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BERKELEY -- Berkeley police on Tuesday arrested a 64-year-old Sea Scout leader on six felony counts of sexual assault on boys ages 13 to 17 who are members of the maritime youth group. Eugene Evans of Kensington, who has been the skipper of the Berkeley group's boat for 35 years, was booked into the Berkeley police jail. Police served search warrants at his home and "several other locations," according to a police statement. The group maintains its boat, the Farallon, at the Berkeley Marina. Police said charges could include lewd and lascivious acts against a minor younger than 14, oral...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal on Monday to review a ruling that allows the City of Berkeley to deny the Sea Scouts a free dock at the Marina because of its discrimination against gays and atheists could spell the end for the 74-year-old sailing group. “The city is choosing to punish us for something that is no fault of ours. The power to tax is the power to destroy,” said Gene Evans, skipper of the Sea Scout Boat at the Berkeley Marina. The city however denies that it is punishing anyone. “If the city is going to fund a community...

IN THE SUPER-HEATED debate over gay rights, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken a modest step forward. Public agencies such as cities, schools and parks can stop subsidies to groups who don't abide by local anti-discrimination bans, the high court indicated in backing a California ruling. The case began in Berkeley, an unlikely-sounding spot for the conservative-majority court to show its thinking. But the ruling was a win on a significant question: Can community groups, such as the Boy Scouts, who bar gays use local buildings, parks and marinas like other nonprofit groups? The case drew hyped-up battle lines pitting...

A Boy Scouts sailing group that lost free use of a public boat slip because of the Scouts' discriminatory policies failed to persuade the Supreme Court to take its case. The justices on Monday let stand a unanimous California Supreme Court ruling that the city of Berkeley may treat the Berkeley Sea Scouts differently from other nonprofits because the Scouts bar atheists and gays. The leader of the Sea Scouts argued that forcing the group to pay for a berth at the marina violated the group's free speech and freedom of association rights. The U.S. high court ruled in 2000...

RICHMOND: Former Navy vessel's engine failed, but groups are chipping in to repair it - The S.S. Northland, a former U.S. Navy ship that is the pride of the Richmond Sea Scouts, is on its way to seaworthiness again with help from some local industries that stepped in to handle crucial heavy lifting. The ship, a 26-year-old surplus U.S. Navy torpedo weapons retriever, has been out of commission for just over a year when its starboard engine failed after leaving the Richmond centennial celebration.But after a long haul, things are looking up for the local Sea Scout chapter, which was...

Exclusive City Policy Attacks Civil Rights What if a city charged Democrats, but not Republicans, to swim at the municipal plunge? What if it let the National Rifle Association use public meeting rooms without cost, but made the ACLU pay for the privilege? These hypothetical situations might sound strained, but are they so different from the double standard that the city of Berkeley practices at its marina? A city program allows nonprofit organizations free use of the Berkeley Marina. However, one group-the Berkeley Sea Scouts-is excluded. The disqualification is for ideological reasons: The Sea Scouts are affiliated with the Boy...

The Pacific Legal Foundation announced Tuesday that it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a decision by the California Supreme Court that affirmed the city of Berkeley's right to deny the Berkeley Sea Scouts free berthing privileges at its marina. The city revoked the scouts' berthing privileges in 1998 because the group is affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, which bans atheists and gays. The city said the ban violates Berkeley's anti-discrimination ordinance. The scouts, who had berthed for free for more than 60 years, appealed to the courts, calling the city's policy a violation of the...

Pacific Legal Foundation announced today that it has appealed to the United States Supreme Court to review and reverse the California Supreme Court’s decision allowing the City of Berkeley to discriminate against the Berkeley Sea Scouts, because of their affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America. Berkeley operates a program for community-oriented nonprofit organizations that allows them free use of the Berkeley Marina. However, Berkeley prohibits the Berkeley Sea Scouts from participating in this program, because the Sea Scouts are affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America and Berkeley officials hold ideological objections to the values and membership policies of...

State Supreme Court Backs Berkeley in Sea Scout Case By RICHARD BRENNEMAN Berkeley’s decision to cut off subsidies to the Sea Scouts because they refused to guarantee they wouldn’t discriminate against gays and atheists was perfectly legal, a unanimous California Supreme Court ruled Thursday. In the opinion written by Associate Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, the seven justices said that the city council’s May 5, 1998 vote to stop subsidizing free berths at the Berkeley Marina did not interfere with the Sea Scouts members’ constitutional rights of association, free speech and equal protection. “I’m soaring,” said Berkeley City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque,...

San Francisco,CA; March 09, 2006: The California Supreme Court today ruled against the Berkeley Sea Scouts in Evans v. Berkeley, and upheld the City of Berkeley’s discriminatory campaign to force the local nonprofit youth group to end its lifelong affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America. "The California Supreme Court’s decision today unfortunately has given the green light to activist city officials to discriminate against groups they disagree with politically," said Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Harold Johnson, co-counsel in the case. Johnson also represents Sea Scout Tonatiuh Alvarez, one of the plaintiffs and petitioners before the state Supreme Court. "The...

California may refuse to provide subsidies to the Boy Scouts of America and other nonprofit groups that fail to comply with government antidiscrimination policies, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday. The state high court's decision gives cities and government agencies the ability to impose antidiscrimination conditions on any group that receives a public benefit. The ruling was one of a handful across the country in which courts have permitted government agencies to exclude the Boy Scouts from programs because the Scouts bar gays and atheists. In a ruling written by Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, the court upheld a decision...

<p>We think of the frontiers of freedom as being patrolled by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. But these days, the Boy Scouts of America and affiliated groups also stand guard. In courtrooms across the country, they're resisting a domestic strain of tyranny - the totalitarian impulse to police thought and enforce a government-sanctioned orthodoxy on social and cultural issues.The Scouts are loathed by many self-styled progressives for transmitting a code of commitment, stressing God and country, that was supposed to be marginalized by now. But they're not giving in to bureaucratic bullies who try to force them to shed "outmoded" beliefs on matters of sex and social values. Lovers of liberty - even those who might disagree with Scouting's principles - should toast their tenacity for the First Amendment and the right not to be PC.This controversy was supposed to have been settled by the U.S. Supreme Court three years ago. In Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, a five-justice majority said that as a private, belief-based organization, the Scouts are free to craft their own membership rules; in particular, government can't order them to admit homosexuals as leaders. It follows that they're also within their rights to require that members profess a belief in God.But an alarming number of local and state officials refused to listen. In 2001, for instance, District of Columbia officials ordered the local Scouts to readmit two gays as adult leaders and pay $100,000 in damages. This decree was overturned by an appeals court, which noted that D.C. should take another look at Dale.Most of the current government assaults on the Scouts take the form of indirect coercion. There's shunning, as in San Francisco, where local judges are now barred from participating in Scouting. There's stigmatizing, as Connecticut and Portland, Ore., have attempted by excluding the Scouts from the charities that public employees may support through payroll deduction.There's also selective denial of public benefits. Berkeley leads the way by singling out the Sea Scouts for a fee to use the city's marina. After being permitted free use for 50 years, the Sea Scouts in 1998 were suddenly hit with a charge of more than $500 per month. No other nonprofit is required to pay to berth at the marina. The fee is imposed explicitly because of the Sea Scouts' affiliation with the Boy Scouts.High school teacher Eugene Evans, skipper of the Berkeley Sea Scouts' ship, pays the fee out of his pocket, so he can no longer cover membership costs for teenagers from poorer neighborhoods. Some have had to drop out.Unfortunately, a California court of appeal upheld Berkeley's punitive policy in November. The Sea Scouts have now asked the state Supreme Court to take the case. They cite the constitutional rule against "viewpoint discrimination" in the public sector. In other words, if Berkeley decides to offer free berthing to nonprofits - which it has done - it can't pick and choose recipients based on their beliefs or the beliefs of those they're associated with.Several recent "graduates" of the Berkeley Sea Scouts are now Marines stationed in the Persian Gulf. One of these young leathernecks is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Berkeley's anti-Scout policy. All are following in a long tradition of Sea Scouts stepping forward in the nation's hours of need. More than 100,000 Sea Scouts volunteered after Pearl Harbor. Admiral Chester Nimitz reportedly said that the Sea Scouts were crucial to the Navy's ability to regroup after that disaster. But if Berkeley officials feel any remorse at targeting such a worthy group, they haven't revealed it.Today, the Boy Scouts' and Sea Scouts' fight is for the survival of a free and robust private sector, a sphere where all may choose their beliefs and affiliations without preclearance, editing or censorship by the state, and without fear of official discrimination or reprisal. For defending this basic principle of a free society, the Scouts deserve a hearty salute.</p>

Story by Adam Cohen 12:03 AM, 2/5/2003 A legal brawl between the Sea Scouts and the Berkeley City Council may soon head to the California Supreme Court this year, taking the five-year fray to the state’s highest judicial authority. For six decades, the Berkeley Sea Scouts, a subsidiary group of Boy Scouts of America that trains children in seamanship, were allowed to dock their boats in the city’s marina free of charge. That changed in 1998, when the Berkeley City Council voted to withhold docking fee waivers from the organization because of the Boy Scouts policy forbidding open homosexuals from...

<p>A tiny nonprofit group that teaches boys the basics of seamanship is being penalized by Berkeley, Calif., for its affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America.</p> <p>Until now, the Sea Scouts have enjoyed free berthing rights at Berkeley's public marina, as have several other nonprofit groups. But the city has a 5-year-old policy forbidding it to subsidize certain groups, including those that discriminate against homosexuals.</p>

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