing that the BSA is owed consideration for what the money, time, and labor they have provided the public.

It's as if they think that since the BSA doesn't allow "avowed" gays or atheists as members, nothing about the BSA is good, and it deserves to have everything it has earned or paid for taken from it, and to be cut off from the public. It is, in fact, not at all far fetched to think that there are deliberate attempts to bleed it dry; the death of a thousand cuts.

[Stone Mountain]

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Berkeley can boot Scouts, court says, PeoplesRepublicOfWashington wrote: The "out of their way" phrase seems agenda-laden to me...specifically, an anti-BSA agenda. I don't think kindly of low lives who attack innocent patriotic boys. I'm trying to think why anyone would assume BSA to be a public organization.

Well, when I was a scout, I just assumed it was a public organization. They recruited in my school, took anyone who wanted to join - it didn't occur to me that it was private until they started getting publicity about not letting those athiest kids in. At that point, the BSA did indeed go "out of their way" to proclaim themselves a private organization - in the courts and in the press. If you are accusing me of being a low-life who attacks innocent patriotic boys (of which I myself was a member), kindly come out and say so. I don't appreciate your implication.

[Redleg Duke]

Another self-inflicted torpedo hit in the USS Liberal!