Negotiations between Philadelphia Boy Scouts and the city government have ended; the Scouts are being evicted.
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.
Municipal officials drew the line at the Beaux Arts building because the city owns the half-acre of land where the building stands. The Boy Scouts erected the ornate building and since 1928 have leased the land from the city for a token sum of $1 a year. City officials said the market value for renting the building was about $200,000 a year, and they invited the Boy Scouts to remain as full-paying tenants.
Jeff Jubelirer, a spokesman for the local chapter, said it could not afford $200,000 a year in rent, and that such a price would require it to cut summer-camp funds for 800 needy children. […]
So they’re saying that if a group does some sort of good, they should be exempt from anti-discrimination law? “Well, it’s true we fired all the Jews, but we also built a home for stray cats, so we should be exempt from the law!”
I’m sorry for the decent scouts and boys this hurts, but the city did the right thing, and dealt the Scouts an important symbolic loss. It’s right that the Scouts suffer some consequences for their decision to support bigotry. The Scouts will be much better off in a few decades, when enough of the yahoos currently running the organization have died that their homophobic policies can be removed.
I’m not sure if discrimination against atheists was also at issue in this conflict.
(I previously posted about this conflict in August of 2006.)
Is it actually illegal for a private organization to discriminate on the basis of sexuality?
Jamila, quoting from the linked article here:
So yeah, they’re free to discriminate to their hearts content, but not while paying only token rent to the city. Which seems fair enough to me. If they’re a private organisation they can pay their own rent and everything is cool.
I’m reminded of the faff over Catholic adoption agencies in the UK – they pleaded for a religious exemption from anti-discrimination laws, and they fortunately didn’t get it. You don’t get to pick which laws it’s okay to break on the basis of your religion.
Well, you knew I’d chime in on this one, eh?
In 1928 the Philadelphia City Council granted the Cradle of Liberty Council a lease in perpetuity to the property in question. On that basis the BSA built that building and gave it to the City of Philadelphia and has poured millions into the property over the years, money that was donated to them (not tax money), making improvements that have benefited not just the BSA but the other tenants in the building. Now Philadelphia has broken that agreement and appropriated (or stolen) that building and that money for their own benefit.
It appears that legally the City cannot be held accountable for breaking their agreement, nor do they have to reimburse the BSA. It doesn’t make it right, though. This seems to me to be similar to the situation in Berkeley. The City of Berkeley accepted a large amount of stone from the local BSA council (quarried from a property owned by the council) and used it to improve a marina by building breakwaters. In return they agreed to give the Council a couple of free berths in that marina for Scout ships. Now the City has broken that agreement, so now they have the benefit of the improvements and the BSA has nothing. Theft marketed as high-minded morality.
Intersting that you call it a symbolic loss, Amp. It’s a very real and tangible loss. Millions of dollars have been taken from the BSA here. People reading these stories understandably think that the BSA was granted sweetheart deals based solely on goodwill. However, in most cases the BSA has actually provided labor, assets, property or other tangible value in exchange. Oddly enough, the stories in the mainstream media rarely mention that, or simply gloss over it. I wonder why? Is it just too complex an issue for them to work with? Or does it spoil their narrative?
I agree that there’s a conflict between the City’s non-discrimination policy and the BSA’s membership policies. I can see where they would not enter into a new one. But nobody put a gun to anyone’s head when these agreements were made in the first place, and the BSA has not been the ones to break the basis of the deals. No one seems particularly concerned about the morality of breaking freely-made agreements with the BSA and ripping it off for millions.
Well, sure, and when real estate ordinances included ‘for sale only to whites’ covenants, those were fully legal at the time they were written and entered into freely by all parties.
I’. sure it pissed off the owners and developers when they were declared illegal, and from a certain perspective, I can see how it would be unfair to them.
Still, though, I have a hard time caring much.
—Myca
The BSA was told there’s a simple fix to continue paying only a token rent: stop discriminating. They decided they’d rather be bigots, and now are whining about how much it’s going to cost them.
If they could afford to put millions into the building in improvements over the years, seems like paying an actual market rent wouldn’t be much of a hardship either.
Just remember children: Don’t steal.
The government has more guns, and they hate the competition.
Myca said:
Well, sure, and when real estate ordinances included ‘for sale only to whites’ covenants, those were fully legal at the time they were written and entered into freely by all parties.
That’s not equivalent. Dissolving those agreements leaves the owners still in possession of their property; they are free to sell it and get their investment back. In fact, they have more options after the agreement is dissolved than they did before.
Nan, I don’t see how your arguments justify reneging on an agreement and refusing to reimburse the BSA.
That seems a pretty sloppy conflation. What’s the timeline here? That is, what is the time span between BSA dock construction and SF suspension of BSA docking privileges? I suspect some ahistorical thinking here.
And why do you dismiss democratic government sticking up for gays or enforcing anti-discrimination rules as “high-minded morality”? Isn’t it the job of public officials to protect the rights of the public? Are not gays members of the public? Or are they a “special interest” (read: “second class”) group that annoys majoritarians with their whining?
RonF:
The article on this that I read in the NY Times indicated that the government was looking into ways of reimbursing the Boy Scouts for improvements on the building; the figure I saw–I don’t have the article handy and don’t have time to find the link–was something like $5 million. Don’t know if that would be sufficient, but it shows the government is at least aware of the issue you raise.
Sure, dissolving the sundown covenants left the property owners in possession of their property . . . and it cost them plenty of money in property values as neighborhoods shifted from white-only to integrated.
Meanwhile, of course, this is not property that the BSA owns. If it were, this wouldn’t be an issue. So in that sense, the whites-only covenants had a more defensible position than this. After all that was making rules for what someone can do with their own property . . . this is just the city of Philadelphia deciding what they want to do with their property.
And, of course, Nan’s point is well made. There’s a simple fix. If the BSA refuses to engage in this simple fix . . . well, they’ve got nobody to blame for this but themselves. I’m not crying that my local government isn’t giving sweetheart deals to the Klan either.
—Myca
You don’t get to call this theft using 20/20 hindsight. There’s a risk in EVERY transaction that governments will change, that laws will change, and that the contractual agreements you thought were binding are no longer applicable. That risk should be–and is–accounted for in considering whether to get into a long term deal. It’s part of why a right to use the property “for calendar year 2009” is worth a hell of a lot more on the market in 2008 than it is in 2028.
In many states, land restrictions which one were held to be “permanent” have been eliminated–not because they were socially unacceptable a la white-only, but for other reasons. So the property you bought with the assumption that the neighbors would “never” be able to build a house next door? Oops.
It’s like those people who complain about the Supreme Court ruling “against” the Constitution, and who seem to ignore the fact that the Constitution provides for those very rulings. That’s just how the law works: the law provides for the mechanism by which the law is changed. And it’s just how society changes. It’s not always fair… but we KNOW that is how it works.
And of all the folks for whom I feel the leastsympathy for not planning for this type of contingency, “large national organization” has got to be up there.
So you should be blaming the BSA lawyers, not the town. This issue has been on the horizon for a while. Had the BSA wanted to renegotiate a lease with the city, they probably could have done so a while back, when the sides appeared to have more equal footing.
I’m addressing your moral argument here, not the legal one.
So, if we’re looking at this as an exchange, then what’s the value of 90 years of free rent, and what’s the (depreciated) value of the building? I’m guessing that 90 years of free rent is actually worth significantly more than the improvements to the property (claimed by the BSA at $5M, though I bet that ignores depreciation).
(I hesitate to estimate the rent at $200K * 90 years = 18M, as that ignores both interest and increasing property values, but as the two factors might cancel each other out, that seems like a reasonable ballpark figure.)
In any case, it’s not like the BSA is without options here. Philly agreed to lease them the land at market rates, so they could lease the land, then sublet the land+building for (presumably) more money than they’re paying the city, leaving them with an annual return on their $5M building that they could use to rent more modest quarters.
Finally, it seems premature to cry “thief” when Philidelphia is looking into reimbursing them for the building.
As far as reimbursement goes, what the story says is that one City Councilman has been looking into it. That’s a long way from the City Council cutting a check. I see little sympathy here for doing that; do you think there’s more on the Philadelphia City Council? You would think that in the 3 years that this has been going on, if they were really serious about reimbursement there would be rather more progress than that.
I understand the legal issues here. Yes, the BSA should have been more careful. But there you go; an organization whose first principle is “A Scout is Trustworthy” apparently neglected to consider that governments are not. I’m not making a legal argument.
Oh, and Sailorman; the agreement was not with a large national organization. For one thing, National Council isn’t all that big. For another thing, the agreement wasn’t with National Council; it was with Philadelphia Council (it and Valley Forge Council merged a while back to form Cradle of Liberty Council), a small local organization whose yearly income when that agreement was made was, what – $50K? If that. It’s the local Council, not National, that was named in the ordinance (there’s no lease and never was).
Kevin; I don’t know the exact timeline, but I believe that it’s been decades. I”m not sure of your point.
I’m not sure I’d call the BSA’s actions in regards to its former gay members ‘trustworthy’ either, so there’s a lot of disgusting hypocrisy to go around I guess.
—Myca
RonF:
Suppose the situation were exactly the same, except the civic group given a perpetual $1 a year rent, years ago, was the KKK instead of the Scouts. (Unlikely in Philadelphia, I know, but it could conceivably have happened in some other cities during the Klan’s historic peak in popularity). Would you still be arguing that it would be wrong of the city to evict them, in that case?
I have very little sympathy for the scouts regarding improvements they made on the building. In business rentals, it is commonplace for tenants to make improvements on the property that they’ll lose the value of if they move or get evicted. I work for a Church building, and we rent our basement out to various groups and businesses; sometimes long-term renters will install new walls, wall-to-wall carpeting, electric outlets, etc.. If we evict one of those tenants for a legitimate cause, are you saying we should have to reimburse them for the improvements they voluntarily made, knowing full well that they are not the owners of the building?
“I’m not crying that my local government isn’t giving sweetheart deals to the Klan either.”
Why is my tax money going to support religiously bigoted private organizations anyway? Gah.
Unless that scout is an atheist or a homosexual, in which case they’re not a scout at all. Yup, that stance sure says “trustworthy” to me.
Don’t pretend the Scouts are some pure organization that therefore needs to be defended from the horrible, mean government. They want to be bigots and get tax-payer handouts. Nope, nope, nope.
This is also largely true in residential rentals. If I build a new deck railing for the house I am renting, and I do not negotiate a reduction in rent for that month or some sort of payment for it, when I move out, my landlord is under no obligation to reimburse me.
—Myca
Right. This sums it up perfectly.
Actually, to expand it a little bit, it’s more that, “they want to be bigots, and got tax-payer handouts for ninety years until everyone got tired of what gigantic bigots they are, and now they’re mad because they don’t get tax-payer handouts anymore.”
—Myca
You know, I don’t even mind the atheist issue as much (although that’s most of why I left the scouts myself), since part of their oath is ‘reverent’. So okay . . . I wouldn’t be a member, and I don’t think that they should receive taxpayer funds, but they’re an organization for religious youth, and whatever.
Part of the reason that the exclusion of GLBT youth and adults bugs me more (bugs the living shit out of me, actually) is that they justify that exclusion in a slimy, underhanded way through the ‘clean’ part of the oath.
As in: “If you’re gay, you are unclean. And thus you can’t take the oath.”
If the person who first articulated that was punched in the mouth forever, it would not be sufficient.
Ick.
—Myca
If I build a new deck railing for the house I am renting, and I do not negotiate a reduction in rent for that month or some sort of payment for it, when I move out, my landlord is under no obligation to reimburse me.
Right. But in this case, the Scouts DID negotiate a reduction in rent.
What Philly is doing is more like a landlord saying if you build a new deck rail, he’ll give you $200/month off your rent for a year–then kicking you out the next month.
Suppose the situation were exactly the same, except the civic group given a perpetual $1 a year rent, years ago, was the KKK instead of the Scouts. Would you still be arguing that it would be wrong of the city to evict them, in that case?
I would be. A perpetual $1/year lease is, effectively, a sale. I do not think that the government ought to be able to re-take property it sold, because it does not like the current (law-abiding) occupants. (I’m not arguing against fines.)
Or, rather, kicking me out 90 years later, after I’ve enjoyed 90 years of rent-reduction, saving vastly more money than I ever put into the railing.
And then, when I’m kicked out NINETY YEARS later, I complain that I should be repaid for the railing I already negotiated the lower rent for.
Bullshit.
A sale is a sale, a lease is a lease. I’m renting a house from my uncle right now, and I get cheap rent because he’s a nice guy and it’s a family house.
Care to guess how far I’d get in court if I argued that since he was renting to me for below the market rate, the house is ‘more or less’ mine?
Oh, I agree! And if the government had sold this property, I think that the BSA would and should be able to carry on in their bigoted ways happily.
But the government didn’t. Period.
It’s amazing, but as the supporters of the BSA speak, I find my sympathy for them dropping even more.
—Myca
If the $1 a year sweetheart deal was, as you are claiming, a sale, then logically the Scouts must owe Pennsylvania 90 years of unpaid property taxes.
Somehow, I doubt that’s what you’re arguing.
Myca:
Given the legal situation at hand, I agree with you. However, I’m very much in favour of making it as illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation as it is to discriminate on the grounds of race, and I’m glad that in the UK neither public nor private bodies are allowed to discriminate, with the tiny, bearable exception of religious groups selecting officiaries (not other staff members).
So, would, yes. Should, hell no.
Just 2 points, because I’m rushing:
1 month/12 months >>90 years/perpetuity
A perpetual (or 999-year), $1 lease is a common way of transferring effective use of property in Great Britain.
Also, remember–if I understand this situtation correctly, the Boy Scouts built the building. They leased the land, in perpetuity, and then built a building on it.
They leased the land, in perpetuity, and then built a building on it.
There are many people who have built cabins on federal or state forestlands. Should the federal or state governments decide that people can no longer inhabit those cabins, they’ve got to leave. The people with the cabins may not like it, but they understand the risk.
As an example, in Elk Lake, OR, there was a forest fire several years ago. A number of cabins were burned to the ground. The forest service did not allow those cabins to be rebuilt. It wasn’t really a surprise, even though all of those people have 99 year leases on the property.
SamChevre
Ah, perhaps your argument applies to Great Britain, then. IME, if we’re transferring property here in the US, we transfer it. If we’re not, we don’t.
They weren’t, so they didn’t.
Jake Squid
You stuck it.
As chance would have it, I’m actually the proud lease holder (after the death of my Grandparents) of a cabin on federal land (the Lassen National Forest). My grandparents built it in the 50’s, and for the ~50 years since then we’ve had a pit outhouse to take care of our elimination needs.
This year, I received a note from the forest service explaining that they’re requiring all cabins to be equipped with septic systems or to lose their use permits.
So: We’ve been leasing the land for a little over 50 years, we’ve made numerous improvements on the land, and we are in full compliance with the forest service regulations that were in place at the time we signed the lease.
Nonetheless, if I choose to remain in noncompliance with the current regulations, I will lose the use of this land.
Now, I have two options. I suppose I could bitch and moan and whine about how unfair this all is, refuse to install a septic system, throw a temper tantrum, and (when I’m kicked off the land) complain that the Forest Service is robbing me of the full value of the cabin. Or, my other option, I could grow up, install a septic system, and move into compliance.
I know which one I’m choosing, but then, I’m not a Boy Scout.
—Myca
Just like I said, laws change. RonF, you’re not seriously suggesting that the city can’t change its laws, are you?
If you want to rely on city law, bully for you! if you can get the city to pass a law just for you benefit, DOUBLE bully for you! Must be nice! But there’s nothing anywhere that says “no givesies-backsies” in a legal sense.
That’s the democratic process at work! And I might note, if the city elects to give the scouts some money even if they don’t have to, then that’s also democracy at work.
We cannot allow the Boy Scouts to tie the hands of the city. They had a certain bundle of rights. If they made a bad investment, or made a poor decision in relying on the city, that doesn’t mean that the scouts can unilaterally take rights away from the city to protect their outcome.
They’ve had, what, 80 years? Plenty of time to realize that city councils change; plenty of time to negotiate a 99 year renewable lease, or a sale, or what have you. Blame the scouts, not the city. Because as I’ve said to some people in the past: your failure to anticipate my actions does not mean that I have to constrain my actions to fit within your limited expectations.
Additionally, I just find it interesting that the right seems to be very much in favor of strong property rights when they’re trying to use those rights as a tool of oppression (“Who’s to say who I can or can’t rent to?”) and very much against strong property rights when a property owner doesn’t want to lease to bigots.
Why . . . my goodness . . . it’s almost as if the unifying principle isn’t property rights at all, but rather the basic principle that bigotry is a good thing!
Color me unshocked.
—Myca
SamChevre
Question: In the UK, does a perpetual lease means that, even in the event of violating the terms of that perpetual lease, the lease cannot be invalidated? If that lease is between the government and a private organization, can the government change those terms over time to coincide with British Law?
I honestly would like to know, as that would certainly grant your arguments a legalistic support, even though the ethics of those arguments would still be questionable in my mind.
SamChevre
Yes, they built the building. And then they gave it to the city. At which point, it belongs to the city and the city is required to adhere to the laws enacted by the voters concerning the use of the city’s property.
Don’t pretend the Scouts are some pure organization that therefore needs to be defended from the horrible, mean government. They want to be bigots and get tax-payer handouts. Nope, nope, nope.
Well, I happen to think that overall the BSA is a hell of a lot purer organization than just about any other – certainly including the Philadelphia City Council. However; handout? This isn’t a handout. It was a quid-pro-quo. The BSA built a building and gave it to the city (who has other tenants in it that the City charges rental to, BTW) in return for a $1/year charge. Now the city is keeping the building and the income from the other tenants but is breaking the deal with the Scouts. Seems to me that if they are going to break the deal, they ought to break it all the way and give the building back, or pay the BSA the same “market-price” deal they offered the Scouts on the rental.
Now, if the BSA had gotten a $1 a year lease based on nothing but the goodwill generated by the BSA’s service over the years, that would be a handout. But that building is tangible. There was a real exchange of value here. The City has been generating income off of the other tenants in that building for years. Is it legal? Apparently, and that’s what the Scouts get for not keeping in mind how mendacious governments can be. But it’s still theft until and unless the City reimburses the Scouts.
RonF, you’re not seriously suggesting that the city can’t change its laws, are you?
Well, that “in perpetuity” thing seems to be a law, doesn’t it? Or was.
But – I understand that times change, and that arrangements such as this have to change with the times. The BSA having to leave is one thing. The BSA leaving with empty hands while the City continues to benefit is another.
RonF, I guess we just differ on basic moral principles here, but in my mind an organisation that practices institutional exclusion of LGBT people is not ‘pure’ no matter what else they do, and the economic good they have done does not change that. They could have chosen to stop discriminating and keep their lease and they did not. The eviction is obviously legal. Whether it’s fair or not doesn’t matter either to the law or to me – their policy isn’t remotely fair or reasonable, so why should they get cheap rent in the name of ‘fairness’? Why is refusing to give them that ‘mendacious’?
But it’s still theft until and unless the City reimburses the Scouts.
They reimbursed the scouts by renting the fucking place to them for $1/year for 80 years. I guess that for some people, enough just isn’t enough. I know that the BSA is the nearest and dearest thing to your heart and you don’t want to believe that they are bigoted, you want to believe that they have been unjustly ripped off, but try to be the teensiest bit objective.
It’s not as if Philadelphia is the first city to ban Boy Scouts from using city property:
http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/boyscouts.html
As far as reimbursement goes, what the story says is that one City Councilman has been looking into it. That’s a long way from the City Council cutting a check. I see little sympathy here for doing that; do you think there’s more on the Philadelphia City Council? You would think that in the 3 years that this has been going on, if they were really serious about reimbursement there would be rather more progress than that.
In other words, RonF, you’re so outraged on behalf of the Boy Scouts that you’ll simply read bad faith and evil dealing into everyone’s actions.
You’re not making a legal argument because you don’t have one, even though this is a legal issue. As they say in law school trial advocacy classes, when the facts are on your side, argue the facts; when the law is on your side, argue the law; when neither the facts nor the law are on your side, just argue.
If the City owes the Scouts for their improvements, then the Scouts owe the city for years of free rent. And please don’t start on that crap about how there wasn’t any “goodwill”. Yes, there was. They got a sweetheart deal because they’re the Boy Scouts. There was no agreement that in return for the Scouts fixing up premises they used, to their benefit, they would get to keep that sweetheart deal forever.
Really, is there anything to your argument other than a) you like the Boy Scouts and b) you like the Boy Scouts?
>Jeff Jubelirer, a spokesman for the local chapter, said it could not afford $200,000 a year in rent, and that such a price would require it to cut summer-camp funds for 800 needy children.
I always hate when people do this – why, if something on the upper administration end of things falls apart, the first thing you “must” cut is something for the littlest people down below? Is this the ONLY way to cut 200K from the budget? Please – it’s an attempt to tug on heartstrings.
I guess as a former Girl Scout, I should sympathize with the BSA, but no, I’ve had too many out-in-all-but-name GS leaders and administrators – we don’t CARE, and we’re doing just fine in the greater Philadelphia area. The private lives of our leaders are a non-issue, as it should be. Girl Scouts survive without sweetheart deals, why can’t the boys?
Actually, there is something very similar to that. I’m no lawyer but I don’t believe all laws can be used retroactively. For instance, if the Boy Scouts were given use of the property before that law was passed by the city then they might have a legitimate legal claim against the city for breaking a contract that had already been negotiated under different terms.
The Constitution provides for the SC to rule against the Constitution?
I thought what the Constitution provided for was for the SC to have the last say in interpreting the Constitution. If the SC rules against the Constitution then that is an abuse of the SC’s power. The Constitution provides no remedy for this, but that doesn’t invalidate people’s complaints.
(Rhetorical) Question:
Answer:
Can you clarify your position please. Is the “right thing” here merely to uphold the law. Or are you saying that you agree that this law is a good thing?
I agree that the law is a good thing.
Jamila,
sorry to be unclear; I was talking about this instance, not a different hypothetical.
Just a couple points:
I rather dislike the Boy Scouts as an organization; I haven’t given them any support of any kind since 2003, due to their demonstrated-in-2003 contempt for my people (Southerners).
I’m in favor of property rights, in both cases. That’s the problem here–the Scouts had a pre-paid lease, giving them a temporary property right. Now–if the city didn’t want to enter into a NEW lease with the Scouts, I’d be entirely on the city’s side. But that isn’t the case; the lease was negotiated, and the Scouts PAID for the right to the property. Now, the city wants to keep the money, and not let them use it. (And “they used it for awhile” doesn’t count–just like in the deck-railing example.) (And, of course, if they’ll pay more, the city is OK with them continuing to use it.)
Myca–wrt the cabin example–that is the closest example that’s been offered. I see 3 key differences:
1) I don’t like the Forest Service’s “what are those poor people doing here?” policies either.
2) The Forest Service is apparently trying get people out of the property–they aren’t trying to get YOU specifically.
3) The city’s problem with the Scouts is their politics. If the Forest Service was telling you to stop advocating for gay marriage, or you’ll lose your lease, the situations would be comparable.
Sailorman–if your point is “never trust the government”, you don’t have to convince me. But saying that “it’s OK for the government to function as an open extortion racket–that’s how governments act” is further than I’d take the principle.
SamChevre, where does the article say that the BSA had a contract that the city violated? As far as I can tell, they pay $1 a year and then get to use the property.
But if this is a lease, as you know, tenants must abide by the terms of the lease and obey the law. A tenant who does not do so may be evicted.
As for the “but think of the poor needy kids!” argument, you could take the exact paragraph about Jeff Jubelirer and plop it into an article titled “KKK Youth Group evicted from city property” or “City declines to renew the lease of hate-group Kach”. Does anyone think the but-they-help-children argument would fly then?
I don’t know legal precedents, but it seems to me like a city government would have an OBLIGATION to withdraw funding/cheap rent deals/etc. from a group known to be practicing discrimination based on religion and sexual orientation.
90-year-old deals or not, I don’t think it’s really valid to say “No Fair,” when your preferential treatment gets taken away because you openly and officially discriminate against a protected group.
Jamila Akil
Jamila, the problem for them is, as has been pointed out before, there was no lease contract. According even to those supporting the BSA, it was an arrangement of some sort passed by the council at the time. As such, there is no contractual obligation on the city’s part. There is, on the other hand, a legal obligation on the city’s part not to support discriminatory organizations.
SamChevre
That is exactly not the problem here. They don’t have a pre-paid lease. They haven’t prepaid anything. They pay $1 per year. Every year. For as long as they are the lease-holder. Which they aren’t anymore.
Now if they paid a whole bunch of cash in advance, that’s not the same thing as a pre-paid lease. That’s called “paying in advance.” And I agree that any such advance moneys should be refunded. In fact, I think the city should be magnanimous and give them back their whole dollar for this year, too, even though the year is almost entirely over. You know, so they can help those 800 needy children that they would prefer to cut off rather than tighten their belts and move on.
If the City owes the Scouts for their improvements, then the Scouts owe the city for years of free rent.
It’s not just the improvements. It’s the building itself, a building that the City intends to continue to use to make money with.
And please don’t start on that crap about how there wasn’t any “goodwill”. Yes, there was.
First, it’s not crap. Second, I didn’t say that. Re-read the post, please.
They got a sweetheart deal because they’re the Boy Scouts. There was no agreement that in return for the Scouts fixing up premises they used, to their benefit, they would get to keep that sweetheart deal forever.
Again; the deal was “You get a building, we get token rent.” The fact that the BSa was and is one of the leading organizations for building character and fitness in American youth certainly was a reason for the City to favor making sure that they had a presence downtown, but that doesn’t mean there was no other part of the deal. And “in perpetuity” does mean forever the last time I checked.
Mythago:
As for the “but think of the poor needy kids!” argument, you could take the exact paragraph about Jeff Jubelirer and plop it into an article titled “KKK Youth Group evicted from city property” or “City declines to renew the lease of hate-group Kach”. Does anyone think the but-they-help-children argument would fly then?
You could if there was any comparison between the BSA and a hate group.
Thank you, Republican party, for making me unable to avoid giggling when I see the words “Gay” and “Stance” in the same sentence.
SamChevre
No, you’re not. You’re in favor of bigotry. The only ‘right’ to this property belongs to the City of Philadelphia.
Look, we have different words for ‘sale’ and ‘lease’ in the English language because they are different things legally. A sale is not a lease. A lease is not a sale. I am currently leasing not one but two properties, and I have property rights to neither of them.
Because they’re owned by other entities.
Who are leasing them to me.
Rather than selling them.
Because a sale is different.
I understand that you really really want Philly to have sold this property to the BSA and then to have retaken it. It makes perfect sense that that’s something you would want, because, yes, it would make your position stronger . . . but that’s not what happened.
Period.
SamChevre
I think that you must be confused legally, since the point of the deck-railing example (and the cabin example, and every single other example offered so far) is that ‘using the property for a while’ actually does work.
Contributing improvements to the house I am leasing does not mean that I get to lease it forever. Contributing improvements to the cabin I am leasing does not mean that I get to lease it forever.
Period.
It does not work that way. It has never worked that way. This is a legal theory you have invented.
SamChevre
No, their regulations are based on avoiding contamination of the groundwater in an area where many people are drinking from and swimming in streams and rivers. It’s perfectly reasonable.
SamChevre
They’re trying to do neither. They’re instituting a perfectly reasonable general principle regulation, and everyone who’s currently leasing from them has the opportunity to come into compliance with these regulations. They’re targeting nobody, and neither was Philadelphia.
SamChevre
Not at all. The city didn’t kick them off of the land, the city told them that, since the city will not be giving taxpayer money to hate groups any longer, they had the option of continuing to occupy the land without taxpayer subsidy, at the full market rate.
The BSA declined their offer, and are being evicted as a consequence. I never got the original ‘the taxpayers will pay your rent for you’ offer. I’ve always had to pay for the cabin at the full market rate.
The point, SamChevre, is that all of this is entirely in line with existing law. There is no coherent legal argument against Philadelphia’s actions. The only argument that might exist is a moral one . . . but since the BSA has decided to wallow in the moral filth of bigotry, that argument bears little weight.
MisterMephisto
You know, I think that I’ll do you one better. Since the BSA clearly thinks that the near-century of $1 a year lease was a bad deal for them somehow, maybe Philadelphia ought to just return the full $80.
It would be a princely gesture on their part indeed.
—Myca
The fact that the BSa was and is one of the leading organizations for building character…
It says something about you that you consider an organization that discriminates against gay citizens to build character. To be fair, you didn’t say that the BSA builds good character.
Also, the fact that anti-gay bigotry is no longer considered part of “good character,” it may very well be that the BSA is no longer one of the leading organizations for building character.
Sometimes society and it’s organizations do change for the better. The BSA just needs to catch up to the society within which it exists.
RonF:
“We believe that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirement in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed, and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts.” The BSA thus “believes that a known or avowed homosexual is not an appropriate role model of the Scout Oath and Law.”
How is that not hate?
Honestly, it sounds to me like the BSA (see also the Episcopalian/Anglican church) have got themselves into a hole over queer rights for no reason. The BSA, as you’ve said, have important things to do, like supporting children and young people – and yet they’ve let themselves get burned over a policy of hate. They’ve lost a lot of money and support over this irrational policy that has no connection with the rest of their activities – and now they’ve lost their home too. All because they wouldn’t step back and say ‘let’s not systematically exclude gay people any more’. If they’re not a hate group, why do they need to be defined by this? Why can’t they just stop hating and keep their building?
(And no, I don’t think they have any right to choose to exclude – no one gets to choose whether to be gay or not, so there’s no rational reason anyone should exclude someone for it.)
Look–we obviously disagree. I’m trying to be careful in what I say.
I agree: improving something you lease doesn’t mean you get to lease it forever. It means you get to lease it FOR THE TERM OF THE LEASE, at the agreed-upon price; that’s the difference between a “lease” and a “rental”. This lease was “in perpetuity”; if it had been for 10 years, the city would be entirely within their rights to not renew it.
You keep missing the vast majority of the payment. A near-century of $1/yr was a bad deal because they paid for the building in the first place.
This is not a difference of opinion. Everyone is entitled to have a different opinion.
This is a difference of fact. You are not entitled to your own facts. In other words: Stop inventing property rights where none exist. It’s embarrassing.
No, no, no, no, no.
I have a 99-year lease on my cabin.
If I do not comply with FSA regulations, I will lose that lease.
These regulations were not in place at the time we leased the land.
This is the way it works. This is the way it has always worked. This is the way it will always work. It doesn’t matter that you have trouble understanding that. Getting the vapors over it now doesn’t change a damn thing.
Tell you what. Let’s calculate a near-century of rent at the full market rate, then deduct the cost of the building from it, and whoever ends up in negatives would have to pay the difference to the other party.
And, if they don’t, they’re morally bankrupt thieving bastard cheats.
Fair, right?
—Myca
The KKK is a group which has as its primary goals oppression and discrimination, and often uses violence and sometimes murder to achieve those goals.
The BSA is a group that has as its primary goal educating boys to become strong, upstanding citizens. The national group also has a contemptible policy of discrimination which is (in my experience) often ignored at the local level. As one troop leader pointed out to me, “That’s really not what Scouting is about.”
And while nothing excuses their policy, I do think that the vast differences in the groups make comparisons between them inaccurate and, to be frank, ridiculous.
SamChevre
You forgot to mention: In addition to being “for the term of the lease”, all leases are also valid only so long as the leasee abides by the terms of the lease. And when the owner is a government entity, those terms must cleave to the law. This is a critical flaw in your argument.
The law changed for the good. The BSA refused to change to be in accordance with the law. Thus they no longer enjoy the benefits they enjoyed when there wasn’t a law to protect people from discrimination, because they continue to discriminate.
SamChevre:
I thought we had established that there was no lease, that the BSA was granted use of the property by city ordinance. So why are we still talking about them having a lease? It just confuses the issue.
OK, last comment from me.
This is the way it works when you are dealing with the government; if any private actor did that, it would be seriously illegal.
Which is a good example of how private actors and governments are different. Private actors do not define, enact, or enforce legislation. What exactly is your point?
Bjartmarr is right, of course. There was never a lease; the Scouts never had any rights to the property. A city ordinance established that the Scouts could use the building, and now a city council resolution has terminated that arrangement. It was not “appropriated” or “stolen” — it has belonged to the city since December 14, 1928.
Not really.
EVERY transaction that takes place in the U.S., under the color of law, relies on federal and/or state law.
But “the law” is not a static thing. It wasn’t, it isn’t. The law evolves; it changes; it sometimes takes extremely radical turns in short order; it sometimes reverses itself and then reverses itself again.
And because the law is self-referential, that’s OK. There IS NO “outside authority” to which the law has to “answer;” fortunately, the concepts of “natural law” or “God’s law” are no longer with us. And ayone that relies on the law for enforcement, whether private or public in nature, is ALSO, by relying on the law, signing up for the proposition that the law can, does, and likely will change.
So there are no “guaranteed” rights. There’s a Constitution, sure–but there’s not much in the Constitution to prevent us from amending the Constitution to read something else–hell, there’s nothing preventing us from amending the manner in which the Constitution is amended, and granting that power solely to the Alas moderators. And me, of course. ;)
Private actors rely on that all the time. People sign contracts, agree to terms, make deals, in the hope that the law will change to make their position “worth” more in the future. Their opponents are doing the same thing.
It is consistent, but in a different way than what you’re thinking.
It’s true, as you say, that if I rent a cabin from Mandolin with a 99-year lease, Mandolin can’t change the terms of that lease without me agreeing to renegotiate. (As far as I know; I’m no lawyer, of course.)
But what happens if I’m using Mandolin’s cabin, that I’ve leased for 99 years, for manufacturing geegaws, and the city passes an ordinance that says “all geegaw manufacturing sites must be equipped with class C super-duper ventilating equipment” (which Mandolin’s cabin lacks, and which I don’t want to install)?
Well, then, Mandolin would have to tell me “either install a class C super-duper ventilator, or stop manufacturing geegaws in the cabin, or you’re evicted.” That I have a 99 year lease doesn’t make what Mandolin’s doing illegal; a 99 lease doesn’t mean I get to ignore the law.
So whether your landlord is the government or a private citizen, it’s the case that you can lose a lease for refusing to conduct your business in compliance with changing laws. That seems perfectly consistent to me.
OK–a maybe last last comment, because Amp’s point is a great one.
In the “geegaw manufacturing” case, I am quite sure the government could override your USE of the property; I don’t think, though, that they could override your lease. If you’d paid, up front, for the 99 years lease–I think you could keep the property and sublet it to someone else. If the government condemned the property for a new superhighway, I think they’d have to pay you (or else they’d pay Mandolin and she’d have to pay you.)
If the Philadelphia government had said that you can’t use the building, but you can rent it to someone else, I would be pretty much OK with that.
(Random factoid–I thought until today that it was gewgaws; I heard someone say it at lunch, and see it now, and it’s geegaws.)
Really?
Take a look at the way credit cards manage their terms sometime. It’s ten times as corrupt and underhanded as anything the government could manage, and it involves unilaterally changing the terms of an agreement retroactively.
I guess the difference is that the government of Philadelphia and the FSA change their terms to be in compliance with the law, and credit card companies change their terms because they’re greedy bastards who prey on misfortune.
Well, that and that conservatives actively resist any attempt to change the second.
—Myca
@Myca
I’m pretty sure that the credit card companies make those changes because of fine print that says “we can make changes whenever we like, so this contract is wholly meaningless and you’ll do what we say, and like it too”.
The trick is that consumers can be bent over into agreeing to anything. Likewise, a municipality is run by whatever idiot is in office at the time, so companies just need to wait for the dumbest (or most corrupt) idiot to start milking the government.
Imagine if we grabbed three people off of the street, and told you that you had to give one of them your power of attorney. But you don’t get to talk to them. We’ll get Kelly Rippa to ask them whatever questions she sees fit, and you can watch. And we’ll do it once every few years, so even if you find a good one, he’ll be gone soon, and it only takes one stupid one to decide that you don’t really need your house anymore. That’s why I don’t really care what was signed a hundred years ago.
I’m quite sure that SamChevre is totally correct in that the government is breaking the lease, whereas being fscked over by shifting credit card contracts is 100% legit.
I just don’t give a crap, because I don’t worship contracts over basic common sense, since I’m not a Libertarian. I don’t think government should be able to lock their citizenry into deals that are obviously a stupid idea like perpetual leases that can’t be broken even in the face of bigotry.
Let’s look at this from a grant perspective.
Technically, if the city was leasing the land to BSA for $1/year, but the actual real property value is $200K/year, they are “cost sharing” $199,999/ year of taxpayer money.
All grants and loans – including cost sharing – have to meet appropriate state and federal regulations. Not the least of which, it has to comply with the laws of the state. If PA has a state law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation (and I don’t know if it does, but based on info gathered here…), then they can not legally use public funds to cost share the lease.
If they are planning to reimburse the BSA for $$ spent in upkeep and maintainance on the building, I see no problem with this at all. BSA had a choice – they could remain in their cushy spot if they complied with anti-discriminatory laws, or they could go elsewhere that didn’t require violating state laws and continue their discriminatory practices.
I understand that they felt it was their duty to act on their organizational conscience and continue to have a discriminatory policy. I don’t AGREE with that, nor do I find it conscienable, but it’s their right – as long as they remain an entirely private organization.
Sounds to me like their principles are going to cost them a lot of money.
I hate that the BSA is discriminatory. It is a good organization – I firmly believe that it provides very valuable services to boys and the greater community at large. It pains me that they feel the need to uphold such an archaeic discriminatory policy. If I ever have a son, I would not allow him to participate in BSA, nor will I support the organization through donations, and that makes me sad. But, it’s my right to stand by my principals.
There was never a lease.
I’m quite sure that SamChevre is totally correct in that the government is breaking the lease…
Even if there were a lease (which there isn’t), the government can, perfectly legally, break the lease. As a landlord, I can legally break a lease with my renter. As a renter, I can legally break a lease with my landlord. Usually, there is a penalty for a renter breaking a lease, but not for a landlord breaking a lease (with the caveat that the landlord cannot break a lease for illegal reasons).
That is the law. Now, if you want to go on with the lease hypothetical, I suggest you look up the landlord/tenant laws in PA & Philadelphia before continuing down that hypothetical road.
Even if there was no lease, if the gov’t can reasonably attain $200K/year from that property, then allowing the BSA to have it for $1/year means they were cost sharing $199,999.00/year. The gov’t can’t do that if it means they are not in compliance with current laws. The law changed. BSA had a choice, comply or leave. They didn’t comply, now they have to leave.
You can’t use PUBLIC MONEY to support ILLEGAL ACTIONS/POLICIES.
How is that not hate?
Because it doesn’t fit the definition.
Merriam Online says hate means “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury”. I don’t see intense hostility there. I don’t see fear, anger, or sense of injury. It’s a disagreement over morality and moral actions. No one is proposing or supporting that gangs of BSA members assault, picket, lampoon, or take any actions at all against people engaging in homosexual behavior. What they are saying is that homosexual behavior is undesirable and that the BSA should not hold people who engage in such behavior up as role models. I certainly understand that you and many others disagree with that, but that doesn’t make it hate.
Do you hold that dissaproving of someone’s conduct and on that basis choosing not to associate with them under certain circumstances is equivalent to hate? There’s lots of people that I know or read about that I would not choose to hold up as role models for my children. That doesn’t mean that I hate them.
It’s not about morality. Being attracted to members of the same sex is not a moral action, any more than being attracted to members of the opposite sex is. It’s not a choice, though acting on that attraction is. There’s nothing two men (or two women) can do in bed (or anywhere else) that a straight couple couldn’t also be doing, so I’m very puzzled as to what the conduct they refer to even is.
You don’t see intense hostility – fair enough. But they’re exhibiting aversion, which is the second option from your definition. You seem to think that systematically excluding a group is not ‘taking action against’ that group – does that mean segregation wasn’t hateful? Is saying homosexuality isn’t ‘clean’ not lampooning? (I’d say that statement is incredibly hostile, too).
That’s not hate, but it’s only not hate if the standard is applied across the board. If you think that it’s okay for a guy to perform certain ‘conduct’ with a woman but not with another guy, you are not disapproving of someone’s conduct – you are reacting not morally, but out of disgust and fear. I mean, if you didn’t want your kids to associate with murderers you wouldn’t have a let-out if the murdered person was a woman, would you? So why are sexual actions to be judged according to gender?
And if the BSA’s homophobia doesn’t derive from fear or anger, where does it derive from?
Well, not to mention, RonF, that if we take your definition, then a group that advocates white separatism and will not allow nonwhite members, because other races are unclean cannot be counted as a hate group.
I think that a group like that clearly is a hate group, since teaching children that members of other races are unclean is a hateful thing to do.
Same thing applies here.
—Myca
ps. If that same ‘black people are dirty dirty dirty’ group engaged in lots of positive civic projects . . . well . . . no, I don’t think it would make much of a difference.
No one is proposing or supporting that gangs of BSA members assault, picket, lampoon, or take any actions at all against people engaging in homosexual behavior. What they are saying is that homosexual behavior is undesirable and that the BSA should not hold people who engage in such behavior up as role models.
Again, if this were a white-separatist group that didn’t *hate* black people, just didn’t admit them as members and though they were undesirable, nobody would blink an eye at the notion of a city saying “You don’t get a special $1 per year lease anymore.”
If the Philadelphia City Council said that no organization could rent space for any price in city-owned property unless it had a policy of non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, I would have more respect for their position. As it is, however, the council has expressed its willingness to sell out the LGBT community and let the Cradle of Liberty Council keep its space and its antigay policy in return for $200k/yr rent. Is $200k the adjusted-for-inflation equivalent of thirty pieces of silver?
The difference between letting them pay $1 vs. $200K is that if they pay $1, the cuty gov’t is SUBSIDIZING the organization. If they pay $200K they are simply renting the building. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t a matter of “support” for the LGBT community. If it was, as you said, they would have refused them the space unless they dropped the bigoted practices. Rather, I strongly suspect this was a case of covering their asses. Since you can not use public, gov’t funds to subsudize anything that violates public laws governing that area. If discrimination based on sexual orientation is included in their civil rights laws (and hooray for Philly if it is, it’s a step every city in America should be following), then they would be breaking the law to subsidize BSA with a $1/year rent.
I think one reason the city isn’t kicking them out is so it can plausibly claim that it’s treating the Scouts just like any other renter. If they don’t offer the Scouts treatment as good as other renters, Philadelphia could potentially lose millions of dollars in federal aid — Congress passed a law several years ago to punish cities that “discriminate” against the Boy Scouts.
Even by ending the sweetheart deal, they’re taking some risk, imo — but it’s possible that by ending special hand-outs to the Scouts, rather than actually treating them worse than other groups, they can argue that the law doesn’t apply to them. (That the Scouts won’t actually lose their sweetheart deal until 2008, when probably a Democrat will be in the White house, may help too.)
MisterMephisto Writes:
Whether or not there was an actual lease, there was still a contract made between the city and the BSA which obligated each side to do certain things for a certain amount of time. A contract does not have to be an actual lease agreement.
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Jamila,
I’m looking at this and easily concluding that the city didn’t violate their contract. You are, obviously, not. I think you’re reading it wrong, but not intentilally so, and I don’t mind explaining it to you, if you’d like. Hey, what’s a lawyer for, if not this? ;)
Let’s start here: Can you tell me what contract terms, specifically, you believe the city to have violated? I’ll address those more specifically in response.
Commenters should be aware that the reprehensible Bob Hayes link is attempting to make a case that pedophilia and homosexuality are linked. I suggest staying away from his blog, and possibly scrubbing one’s brain with steel wool if one has unfortunately happened near it.
Aagh! Great. Now my brain is bleeding. Thanks, Mandolin.
Congress passed a law several years ago to punish cities that “discriminate” against the Boy Scouts.
How come you used quotes around the word “discriminate” in that sentence, Amp?
There’s nothing two men (or two women) can do in bed (or anywhere else) that a straight couple couldn’t also be doing, so I’m very puzzled as to what the conduct they refer to even is.
There’s an assertion I haven’t seen before. You are truly puzzled what the difference between homoseuxal and heterosexual behavior is?
You don’t see intense hostility – fair enough. But they’re exhibiting aversion, which is the second option from your definition. You seem to think that systematically excluding a group is not ‘taking action against’ that group – does that mean segregation wasn’t hateful? Is saying homosexuality isn’t ‘clean’ not lampooning? (I’d say that statement is incredibly hostile, too).
Segregation in the U.S. meant excluding people on the basis of race, not behavior. It also meant excluding them from equal access to all public facilities and private facilities open to the public; schools, parks, restaurants, train stations, buses – and even denied access to the very law itself. It meant beatings, lynching and killing. This has nothing to do with the BSA’s actions.
And IIRC “lampooning” means “making fun of” with a connotation of mocking, so I’m not sure where you’re going there.
If you think that it’s okay for a guy to perform certain ‘conduct’ with a woman but not with another guy, you are not disapproving of someone’s conduct – you are reacting not morally, but out of disgust and fear.
No – you’re reacting morally. At least I am. I know that a lot of people who seek to gain acceptance of homosexual behavior want to try to sell this characterization (thus the perversion of the word ” homophobia”), but it’s not at all true.
Sigh. “Phobia,” in English, refers to both hatred and fear. If you are terrified of cats, you are an ailurophobe. If you have no fear of cats but you would happily kill them all if you could, you are an ailurophobe. Please spare us the faux hair-splitting about “misuse”.
Whether or not there was an actual lease, there was still a contract made between the city and the BSA which obligated each side to do certain things for a certain amount of time.
What were the exact terms of this contract, and what “certain things” and “certain amount of time” were agreed upon? As you’d know if you’d bothered to read the article, there was no actual lease. There was a city ordinance, passed in the 1920s, permitting the Boy Scouts to use the building and pay $1 per year for the privilege. After three years of warnings, the City Council apparently voted to end the arrangement (the article is not clear on the language of the ordinance or whether the vote was to repeal it, or what).
There’s an assertion I haven’t seen before.
Do you live under a rock? Do you have no television, no internet, no magazines, no books? Have you not been reading and contributing to Alas for over a year? Have you not participated ad nauseum on the topic with great bouts of feigned ignorance even when people tell you their personal experiences, even when they point you to other websites, over and over again???????
You are truly puzzled what the difference between homoseuxal and heterosexual behavior is?
I hold hands with my female partner. You hold hands with your wife.
I kiss my female partner. You kiss your wife.
I can bring my female partner to orgasm with my hand, mouth, vibrator, or some combination thereof. You can bring your wife to orgasm with your hand, mouth, vibrator, or some combination thereof.
A man can insert his penis into another man’s anus for sexual pleasure. You can insert your penis into your wife’s anus for sexual pleasure.
A man can perform fellatio on another man. Your wife can perform fellatio on you.
A man or a woman can use a dildo to penetrate their same-sex partner’s orifices. You or your wife can use a dildo to penetrate each other’s orifices.
Aside from PIV sex, THERE ARE NO DIFFERENCES IN THE SEXUAL BEHAVIOR OF SAME-SEX V. OPPOSITE SEX COUPLES.
PERIOD.
RonF – I take your point about racial segregation being the backbone of a system that excluded non-whites from public life and from the law. However, that doesn’t mean that it would be considered morally defensible for a private organisation on a par with the BSA to have a ‘no blacks allowed’ rule, would it? If the BSA could not have a ‘no blacks allowed’ rule, they should not have a ‘no gays allowed’ rule. Neither would be as harmful as Jim Crow, but that wouldn’t make it okay. (Not to mention that neither rule would be at all effective in weeding out ‘uncleanliness’, poor ‘role models’, or abusers.)
Also, what Bonnie said. (I might’ve been less graphic, but I’m soft like that :P )
:P
ETA: I might’ve been less graphic – Well, no reason to beat around the bush, says I. Straight-up information and education leaves little room for misinterpretation.
And unless it’s permissable to have a “No Jews allowed” organization, it should not be permissable to excluse atheists.
And unless it’s permissable to have a “No Jews allowed” organization, it should not be permissable to excluse atheists.
I believe that RonF. and others would disagree with you. After all, Judaism is a religion. As Romney so boldly stated (and I’ve read other, much more obscure, people write on blogs over the years), an atheist cannot be a moral human being. Without religion there can be no morality.
RonF., Mitt Romney and their brethren think it’s just fine to have a “No atheists allowed” policy while not having an overt “No Jews allowed” policy. If you are an atheist you are an immoral being that needs to be excluded.
RonF., Mitt Romney and their brethren think it’s just fine to have a “No atheists allowed” policy while not having an overt “No Jews allowed” policy.
What’s “overt” about? Do you think there’s a covert policy to exclude Jews from Scouting?
BTW, although you certainly did not make this claim, I’d like to point out that “no atheists” is not a BSA invention. There are two main umbrella organizations for Scouts in the world; the World Organization of Scouting Movements (WOSM) and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). Almost all groups that are either all-male or co-ed (the latter including the BSA, although not as much as I’d like) belong to the WOSM. Those that are all-female generally belong to WAGGGS, which has a explicit policy to not permit any programs that enroll male youth. A few years ago, the two were looking at how they might combine operations, whether to the point of a full merger or simply finding points of common cooperation isn’t clear (I’m not sure it was clear to them, either). So a joint commission was put together to explore the idea. I don’t have the link where I am right now, but a document was produced that compares the fundamental principles and operating methods of the two.
It is in fact a fundamental principle of both organizations that all member organizations must ensure that they in turn pay attention to the spiritual development of their individual members. When the GSUSA (don’t call them the GSA! They don’t like it) changed it’s oath to permit it’s members to change the word “God” to “Allah” or something else or to not say it entirely, they had to clear it though WAGGGS first to remain members thereof. WAGGGS made the GSUSA state clearly that this was not going to be used to permit atheists to join.
In any case, the concept that people who cannot take an oath to “do their Duty to God” (which is accepted to include non-theistic religions by the BSA, although not all other Scouting organizations do so) cannot be members of Scouting is world-wide and was not invented by me, Mitt, James E. West, or anyone in the USA.
I don’t understand why that makes it better.
Bonnie, if there’s no difference between same-sex sexual relations and disparate-sex sexual relations, how is it that almost everyone has an exclusive preference for one or the other?
I’m not presenting it from the viewpoint of “Oh, that’s O.K. then”. It’s just that since someone attached a major American political figure to the debate I wanted to make it clear that this is not something that’s unique to America or is influenced by American politics or political candidates. Neither Mitt Romney, President Bush, Sen. Obama or anyone else in office have anything to say about this policy.
I’m not sure if discrimination against atheists was also at issue in this conflict.
I’ve not heard it mentioned. Perhaps if the official who initiated this action had been atheist instead of gay they would have selected that as the basis.
Interesting, now that I think of it, that homosexuality is now acceptable in some areas in political officials but being an (at least declared) atheist is still pretty much a block for election to any kind of major office.
I’d dispute the ‘almost everyone’: I don’t, and last I read bisexual women were twice as common as lesbians (though the reverse is true for men – however, all statistics rely on people being self-aware, out and honest). However that demonstrates that it’s not a choice, really. The pressure to be straight, and the normalisation of straight relationships, is so great that if people could simply choose not to have an exclusive preference for their own sex, many would.
In answer to your point; just because you (I assume) have an exclusive preference for performing romantic and sexual actions with women, you do not wish to do so with all women – possibly with only very few out of all the women you’ve ever met. There could be vast categories of women that never, or almost never, appeal. ‘Preference’ is not just a matter of gender. I’m not straight or gay, so I don’t know what it’s like, but I’ve always imagined that such people find their non-preferred gender as relentlessly unsexy as I find, say, my siblings. Or people over the age of 80. Or teenagers.
The question remains, though; what is ‘homosexual conduct’? It’s not a certain sex act, or acts. It’s not a ‘lifestyle’, either, or a relationship pattern; a straight scoutmaster could be keen on bedhopping, hiring hookers, etc, and not be engaging in ‘homosexual conduct’, while a gay would-be scoutmaster might have a quiet life with a partner and a kid or two. (I’d imagine you would disapprove of that hypothetical straight scoutmaster – but could you pick him out of a crowd? How would you know what his sex life was like if your only rule was ‘no gays’?)
That may not accurately reflect control, though…
BSA started only 1-2 years after scouting started in Britain. And the U.S. population of scouts is about 1 million; there are about another 1/2 million + volunteers. The entire WOSM is, apparently, only ~ 25 million or so members, right?
And at the time the WOSM was formed, who knows what the USA’s relative power was?
Finally: if we follow the trend (exclude atheists) when we have an opportunity to bread from the trend (we are a big country; nothing prevented/prevents us from having our own scouting association that includes atheists) that is a decision; you don’t get to pretend that someone else made it and you’re blameless.
In any case, the concept that people who cannot take an oath to “do their Duty to God”…was not invented by me, Mitt, James E. West, or anyone in the USA.
Nor did I say it was. There are lots of things not invented by those who spout them that are, nonetheless, false and despicable.
Bonnie, if there’s no difference between same-sex sexual relations and disparate-sex sexual relations, how is it that almost everyone has an exclusive preference for one or the other?
You need to take some Human Sexuality classes. Come back after you’ve taken several and earned As in them.
And you really, seriously, need to stop behaving like such an ignorant person. You’ve read enough on Alas, at a minimum, to at least be more aware. I won’t go so far as to say *sensitive* though.
Begone.
And BTW, the phrase “willful ignorance” comes to mind.
Go back under your rock.
Sailorman, the BSA was formed in 1910, three years after it started in Britain (the world centennial was celebrated at the World Jamboree, which was held this year and in Britain for just that reason). The phrase “Duty to God” was placed in the original Scout Oath written in Britain from the very beginning – to the point that one of the first things that Lord Baden-Powell (the founder of Scouting) had to do as Scouting took hold in Britain was to answer attacks from some Church of England clerics that he was trying to found a new religion. American Scouting had no influence in the writing of the original Scout Oath nor the principles it was founded on. The WOSM was created in 1920. I would imagine that it took it’s cue from the founding members, especially the British Scouting movement. Those founding members did not include the BSA, who didn’t join until 1922.
Oh, and BTW, Wiki says that as of 12/2005 there are 2.9+ million members of what is commonly referred to as the “traditional Scouting programs” (Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Venturing) in the U.S; your totals come out to about 1.5 million. Where did you get your numbers from?