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 ...
The Scouts built the million dollar building. Tear it down if you can’t take it with you.
And no doubt the city will turn the property over to GLAAD.
Just proves there is too much city-owned facilities.
im getting sick of the few overtaking the many...
it will be a NAMBLA building before you know it.
The BSA should take away the building they built piece by piece.
So the prohibition on religious establishment permits the city to mandate that all persons bow to the religion of political correctness and check your moral principles at the door.
Yup. Demolish it or require the city to pay the fair value of the improvements on the land.
Now the way is cleared for the city council commies to turn the building over to the North American Man-Boy Love Association for their headquarters. Embrace your new gay order, Philadelphians.
This brings a new and perverse meaning to the “city of brotherly love.”
Apparently in Philadelphia good is evil and evil is good. Woe unto them.
“The last remaining Men” in Pennsylvania...
This is an unbelievable statement by a government employee. "You CANNOT...." Who made this guy God?
I think it’s sad that people equate pedophilia with homosexuality at this day in time. The BSA Headquarters should purchase the land from the city and finance a lease for the group that they can afford. Unfortunately, a lot of inner city kids will suffer and a beautiful landmark will be no more because of this.
Philadelphia stinks with shame today.
This building was built by the Scouts, it belongs to the Scouts, and they should take it with them - brick by brick.
If you're taking the government's money, you follow their rules.
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