Do others have to pay for similar use of the city's property?
If so, why should the Scouts or anyone else get special treatment?
The Scouts should stop taking handouts from the government. When they pay the bills they can call the shots.
Why should all citizens be forced to support the Scouts through this handout when some of them can't join? That's absurd.
I support the Scouts right to association. If they want to exclude gays and atheists, that's fine with me. But they're going to have to pay their own way.
"We value the services they provide," Wilkerson said. "They do good work for the kids in a lot of neighborhoods in the city. We wanted to talk through the issues with them."
If so, why should the Scouts or anyone else get special treatment?
The Scouts should stop taking handouts from the government. When they pay the bills they can call the shots.
Took the words right out of my mouth.
It's hard to call a 75 year use of property a "handout", given how it started and developed. No tax dollars are going towards this, only an absence of government thievery. All improvements to the property were made by the Scouts, who provide benefits to the overwhelming majority, including homosexuals and atheists who keep their mouths shut. In 1928, when the deal was made, anyone who suggested the Scouts should be forced to accept homosexuals would have been sent to the nuthouse. There weren't any "anti-discrimination" laws, either.
I'll bet the city or some other government entity provides meeting space and facilities for a host of homosexual and atheist organizations. How about at the same time they evict the Scouts they evict all the homosexual and atheist organizations as well?
The next step in this absurd farce will be to prohibit Scouts from using public roads, or going to public parks.
Were we in Libertopia, I'd agree with your comments. As we're not, supporting the homosexual position does immediate damage to large numbers of Scouts, and provides little or no benefits to the homosexuals, other than their satisfaction in successfully harassing them for their incredible temerity in not wanting young boys to be exposed to homosexuals.
They have no right to be "accepted" or "celebrated". Not here, and not in Libertopia either. In our ideal world, a private business that displayed a sign saying "No homosexuals or atheists allowed" would be perfectly acceptable.