October 23, 2006 by Muir Scouter.

Mass held for late state Sen. John Nejedly

From left: Jane Nejedly, Mariah Piepho, Sarah Nejedly and Mary Nejedly during a memorial Mass for John Nejedly at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Walnut Creek on Monday.

I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Senator Nejedly at a National Eagle Court of Honor a few years ago. He will be missed.

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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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October 11, 2006 by Muir Scouter.

Welcome to the Muir Scouter blog.

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