May 27, 2008 by Muir Scouter.

From KYW Radio:

Boy Scouts File Federal Lawsuit Over Dispute with City of Philadelphia

by KYW’s Mike Dunn

The local Boy Scouts organization has filed a federal lawsuit against the Nutter administration over the mayor’s ultimatum that the scouts renounce the national group’s policy on gays or leave their city-owned headquarters.

Mayor Nutter had told the “Cradle of Liberty” Boy Scout council to renounce the Scouts’ national policy on gays, start paying fair-market-value rent, or vacate its city-owned headquarters — on Winter Street near 22nd, just off the Benjamin Franklin Parkway — by June 1st.

Currently, the scouting group gets the office space from the city for free.

Negotiations between the administration and the scouts have been going on for months (see related story), apparently for naught. The local scouting group has now filed a lawsuit in federal court, basically contending that the Nutter administration is violating the Scouts’ First-Amendment rights by delivering this ultimatum.

Jason Gosselin is an attorney for the Boy Scouts:

“What the city has done is essentially ordered the Boy Scouts, the Cradle of Liberty Council, to repudiate that policy. And when they refused to do that, they’ve now been penalized by the city with the notice to vacate their headquarters.”

Mayor Nutter says simply that the city cannot countenance the national Scouts’ policy on gays:

“We don’t support discrimination by organizations against individuals for any particular reason as they deliver their services. And certainly not on city land. In the cradle of liberty, the City of Philadelphia, that’s just unconscionable.”

Read the entire complaint (Acrobat required)

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February 19, 2008 by Muir Scouter.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Philly’s War on the Boy Scouts

By KEVIN FERRIS
February 16, 2008; Page A10

Philadelphia

As Michael Nutter was sworn in as the city’s 98th mayor last month, he called for a new wave of public service to clean up drug-infested neighborhoods. If he is serious about renewing volunteerism, he’ll start by putting an end to the city’s campaign against the Boy Scouts.

On May 31, the Cradle of Liberty Council, the local Boy Scout chapter, will be evicted from its headquarters on 22nd and Winter Streets — a space it has occupied since 1928.

The eviction isn’t for a breach of contract. It comes at the behest of the City Council, which voted 16 to one last year to kick the boy scouts out unless they reverse the national Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gays serving in the ranks or as scoutmasters or start paying “market rent” — about $200,000 a year. Local chapters can’t reverse national scouting policies. So it’s a matter of paying up or moving out.

Throughout the city, there are about 56,000 Boy Scouts who spend countless hours cleaning parks, running food drives, and organizing meals for the needy. And, of course, helping young boys, many without strong male figures in their lives, develop skills that will serve them well in life.

“You think we’d be embraced by city officials,” Scoutmaster J.R. Brockman told me recently. He’s a human-relations consultant and father of twin 14-year-olds who volunteers to lead a troop of about 20 scouts and a dozen Cub Scouts out of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in west Philadelphia. On Fridays he can be found with his scouts at the church as the boys eat pizza and play Xbox. “It’s an activity that keeps them off the streets and lets them spend time with their friends,” he says.

But it’s not all fun and games. Mostly Mr. Brockman focuses on steering kids clear of drugs and violence, which leads many of the city’s youth to a stint in jail. “[T]he kids who have stayed in the program,” he told me, “have stayed out of trouble.” On weekends, his scouts go for hikes or campouts at local parks. In town, they renovate sections of the city’s Fairmount Park, run food drives, and feed the homeless.

Irving Anglin, 16, is leading a renovation project in Fairmount Park. His aim is to become an Eagle Scout, an honor only a handful of scouts ever achieve. He joined the scouts as a first grader and admits he did so reluctantly. Today, however, he can’t imagine life without scouting: “You get to know your limits and your strengths. You get to do different things, like swimming and sports that you otherwise wouldn’t get a chance to do.”

Mr. Brockman says that all of his scouting activities are made possible because he receives administrative support and help with recruitment from the of the Cradle of Liberty headquarters. Take away the scout building and Mr. Brockman loses the professional staff he relies on. As it is, he can’t field all the calls he receives from single mothers looking to place their sons in his troop. . . .

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December 4, 2007 by Muir Scouter.

Berkeley Sea Scout leader accused of molesting teens

Contra Costa Times

Article Launched: 12/04/2007 06:33:08 PM PST

Berkeley values have replaced Scouting values.

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October 21, 2006 by Muir Scouter.

It was another bad week for the Sea Scouts in the People’s Republic of Berkeley. The Scouts had sued claiming their rights of Free Speech had been violated, but the US Supreme Court declined to take the case. Here’s the story from the SF Chronicle:

BERKELEY
Top court rejects Sea Scouts’ appeal on rent subsidy
- Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 17, 2006

The U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal Monday by a Boy Scouts affiliate that lost its rent break from the city of Berkeley because the Scouts exclude gays and atheists.

The court, without comment, let stand a California Supreme Court ruling this March that said a city is entitled to subsidize only organizations that comply with its anti-discrimination rules.

The case involved the Sea Scouts, a nonprofit that teaches sailing, carpentry and plumbing to teenagers. The organization used a berth at the Berkeley Marina without charge from the 1930s until 1998, when the City Council eliminated rent subsidies for nonprofits that discriminated on the basis of religion, sexual orientation and other categories.

The Sea Scouts, the only group affected by the change, have been charged $500 a month in rent since refusing to promise that they would admit gays as members or leaders. The organization filed suit in 1999, arguing that it should not be forced to surrender its rights as the price of public funding.

The suit was based on a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a New Jersey case in 2000 that said the Boy Scouts’ constitutional right of freedom of association included the right to exclude gays, despite a state civil rights law.

The California Supreme Court said an organization’s right to determine its own membership policies did not guarantee access to public funding.

“Berkeley did not demand adherence to or renunciation of any idea or viewpoint,” the state court said March 9. Instead, the ruling said, the city merely required the Sea Scouts and other recipients of subsidies to “conform their actions to (the city’s) laws.”

The ruling was one of several legal setbacks for the Boy Scouts since the 2000 Supreme Court case.

Connecticut excluded the organization from a state-sponsored workplace charity campaign, an action that federal courts upheld and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review. In San Diego, a federal judge has ruled that the Boy Scouts are a religious organization and denied renewal of their lease of a campground from the city, a decision that the Boy Scouts have appealed.

Lawyers for the Sea Scouts said Monday they were disappointed that the nation’s high court had refused to review the Berkeley case.

“This discrimination against the Sea Scouts has put the organization in a financial bind, and a number of underprivileged kids have had to drop out,” said Harold Johnson, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation. “Berkeley’s punishment of innocent kids in order to make an ideological statement is unfeeling, unfair and unconstitutional.”

But City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque said the court had simply reaffirmed that taxpayers no have obligation to fund discriminatory organizations.

“We have a right to require publicly subsidized programs to be open to all,” she said.

The case is Evans vs. Berkeley, 06-40.

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

Page B - 2
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/17/BAG7ULQJ701.DTL

The Editors of the Comicle were positively giddy in reporting “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.” However, SCOTUS didn’t actually back any decision. And, as John Armor observed prior to the decision, “Unfortunately, the Sea Scout case was scrambled factually by trial counsel. Therefore, it has a lesser chance of being accepted and reversed by the Supreme Court.”

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