Philadelphia Boy Scouts Evicted For Their Anti-Gay Stance
| December 6th, 2007Negotiations 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.)
December 6th, 2007 at 6:19 am
Is it actually illegal for a private organization to discriminate on the basis of sexuality?
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 6:31 am
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.
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 7:17 am
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.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 7:35 am
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 8:16 am
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.
This comment was written by Nan.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Just remember children: Don’t steal.
The government has more guns, and they hate the competition.
This comment was written by SamChevre.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 8:27 am
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.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 8:34 am
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?
This comment was written by Kevin Moore.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 8:44 am
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.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 9:07 am
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 9:51 am
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.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 11:00 am
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.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 11:07 am
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).
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Kevin; I don’t know the exact timeline, but I believe that it’s been decades. I”m not sure of your point.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 11:16 am
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 11:49 am
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?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
“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.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
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 comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
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.)
This comment was written by SamChevre.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
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.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
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.
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
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.
This comment was written by SamChevre.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
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.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
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.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
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.
This comment was written by MisterMephisto.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
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.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
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.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
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’?
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
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.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
It’s not as if Philadelphia is the first city to ban Boy Scouts from using city property:
This comment was written by Penny.http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/boyscouts.html
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December 6th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
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?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 6th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
>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?
This comment was written by Lyonside.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 3:45 am
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.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 4:00 am
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.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 4:04 am
(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?
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 5:02 am
I agree that the law is a good thing.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 6:01 am
Jamila,
This comment was written by Sailorman.sorry to be unclear; I was talking about this instance, not a different hypothetical.
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December 7th, 2007 at 7:56 am
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.
This comment was written by SamChevre.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 8:06 am
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?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 8:59 am
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.
This comment was written by Kira.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 9:08 am
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.
This comment was written by MisterMephisto.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 9:20 am
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.
This comment was written by MisterMephisto.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 10:18 am
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.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Thank you, Republican party, for making me unable to avoid giggling when I see the words “Gay” and “Stance” in the same sentence.
This comment was written by Silenced is Foo.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 10:47 am
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 11:10 am
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.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 11:14 am
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.)
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 11:29 am
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 comment was written by SamChevre.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 11:51 am
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 11:53 am
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.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 11:58 am
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.
This comment was written by MisterMephisto.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 11:58 am
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.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
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.
This comment was written by SamChevre.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
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.
This comment was written by harrumph.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
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.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
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.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
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.)
This comment was written by SamChevre.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
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
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
@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.
This comment was written by Silenced is Foo.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
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.
This comment was written by Kate L..Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
There was never a lease.
This comment was written by harrumph.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
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.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
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.
This comment was written by Kate L..Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
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.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
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?
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
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.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
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.”
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
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?
This comment was written by Paul R.Report this comment to the moderators
December 8th, 2007 at 9:22 am
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.
This comment was written by KateL.Report this comment to the moderators
December 8th, 2007 at 10:53 am
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.)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 9:51 am
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.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 11:03 am
[...] the city’s agreement to provide berthing for Sea Scout vessels. (Similar to the current Philadelphia case, the Scouts created the facilities in question in cooperation with the government, in an earlier [...]
This comment was written by Bob Hayes » Blog Archive » Logic and its Discontents.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 11:31 am
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.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 11:44 am
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.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Aagh! Great. Now my brain is bleeding. Thanks, Mandolin.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
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?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
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.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
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).
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
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.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
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 )
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
: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.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
And unless it’s permissable to have a “No Jews allowed” organization, it should not be permissable to excluse atheists.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
December 9th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
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.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 9:50 am
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.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 9:53 am
I don’t understand why that makes it better.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 9:54 am
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?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 9:56 am
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.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 9:59 am
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.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 10:09 am
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’?)
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
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.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
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.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
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.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
And BTW, the phrase “willful ignorance” comes to mind.
Go back under your rock.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
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?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Ironic, isn’t it, that Lord Baden-Powell may well have been a repressed homosexual himself.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
From the link:
Interesting. I have to wonder what is festering in the soul of the BSA to create such an embrace of bigotry.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
One word: “puritanism.”
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 10th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Another word: law. In the UK it would presently be illegal for them to have a no gays rule. That said, that law is very recent - only about six months ago, iirc. Much of Europe has similar laws, and I think the European Court of Human Rights has acted against no-gays rules for some time also.
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 8:44 am
how is it that almost everyone has an exclusive preference for one or the other?
On what do you base this assertion?
On the actual topic of the thread, of course the BSA as a private club can exclude atheists and gays, if it likes. What I don’t understand is why it, or RonF, thinks that “but we’re the BSA!” means that it should get a sweetheart deal not available to other organizations, or that it should be treated any differently than any other private club whose rules conflict with antidiscrimination ordinances.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 10:12 am
RonF.
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?
In my post I addressed your term: “behavior”.
You seem now to be conflating physical behavior with the conditions of orientation, desire, attraction, and a whole host of other concepts by switching to the word “relations” (whatever that word means).
For millenia, poets, philosophers, and scientists have tried to figure out the nature of what attracts one person to another.
No one has yet figured that out, as you well know. (Or actually maybe you don’t.)
Based on interacting with and learning from other human beings, I can say with confidence that the feelings arising from my attractions to women are no different from men’s and women’s attractions to each other. The racing heartbeat, the flushed cheeks, the giggling, the sheer happiness when your “crush” comes into view, that realization that your “crush” now feels like someone you love, the feeling that you’re missing an arm or some other crucial part of your being when your love is away from you for an extended period - these seem like universals in the attraction context.
Perhaps you can explain what this was: at 12 years old when certain of my female friends talked to me I blushed and got all flustered. I began to realize I had crushes on them. Was I “straight” then? At 14 I understood these crushes were not “a phase” because they continued to happen - clearly I was attracted to other girls. How can you explain this in light of the fact that there was no sexual activity / behavior whatsoever going on? None until I was 19. Heck, I never dated or kissed a girl until I was 18. Yet I knew I was homosexual (maybe slightly bi - a few boys caught my eye but there was just never that spark with boy-crushes that I felt with girl-crushes).
Had I been a boy and in the Scouts at 14 and told a Scout Leader of my feelings, betcha I woulda been booted. All without actually engaging in any *shudder* “immoral” same-sex behavior - none until I was 18 - and again, only kissing (I was very shy).
Would I be wrong to assume that you did not have sex with your first crush the first moment you were attracted to the girl? If not, how did you know you weren’t gay? Even after you had sex with girls / women, how did you know you still weren’t gay? You never know ’til you try, right, if it’s ALL about behavior.
What about Ted Haggard? Was he straight because he had sex with his wife and fathered children with her? Did he suddenly become gay because of “behavior,” his sexual encounters with men? Or gee, maybe he’s bi, with a leaning more towards men but he chose to be with a woman because his church and his society expected that of him?
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 10:16 am
RonF.
Also, your extreme disingenuousness over your professed not understanding / not accepting the definition of the word “homophobia” is showing.
You participated in this post, Are Homophobes Really Repressing Homosexuality?, in which the concept of homophobia arises.
At comment #31 Skeptic888 writes, “RonF earlier asked for a link to the test that scales one’s homophobia” and posted the link.
On October 28th, 2005, at 8:57 am, in comment #33, you wrote, “Hm. Skeptic888, I took that quiz. Scored 60. So according to the authors of this quiz, I am officially homophobic.”
And here, over 2 years later, you are still quibbling that the word does not mean its currently accepted definition? Seriously?
(Are you unable to understand symbolic or figurative speech? Colloquialisms? If this is the case, I suggest you see your doctor to be evaluated for Asperger’s Syndrome so that you can be given some behavioral strategies for how better to interact with people who do understand those things.)
Well, since you don’t “believe” that “homophobia” means what (more than likely) the vast majority of English speakers in America understand it to mean - simply because the word parts don’t break down in your own personal dictionary the way you personally would like - I suppose, then, that you also have no idea what the following mean, either:
“Cancer stick” and “coffin nail” refer to cigarettes. But look up each word individually then put those definitions together and you won’t get that definition.
Or this formulation: “pussy wagon” - I bet that’s not in your dictionary, either - so you would quibble with the concept put forth in the movie “Grease” in “Greased Lightening.”
“Pickle smoker” - look that one up as individual words. Do you get “male homosexual” when the definitions of the individual words are put together? No.
“Coney Island Whitefish.” Nope, probably not in your dictionary, either. Nor in any icthyology texts.
I could go on.
But my point is that just because a word is not in your dictionary, or that a phrase does not break down into its component parts to re-aggregate in a particular way does not mean that millions of people do not understand a particular, or even several interlocking, non-dictionary meaning(s).
But further, “homophobia” as meaning irrational hated of homosexuals or those perceived as homosexuals IS recorded in many many locations. Why, Teh Google turns up roughly 600,000 English pages for “homophobia definition.” On the first page, above the fold, is a link to religioustolerance.org which lays it out rather nicely.
So anyway, your disingenuousness is extremely grating, demeaning, and insulting - particularly to those of use who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, poly, or otherwise some form of queer, and also to our allies as well.
Grow up, get some empathy.
Please stop with the bullshit nonsense.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Hey, Bonnie? Please stick to disagreeing with RonF without using Asperger’s as a synonym for “you’re a fucking asshole”. It’s not cute or clever.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Hey, mythago? That was not my point at all. I’m 100% sincere - Many people with Asperger’s do not understand symbolic or figurative language. Sorry that you misread me.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Also, hey mythago? Fear not - if I meant to say “you’re a fucking asshole” I certainly would have used exactly those words.
I do so when necessary.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Hey, Bonnie? That’s what’s called “concern trolling”. Dropping ‘maybe you said that idiotic thing because something is wrong with you, poor thing, you could benefit from help’ is not a sincere expression of concern. It’s particularly glaring when, as you did, it’s phrased as “if you run along and have your little problem taken care of, you can come be with the normal folks who understand these things.”
I mean, come the fuck on.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Back off.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
What I don’t understand is why it, or RonF, thinks that “but we’re the BSA!” means that it should get a sweetheart deal not available to other organizations,
The unavailability of a deal of this nature to other organizations has not been demonstrated. Should some other organization come up with a building to swap for a break on property rental and get denied, then fine - I’d say that in that case the BSA got special privileges. But this wasn’t a one-way sweetheart deal - a swap was made. The City got a building in perpetuity and the BSA got a rental break in perpetuity. Now the City still has the building, but the BSA is out. Sure, the city had every legal right to do what it did. But that doesn’t change the fact that the City kept what it had been given but reneged on the deal.
Laws change, attitudes change, circumstances change. The City and the BSA freely entered into a deal. Now the City wants to break it. I don’t like that, but I understand it. The City has to comply with it’s own laws. But, then, do it honestly. As long as the City has the benefit of that building but the BSA has lost the benefit they were given in exchange (and in fact loses out since they’ll now have the expenses of moving and either paying rental somewhere else or purchasing and building), the City has dishonored itself.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
But this wasn’t a one-way sweetheart deal - a swap was made.
RonF, again, where are you getting “deal” from? There was a city ordinance allowing the $1 rent, which as far as anyone knows was extended only to BSA. BSA voluntarily fixed up the building. The city gave BSA three years’ warning about the $1 rent going away, and is looking into compensating BSA for the work it did on the building.
I asked you once to point to a contract, deal or terms thereof, because that’s not anywhere in the article. You still haven’t done it, or really done much other than to say “not fair!”
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Bonnie,
I take your word that your intentions were good.
Despite your intentions, however, the comment read to me — and, I suspect, to most readers — as if you were trying to use Asperger’s as an insult, which is not appropriate on “Alas.” Please avoid making similar comments in the future.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
I actually agree with Ron on a couple of things.
1) The BSA is not a hate group. It has some hateful policies, but promoting hate is not its primary purpose.
2) The term homophobia is problematic for various reasons, among them:
- it comes from two Greek roots, homo, same, and phobia, fear — but it isn’t fear of the same, or people who are the same, but fear and hatred of people who are different (in a particular way).
- it medicalizes bigotry, implying that while the fear is irrational, it’s also something that people can’t help and for which they need treatment. We don’t call racism melanophobia or sexism gynophobia.
Nonetheless, any reasonable adult of good will is perfectly capable of understanding what homophobia means in common usage.
Here’s my primary difference (to put it mildly) with Ron: the city of Philadelphia did not break its agreement, it made the agreement contingent on the BSA’s compliance with a law that wasn’t in effect when the agreement was made. As numerous commenters have already pointed out, this happens all the time. The BSA has had ample opportunity to comply with the law, but maintaining its antigay policy and its appalling premise that gay people are bad and dirty is, incredibly, more important to it than complying with the antidiscrimination law, or saving a lot of money, or maintaining programs for needy children.
How anyone can defend such an organization is far, far beyond me.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Lu - if #1 is true, then why can’t the BSA drop their hate policy and keep their $1 lease?
They certainly have a lot more important things to do…but if the hate isn’t their purpose, and there would be such benefits to quitting it, why don’t they quit?
I can only conclude that they actually really mean it, really love their hate, couldn’t give hate up for all the money in the world. Does that make them a hate group?
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I hear what you’re saying, Thene — but contrast the BSA with the KKK, for example. The primary purpose, the only purpose, for the KKK’s existence is to harass and terrorize African-Americans and to spread malicious propaganda. The BSA’s primary purpose is to teach and foster the moral development of boys through activities like camping and community service.
Admirable though that purpose may be, I won’t support the BSA by so much as buying a Christmas wreath unless and until it gets that tree trunk out of its eye.
I don’t see how you can foster anyone else’s moral development when your own morals are so bankrupt; but that’s still not the same as existing for the sole purpose of spreading hate. (And as far as I can tell neither the national organization nor individual dens or troops promulgate an antigay or anti-atheist message around the campfire; they just hope the subject won’t come up.)
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
December 11th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
how is it that almost everyone has an exclusive preference for one or the other?
I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of a little thing called socialisation, have you RonF? Yeesh.
This comment was written by Sara no H..Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Bonnie:
Ampersand:
It didn’t read like that to me. To me, it looks ill-informed, condescending, and perhaps unintendedly-insulting. But, maybe that’s because, as an Aspie, I’m more inclined to read it literally.
I’m not sure where this idea comes from of Aspies being “unable to understand symbolic or figurative speech [or] Colloquialisms”. I don’t have any problems in this regard, at least, I don’t think I do. Nor do I recognise such a deficit in other Aspies. Rather, the idea seems to me to be more like a neurotypical person’s misinterpretation of how Aspies think: It’s not that we don’t understand these forms of speech, it’s that we handle ambiguity differently. Aspies tend to look at each possible interpretation, reject those which are clearly untenable, then then either ask for clarification if there is more than one left, or perhaps respond to each tenable interpretation in turn. How often have you seen me write a comment along the lines of “If you meant A, then… else if you meant B, then…”? And yes, I do tend to go with a literal interpretation, provided it’s tenable.
Neurotypical people, on the other hand… Well, I don’t really know how neurotypicals think. To me it looks like they just respond to their best guess at an interpretation. Nor does it appear that they guess right any more often than I would if I did the same. But what do I know of neurotypical thought?
Regardless, I don’t get the impression that Bonnie has had many dealings with Aspies. Rather, she seems to have taken this description and just applied it to some writing she’s seen on the net. Ironically, someone with the comprehension deficits she seems to think Aspies have would be unable to understand the phrase “see your doctor”.
Where it gets condescending is with the idea that we should or even could just see a doctor to help fix her (presumed) problem with us. In my experience Doctors are generally as clueless as everyone else about Asperger’s, and frequently add their own particular brand of professional arrogance to it, though that’s certainly not true for all of them. In fact, Aspies do develop “behavioral strategies for how better to interact with” neurotypical people in a neurotypical world. If she has a problem with us, she could always try developing some behavioural strategies of her own.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
BSA voluntarily fixed up the building.
It was not a pre-existing building that the BSA moved into and fixed up. The BSA built the building from scratch. The BSA didn’t build it somewhere else and then truck it onto the property later. There had to be some kind of deal in place from the beginning, even if it was only an understanding until the ordinance was passed and the gift of the building was made. Was there a written contract? No. Was there a deal cut between representatives of the City and the local BSA Council? Yes. The city gets a building, the local Council gets essentially free rent.
Now, I don’t know which came first - “We’ll put up a building and give it over if you give us free rent of a spot to put it” or “If we give you free rent, will you put your HQ on it and give us the building”? But it certainly wasn’t “Here’s free rent on a piece of property” and “Oh, hey, thanks - say, how about if we put a building up and give it to you? What do you think?” or “We’d like to build a building and give it to the city” “Great! Say, how about if we give you free rent on a spot to put it?” There was a deal. Not legally enforcable, but a deal none the less. As I say, I understand the exigencies that caused the City to say “We have to follow our own laws - change your policies or get out”. But there’s nothing in that law that says that the City can’t close the deal out in an honest fashion.
BTW, upthread I made a few postings that include content indicating that the City has had other tenants in that building besides the BSA. I came to suspect I was misinformed and called the CoL Council to check. I was misinformed. I apologize for that.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Lu, in my 27 years in the BSA I have had the subject come up exactly twice outside the parameters of discussing these various lawsuits. One was actually well prior to the controversies, back when I was 17 and one of my fellow Scouts came into my cabin, put his hand on my leg and propositioned me - that would have been in July or August of 1969. I was a good-looking kid back in the day - ah, the ravages of time …. The other time was a few years ago during a Scoutmaster conference (when a Boy Scout is going to advance in rank, he sits down with his Scoutmaster and discusses what he’s been up to in Scouting - and life for that matter - and what his plans are), when a kid just brought up on his own what a bad think gays in Scouting would be. Mind you, if you had said to me 5 minutes before that, “Ron, one of the kids in the Troop is gay, which one do you think it is” I’d have pointed to him immediately, so, who knows where that came from.
It doesn’t come up. It just doesn’t come up. Kids join Cub Scouts when they are 6 and Boy Scouts when they are 11. It isn’t something we talk about with them at all and very, very little with the adults (and then only if they bring it up). During meetings and outing we don’t talk about sex at all - we talk about the stuff you need to do to pass the requirements of the various ranks and badges and how you do your job as Patrol Leader or whatever. It isn’t 1984; we don’t have the 5-minute hate every meeting. And based on what I overhear of the conversations the kids have when they think we’re not listening, they don’t talk about sex in general and homosexuality in particular on their own much either.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Thene:
I’ve been thinking about this one quite a bit since I wrote my last response. It seems screamingly obvious to me that the BSA could drop its discriminatory policies and fulfill its primary mission just as well — better, in fact, since the major kinks in its own morality would be straightened* out. To me it seems like a no-brainer.
Yet it has declined to do so, at great cost to the organization and its stated primary mission. It seems that it believes the exclusion of gay people and atheists to be central to its identity.
I still have trouble seeing the Boy Scouts as a hate group, probably because I associate it with the innocence (ignorance?) of my childhood, and because I’ve known a lot of Scouts and Scoutmasters who were good people who had no intention of supporting bigotry. I’m glad I don’t have a son who wants to join, though.
*Way before this came up, I’d become uncomfortable with using the word straight to mean heterosexual. These days I use heterosexual or het much more often. The opposite of straight is bent, kinked, crooked, twisted, and (to me at least, and it seems also to the BSA) using straight to mean heterosexual implies at least in some degree that these pejoratives apply to gay people.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
My last post crossed with Ron’s last two. I’ll let it stand and address his points specifically.
What’s dishonest about requiring the BSA to comply with the law?
Then why is it so hard for the BSA to change these policies? People really, really dislike admitting that they were wrong, especially in a way that harmed others, but there seems to be more to it than that. (I don’t like the anti-atheist policy either, as you know, but I’m trying to resist straying from the topic.)
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
There had to be some kind of deal in place from the beginning
Let’s assume there actually was a deal. What were the terms of that deal, and how has the city violated them, particularly in light of its willingness to try to repay BSA for its work?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Wait a second…
1) Thank you all for ceasing to erroniously claim that there was a lease.
2) Ron says there was a deal. The deal was, the BSA gets free rent in perpetuity, and Philly gets…what? Official ownership of a building that they can’t use because it’s filled with boy scouts? A deal implies quid pro quo, and I’m not seeing a lot of quo here.
3) I don’t see why there was necessarily a deal involved. Why can’t it just have been, “Hey, Boy Scouts, we like the cut of your jib, here’s some land to do your thing on”? Governments make grants like this all the time; I don’t see why we should assume it was different in this case. In fact, usually there is the understanding (but not the obligation) that the grantee will continue to fulfill the goals of the grantor; something which is obviously no longer the case in this instance.
4) Even if there was a deal, is anybody seriously suggesting that either party should continue to be bound by a decades-old back-room handshake deal between some unknown dude in the BSA and some unknown dude in the city? Generally in this society we enumerate the conditions of our deals (and write them down on paper) for several good reasons, some of which include allowing for external review of the deal, making sure that both parties understand exactly what the terms of the deal are, and ensuring that the details of the deal don’t change over time. Seeing as how none of this was done, I have a hard time seeing why Philly should honor the deal (if there was one) according to what RonF or the BSA says it was.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
RonF:
Few separate points here:
1. While I appreciate that it ‘doesn’t come up’, the simple statistical truth is that it’s likely that perhaps 9% of the scouts are (or will be) either gay or bisexual. (A figure I’m getting from a relatively recent BBC survey of 25000 self-selecting participants aged between 16 and 24 - it’s not academic sociology, but the sample size is so huge that it’s the figure I tend to use for current orientation spread). Speaking as a bisexual woman who grew up in an area where ‘it didn’t come up’, and where queer people were slurred upon, excluded and usually just wound up moving away, that silence is choking, isolating and bad for mental and sexual health.
2. Two closely related news pieces about Girl Guiding UK:
First, they asked 1000 guides what skills they’d like to learn more about from their Guide troop. The top results for Guides aged 16+? Financial management, public speaking and safe sex. One of the top results for Guides aged 10-15 was ’standing up to boys’ - a subject that I think could fairly be contracted simply to ‘feminism’. (I’d be really interested to know if any similar surveys had been done in the USA, or if Boy Scouts of any nation had been surveyed).
Secondly, a few words about the Guiding peer educator program. It includes sexual health, abortion, date rape, alcohol use, and body image/eating disorder education.
What’s clearly going on with that is that the girls and young women are asking their Guiders for help with things - mostly practical things - they really want to know but aren’t learning in school. That includes advice about sex, gender and the body. You can’t map the needs of British girls right onto those of American boys, but I think it does demonstrate that the oldest children involved in Guiding and Scouting are quite sexually aware and do need way more support with that than they get in schools or from their families - and if the group has a policy of excluding people who are (in 9% of cases) like them, do you think that’s going to ‘come up’?
Of course not. It’s just going to lead to more isolation and fear of adult society in those G, B and T Scouts. And it is a minority matter, so clearly they should worry more about financial management and assembling furniture instead. But excluding people on sexual grounds is inevitably going to impact on that 9%, right when they need support and advice about sex. Don’t force it to ‘come up’, sure, but the exclusion policy is clearly a danger to these young people.
3. The image of discrimination - be it homophobia or racism or any other form of discrimination - as being a matter of ‘5 minute hate’ is a caricature that’s commonly used to distract from real discrimination. Rudy Giuliani’s not a racist! He doesn’t do 5 minute hate against blacks at his campaign meetings! It’s just a coincidence that absolutely all of his campaign staff are white! See? Silent exclusion is a common way of carrying out discrimination, as it’s relatively stealthy, hard to outlaw, and means that no one has to own up to their discrimination. It’s still hate.
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Ron, refusing to include gay people because they’re unclean is fucking filthy and you know it.
It’s immoral and unethical and hateful and inhuman and you know it.
It doesn’t matter whether or not the troops spend a lot of time hating on gay folks at their meetings, any more than it would matter whether a group that excluded black people or women or Irish people or Jews or liberals or immigrants or any other group because they’re unclean spent a lot of time talking about it.
They’d still be doing it, and it would still be nauseating and hypocritical.
And you know it.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
A (partial) list of groups that, functionally or as a matter of policy, discriminate against gays: BSA, the Catholic church, several of the world’s other major religions, US Army (and all other branches of the US military), the Republican party, many adoption agencies…the list is long.
Is anybody seriously going to argue that all of the above are hate groups? Because if you are, I think you are diluting the meaning of “hate group” to the point where it’s not very useful any more. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t hateful individuals in (and sometimes running) those groups. But there are also people who just haven’t given it a lot of thought, or who are mistaken in their understanding of what it means to be gay, or who think that fighting about it is useless or harmful at present, or who feel that the group in question does more good than harm and therefore deserves support. And I don’t see these latter people as being hateful. (Which isn’t to say that ignorance excuses bad behavior. But ignorance is a lot easier to cure than hate.)
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
I don’t care too much about the nomenclature, whether we call the BSA a hate group or not.
I’m perfectly willing to treat them exactly the same as I would treat (frex) The Lions Club or the Kiwanis if the Lions Club or the Kiwanis didn’t allow black or Jewish members because black people and Jews are filthy.
I think quibbling over whether they’re primarily a hate group or just a group with mostly laudable goals who also considers vile bigotry an integral part of their identity is counterproductive.
I would point out, however, that they do consider their hate integral to who they are as an organization, to the point that they’ll make decisions that are counter to their own financial best interest as long as that choice preserves their ability to discriminate, long after their fellow scouting organizations have stopped.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 12th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Thene, really great comment.
I have a nit-pick, though:
It doesn’t matter how huge the sample size is; a really big survey with fatal design flaws is no better than a small survey with fatal design flaws. For this subject, a self-selected sample makes the results meaningless.
That said, I don’t think it matters at all to your point. The Scouts claim that one in four boys in the US become boy scouts at some point. Even if that’s an exaggeration, and even if only 1% of boys ever experiences same-sex attractions, that would still be a huge number of boys.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
December 13th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Even if there was a deal, is anybody seriously suggesting that either party should continue to be bound by a decades-old back-room handshake deal between some unknown dude in the BSA and some unknown dude in the city?/
It likely started out as what was known back in the day as a “gentleman’s agreement”, but it didn’t stay that way; a by all accounts legally-enforcable conveyance of the building to the City and a City ordinance moved it to public view and legal records. And I’ve said they shouldn’t continue to be bound to it. What I’m saying is that it shouldn’t be closed out in a one-sided fashion, where one side retains the benefits and even improves their position, and the other side loses all benefits and then has more losses.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 13th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
It likely started out as what was known back in the day as a “gentleman’s agreement”
So, again, you keep harping on a “deal” and an “agreement,” and you don’t even know *what* it was. And again, the City gave BSA years’ notice that they would have to pay the same lease as everybody else, and is considering ways to reimburse BSA for the work they did to the building. So other than thinking that the BSA should be allowed to keep its $1 sweetheart deal, what is your point?
Re Berkeley, if there was an actual agreement that BSA relied upon–we provide this stone, you give us these boat docks–then there is a potential contract, and they can sue for a breach. Favors do not create contracts, though.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 13th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Lu: Just as a point of clarification, this deal that’s the subject of this dispute wasn’t between the City and the BSA, it was between the City and the local council of the BSA. At one point the local council wanted to adopt a no-discrimination policy so that they would be in complicance with the city’s ordinances, but the national BSA office put the kibosh on it. So, the local council is finding itself between the proverbial rock and hard place.
RonF: When I was a boy scout back in the late sixties, sex was a very frequent topic of conversation at campouts, at least when the adult leaders weren’t in earshot. I’d be surprised if that’s not the case now.
This comment was written by Paul R.Report this comment to the moderators
December 14th, 2007 at 7:38 am
So other than thinking that the BSA should be allowed to keep its $1 sweetheart deal, what is your point
Mythago, show me once where I’ve said that the BSA should be allowed to stay in the building and continue to pay $1 a year rent.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 14th, 2007 at 8:14 am
So, again, you keep harping on a “deal” and an “agreement,” and you don’t even know *what* it was.
How the arrangement was made is unclear, but the result isn’t. The City gets a building and the BSA Council gets cheap rent. Certainly no one’s denying it.
So other than thinking that the BSA should be allowed to keep its $1 sweetheart deal, what is your point
Mythago, show me once where I’ve said that the BSA should be allowed to stay in the building and continue to pay $1 a year rent. And my point is clear; the City right now stands as having dealt quite dishonestly with the BSA by reneging on the deal without reimbursing them.
and is considering ways to reimburse BSA for the work they did to the building.
One City Councillor has stated that he’s going to ask that this be considered. I have yet to see that the issue has in fact come before the City and that they have decided to consider it. So I think that you overstate the situation. Also, this should have been worked out before they broke the deal, not afterwards.
Additionally, your phrasing has repeatedly ignored the fact that the BSA didn’t just do some maintenance on the building, they built it in the first place. Do you not see a distinction?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 14th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Ron, kindly reread what Mythago wrote above.
If the agreement was, “the City gets a building and the BSA Council gets cheap rent,” then, well, the BSA got 80 years of cheap rent, and according to all of the math I’ve seen, that far exceeds the value of the building.
I’m not sure why you think the BSA is owed anything.
If there’s another “deal” or “agreement” you think was made, what was it, and where was it written down?
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 14th, 2007 at 9:17 am
RonF: You keep reiterating how dishonest it was for the city to do this. But I fail to see what was so dishonest about it. It’s the city’s land. If I leased that land (a much more honest and clear arrangement that the “back-room deal” you keep insisting existed and somehow has legal and ethical merit), even at full price, and then built a building on it… well, I would lose the building when I failed to meet the terms of the lease. Even if those terms got changed by law and were not in the original contract.
You also keep insisting that there must have been some kind of deal, but we have no evidence of that other than your insistence. And all the evidence we have suggests that the city said: “Hey BSA, we’re going to give you a sweet deal on this piece of land.” And sometime later the BSA responded with: “Cool, Philly, we’re really grateful. Hey, can we build a building on this site?” That does not imply, suggest, or even require some kind of deal.
It does require a consistent string of bad choices, though, which the BSA seems really insistent on making. First, they would have had legal standing had they gotten an actual lease at any point before this situation arose. Second, they would have had further legal merit if they had gotten some written contractual arrangement to protect their investment of time and money in the building, again at any point before this situation arose. Third, they would have had ethical standing had they chosen not to endorse and embrace discriminatory policies. Fourth, they would have earned some protection from the laws that were enacted to protect them if they had chosen to renounce the aforementioned discrimination or paid fair rent. They chose to do none of these things.
Instead, they chose to keep making bad choices and now you (and they) seem to think that they deserve protection from those bad choices… even while you maintain that those were somehow good choices despite the fact that they clearly were not.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
This comment was written by MisterMephisto.Report this comment to the moderators
December 18th, 2007 at 6:28 am
Sailorman Writes:
I don’t know or understand too much about contracts or leases, just the basics from my business law classes, but if the Boy Scouts were using the building and the city gave it to them to use, then obviously there was some sort of contract that was in existence between the two parties.
The questions now are these: Under what terms can either side break the agreement? What are the consequences for either side to break the agreement? How can the agreement be legally broken by either side? I don’t think the answers to these questions are as clear cut as some would like to believe that they are and this is why the city and the BS are going to have to hammer this thing out.
Obviously, this isn’t the first sort of agreement in this country to occur between a not-for-profit organization and a city government so I have to assume that in other cases across the country the two sides normally come to some sort of amicable agreement to break the contract when circumstances change.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 18th, 2007 at 9:00 am
I think that what you’re claiming here is untrue, and in fact, as far as I can tell, that’s sort of the point of the last 100-something comments.
That is, lots of people keep claiming ‘there had to be a contract/lease/whatever,’ and still nobody has been able to present evidence of one or explain what one would entail. Since that’s the case, I’d like to suggest that there wasn’t a contract, and thus that the city isn’t breaking it.
Rather than a contract, it seems pretty clear that the city was offering the BSA a sweetheart deal on taxpayer subsidized rent. That was all fine in the early 20th century, but as the BSA’s bigotry has become more clear (and, honestly, as they’ve become greater bigots. The BSA has changed over the years, and not for the better) the city decided that they didn’t want to offer them this deal any longer.
The BSA had no problem with a sweetheart deal because they’re Real Nice Guys, so now that it’s become clear that they’re not Real Nice Guys (and are instead Big Fucking Bigots), they lose the deal.
*shrug*
If you live on your reputation, you die on your reputation.
Don’t like it? Don’t do it.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 18th, 2007 at 10:40 am
As Myca has noted, that’s far from obvious. I do all SORTS of things which are not under contract. So do cities, and so do the Scouts.
Furthermore, some agreements require certain types of form to be valid and binding. Some must be in writing, some must be renewed, or signed by certain parties, or recorded, etc. Some contracts can also be invalidated by law (e.g. whites-only.)
I have no particular knowledge of PA law, but to date I have seen nothing that suggests there was a contract.
Well, normally the two sides HAVE a contract. And half the reason of having a contract is to agree what happens if/when someone wants to break it: who pays, who walks, etc.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 18th, 2007 at 11:43 am
OK. Wow. I followed this entire comment thread, and wow.
My thoughts that haven’t already been expressed by others:
1.) If the BSA feels cheated by the arrangement, let them litigate it. Sure, that’s expensive, but that’s life as a national organization…and it hasn’t hurt those needy kids in the past when they’ve spent those Christmas wreath and popcorn dollars to sue for their right to discriminate. They also have a sufficiently savvy legal team that if they think they have a prayer of winning a suit under contract law in the jurisdiction, they will litigate it, and even if they don’t, they’ll use it (or it will be used, independent of their actions) as more “The Left Hates Scouting, Mom & God” propaganda in the media. Myself, I don’t think they’ve got a prayer, but I know nil about their particular state and its law, nor do I know enough about the history here to argue the principles of implied contract. I don’t do legal research in my spare time; I betcha BSA has plenty of paralegals to do that for them. I’ll be keeping an eye out to see what comes of this, just because now I’m curious as to whether they fight it or not.
2.) Many past Scouts are ashamed of or angered by the BSA’s staunch refusal to reconsider their stance on homosexuality. I like to think past Scouts who are no longer with us would join in those feelings. Heinlein praised the BSA all his life; I doubt he’d be pleased to see their image deteriorate in this way, or to see children who could benefit from Scouting who don’t, because Mommy thinks it’s important that Bobby understands about Uncle Stan and why having a group where Uncle Stan wouldn’t be allowed is uncool.
3.) The GSA doesn’t discriminate against gays & lesbians, and they get my support, what little I’m able to give. The BSA has a right to slant their policies as they choose, and also the right to take the consequences. Of course, Spielberg withdrawing his financial support probably mattered more. If the GSA started discriminating against gays & lesbians, I’d stop buying cookies.
4.) I know from my admittedly limited experience with current Boy Scouts that they are just as likely to describe things they don’t like as “gay” as other, non Scout boys of their age. I have a problem with that, as that’s not really behavior befitting a Scout. Gay bashing does not count as a good deed, nor is it “clean”, and is it possible that this policy means that adults are even less likely to teach their Scouts why that behavior is not acceptable, either for fear of reprisal by the organization or simply because they don’t want to deal with explaining the inherent contradiction there?
5.) I wish my state had laws that would let them oust antigay groups from our schools. Of course, my state is forever getting in trouble for Missing the Point on church-state separation…despite the First Amendment Center being headquartered here. The magistrates in my county got in trouble recently for leaving their posts unattended on Sundays to step out for church…on county time. Apparently they’ve been doing just that since God knows when. (I wouldn’t care at all if they were doing it on lunch breaks, but Sunday magistrates are part-time. They were taking four-hour checks for three hours of work or less, and leaving people to wait to be bonded or arraigned until they got done over at church.) It’s so casual and part of the culture here that it’s almost impossible to stop. (In the case of the magistrates, the county attorney just told them they’d be fired if they left during their shift for anything other than an emergency, period, and left the reasons (and the public fight over them) out of it.)
This comment was written by Pope Lizbet.Report this comment to the moderators
December 18th, 2007 at 11:46 am
I was only speaking specifically to the question that Sailorman posed to me, not all of the comments on the thread.
And once again, let me say that the courts will determine if there was or wasn’t a contract and if so, whether it was or wasn’t broken. The original post on this thread clearly states that ” 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.” Emphasis mine. A lease is a contract by any measure of the law so it will be up to a court somewhere to claim that the lease can in fact be broken and under what terms the two sides will have to agree to if they can’t agree between themselves. Further down in the same article it states “The Boy Scouts skirted the requirement by never having had to sign a lease because they were given use of the building by city ordinance in the 1920s.” But what exactly does that mean? Was there a lease despite the fact that no actual lease was signed, contradicting other parts of the same article, or was there some sort of de facto lease because of the city ordinance?
Can the same city resind on its part of an agreement by later changing its laws, and if so under what terms?
Whether the deal was sweet or not, a deal is a deal. And unless it violates the law, a deal is a contract.
Which is all fine and dandy but that just leaves us back where we started. After over 80 years of the BSA renting/leasing/whatevering-you-want-to-call-it on this land, where does that leave the BSA and where does it leave the city as far as what each is due since there don’t seem to be any provisions that were made when the BSA initially moved onto the land as to what would happen when the city no longer wanted them there.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 18th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Ah, I see your confusion.
What you said above is just not true.
Pretty much period.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 18th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Post removed
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 18th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Sailorman Writes:
Does a contract have to have provisions for what happens in case someone doesn’t hold up their end of the bargain? Can a contract exist that doesn’t have these provisions?
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 18th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Jamila said - “Does a contract have to have provisions for what happens in case someone doesn’t hold up their end of the bargain? Can a contract exist that doesn’t have these provisions?”
I don’t know about CAN, but I can say that I have never ever seen one that does NOT have provisions for what happens if one party does not uphold their end of the bargain, and I’ve been dealing exclusivly with federal, state, and private contracts for the last year and a half or so.
This comment was written by Kate L..Report this comment to the moderators
December 18th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
As Kate said.
A contract can be simple and fairly abstract. This is a contract:
But simple usually means “subject to interpretation.”
And “subject to interpretation” frequently means “interpreted in opposite ways by the two parties.”
And THAT means, often enough, “ends up in litigation.”
So because “simple” = “ends up in litigation,” good lawyers tend to put a lot of details in. Usually those details include some way to assess damages, breach, etc, because that just makes things better for everyone in the long run.
Anyway:
It pretty much leaves them in a similar position as they would be if the BSA were anyone else, and/or the city was a different city. Back to square one.
It’s just as if I had a one year lease with you, but I kept renewing it for 79 more years. If, in Year 80, i decided not to renew, what then? You’re out of luck: you should have signed an 81-year lease, or you should have insisted on a clause permitting you to renew at will.
Now change that a bit. I have a lease with you for $1/year. Every January, you and I sign a new lease for $1 for the next year. This time, I refuse; I want $1000. What happens? Same as above, you’re out of luck: you should have signed an 81-year lease, or you should have insisted on a clause permitting you to renew at will for $1/year.
That’s similar to what happened here, I think. The BSA appears to have had/made a series of short term deals with the city–perhaps a short lease, perhaps no lease at all. But they don’t appear to have secured a long term obligation (e.g. long term lease,) nor do they appear to have secured a right of renewal if they had a short term lease.
There are many valid reasons why, once the arrangement existed, the BSA would not try to secure their position better. in particular, they may have balanced the risk of non-renewal against the risk of coming into the public eye. Perhaps they worried that changing things would cause someone, somewhere, to realize that the city held the cards. Who knows?
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 19th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Whether the deal was sweet or not, a deal is a deal. And unless it violates the law, a deal is a contract.
And here you are back with RonF, insisting that there must be a “deal” or a “contract”, even though there isn’t one and you can’t articulate what the terms of that “deal” are.
but if the Boy Scouts were using the building and the city gave it to them to use, then obviously there was some sort of contract that was in existence between the two parties
Flatly not true. Sorry.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 19th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
mythago Writes:
Sure I can. All I have to do is read the city ordinance that granted the BSA usage of the land in the first place. The article also goes on to state “On May 31, the City Council voted 16-to-1 to authorize ending the lease….” If nothing resembling a lease existed then there would have been nothing to vote on ending.
It flatly is true. Sorry.
The BSA is not some homeless Joe Shmoe claiming squatters rights in some abandoned building that the city forgot about. The BSA was there 80 years, paid rent to the city-even if it was only $1 a year-, and built a building there which it maintained.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 19th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
You’ve already explained that you don’t have much knowledge of contracts, but are you a lawyer, Jamila?
I ask because you’re contradicting (I believe) two lawyers with what you’re writing here, and I’d like to know how much stock we ought to put in your opinion.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 19th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
It would help to know exactly what the ordinance that the Philadelphia City Council adopted 80 years ago says. If it grants the boy scouts the right to erect a building on city property and to occupy it in return for $1.00/yr rent, that’s not a contract (and even if it is a contract, in most places in the U.S. contracts involving real estate–other than a lease for less than one year’s duration–have to be in writing). If, on the other hand, the ordinance authorizes a representative of the city to enter into an agreement with the boy scouts, whatever agreement was entered into may constitute a contract, but again, if it wasn’t in writing, it has probably ceased to be enforceable.
The local BSA council _may_ have a detrimental reliance argument along the lines that in spending the money to erect and maintain the building, the BSA council detrimentally relied on the city’s promise that if they did so, it could occupy the building in perpetuity for $1/yr rent. However, in calculating its damages, if any, the court would probably have to consider the fact that the council has also benefited by being able to occupy the building essentially rent free for 80 years, so it could end up being a wash.
This comment was written by Paul R.Report this comment to the moderators
December 19th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
All I have to do is read the city ordinance that granted the BSA usage of the land in the first place.
Very good. What does that ordinance say? And what were the terms of the lease, such that you can confidently assert the City violated them?
It flatly is true. Sorry.
No, it is actually not the case that if the City allowed the BSA to use the building, there was “some sort of contract”. As you’d know if you really paid attention in your class, “contract” has a very specific meaning.
Still waiting to hear exactly what terms of the contract the City violated. All I keep hearing is “BSA! BSA!”
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 19th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Myca Writes:
Nope.
You don’t have to put any stock in my opinion, although I put more stock in my own opinion than what I would put into two lawyers from the internet that I’ve never met who don’t seem to have read the city ordinance in question. The best I can hope for is that you take my opinion as a starting point and then do your own research by reading the ordinance that initially gave the BSA usage of the land. Next you can follow that up by reading the minutes of the meeting during which the city council voted to end a lease which you are asserting never existed in the first place.
So I guess the question comes full circle: How much stock should I put into what you or the two lawyers are saying if none of you have–as of yet anyways–read the ordinance giving the BSA a right to be on the land ?
Since I’m about as great of an internet researcher as I am of a lawyer can anyone here find a link to the actual ordinance giving the BSA usage of the land and a link to information about the city council meeting where the BSA was kicked out of the building that they allegedly had no lease on ?
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 19th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
mythago Writes:
At no point in this thread have I confidently asserted that the city violated the lease. I have asserted that there has to have been a lease or some sort of contract allowing the BSA usage of the land in the first place; but, according to the article, even the city hasn’t tried to say that the BSA had no right to be in the building, only that due to a new city ordinance the BSA has to get out of the building now or pay full-priced rent.
Yes, it is actually the case that in order for the city to allow the BSA usage of the land there had to be some sort of contract. Last I heard, folks couldn’t just move their enterprise into a building owned by a city, pay rent to the city that the city accepted, and yet there could be no lease or contract.
The simplest definition of a contract is ” a legally enforceable agreement.” Contracts don’t have to be complicated, although they can be. And a contract does not have to spell out every little excruciating detail in order to remain a contract. As Sailorman, a lawyer, has already pointed out a contract can be ” simple and fairly abstract.”
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 20th, 2007 at 8:56 am
From http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/us/06scouts.html?em&ex=1197262800&en=534f254f49c4457d&ei=5087%0A
Ms. Sobel said the city required that any organization that rented property from it agree to nondiscriminatory language in its lease. The Boy Scouts skirted the requirement by never having had to sign a lease because they were given use of the building by city ordinance in the 1920s.
There. No lease.
However, three paragraphs later:
On May 31, the City Council voted 16-to-1 to authorize ending the lease, though Mr. Clarke and other Council members continued trying to negotiate a settlement.
There. A lease.
I hope I’ve helped to settle this argument with aid from journalism at its finest.
You can see the most recent resolution here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2176410
The important bit says:
WHEREAS, Pursuant to the terms of permission granted to the Boy Scouts, the building and property is to be surrendered to the city within one year after a notice of desire to terminate given by the Commissioners of Fairmount Park, with the approval of the Mayor and City Council…
It looks like the city followed the letter of the “terms of permission” granted in 1928, so you can stop attacking the city now.
(Of course, I can’t actually find the “terms of permission” from 1928 anywhere, so who knows? Maybe the council is lying with this resolution. If anybody can find the original, I’d love to see it.)
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
December 20th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Interesting in a related way:
Via Metafilter, I find this blog by a long-time scoutmaster, where he talks about (among other things), his attitude towards the BSA’s policy of discrimination towards Atheists and gays. He credits this policy largely with the BSA’s 23.5% (as of 2005) drop in membership since 1997.
What I find heartbreaking is how many people comment in the original Metafilter thread to say, “I’m an Eagle Scout. My father was an Eagle Scout. This was a big part of my life, but I just can’t support the BSA any more.”
My father was an Eagle Scout. My children will not be.
I want all the apologists out there to ask themselves whether or not this is something that makes sense.
Is holding your hate close more important than the future of scouting?
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 20th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Jamila Akil said:
Just because you haven’t heard of it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Like you said, you’re not a lawyer.
As for the discussion on the use of the term “lease”: Jamila, you seem to keep assuming that the word “lease” solely means “a standing contract” in common parlance (which happens to be the linguistic style journalists often rely upon) when most people use it interchangeably with the word “rent”. Just because the article mentions the word “lease”, does not mean that there was an actual contract.
In fact, as Jake Squid points out above, the actual wording of the resolution refers to the arrangement as “terms of permission” which supports the already much-reiterated point that there never was a “lease” as per the legalistic, contractual definition of the word.
This comment was written by MisterMephisto.Report this comment to the moderators
December 20th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Myca, re: comment #157, I whole heartedly concur. I was a girl scout for years and as the girl scouts have no policy of discrimination against lesbians, I don’t have a problem if my daughter chooses to join (and I’ll encourage her to try it because I think it is a valuable experience). However, if I ever have a son, he will not be permitted to join the Boy Scouts because of their policy, and that is exceedingly sad - both for my mythical potential future son and for the Boy Scouts. :(
This comment was written by Kate L..Report this comment to the moderators
December 20th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Best. Comment. Ever.
From http://scoutmaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/01/lets_revisit_th.html
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
December 20th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
How about if we only let in homosexuals who don’t have an agenda?
Damn. I have a really nice Hermes agenda too. It’s ostrich skin. I’d hate to have to give it up. But I tell you, how do they expect me to “be prepared” if I can’t keep my appointments straight! And my PDA is so not appropriate for formal occasions.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
December 20th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Sure they can.
It happens all the time in residential settings. It is similar to (or in fact is) a “tenancy at will” depending on the situation. Google that phrase if you want more information on what it means.
It’s less common, but still reasonably frequent, to have those in commercial settings. I haven’t personally run into any in a municipal setting but I have no reason to believe they are forbidden.
Incidentally: Not that I mind explaining things, but if your general opinion of me is “some random lawyer on the Internet who is too stupid to read the lease” or the equivalent, then let me know so i can stop wasting my time.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 20th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Come on now, Sailorman! Have you ever heard of a “tenancy at will” existing for 80 years? What about the fact that the article clearly states that the city council voted to end the “lease”?*
I wasn’t trying to imply that you were stupid, ’cause I haven’t read the city ordinance either. My point is that all of us here have access to the exact same article that clearly states a city ordinance gave the BSA usage of the land and that the city voted to terminate the “lease”.
If all of us have access to the exact same information from the article and we all have the ability to use the internet to do basic research to find out what the terms “lease” and “contract” mean, why would I accept the opinion of any lawyer as carrying more weight than my own when we both know the exact same thing about the case in question?
I respect your opinion and I apologize if I came off as rude or calling you ( or the other lawyers here) stupid.
*NOTE: I just wanted to add that I saw in one of your most recent posts on this thread that there could have been a short-term lease agreement between the BSA and the city council. Hopefully, others on this thread will come around to understanding that there is a very distinct possibility that a lease agreement existed in light of your own statement about a possible lease agreement and the fact that the article states there was a lease agreement.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 20th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
What about the fact, as Jake Squid pointed out, that the article also clearly states that there was no lease?
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 21st, 2007 at 2:15 am
I looked around for the text of the original law, or agreement, or lease, or whatever, from 1928, but I didn’t find it. I did, however, find the resolution evicting the Scouts. Here’s some relevant bits that people can read for clues:
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
December 21st, 2007 at 6:39 am
Have you ever heard of a “tenancy at will” existing for 80 years?
No.
But so what? There are an infinity of things which I haven’t personally heard about. And there is no inherent limit on a tenancy at will (you’ll have to trust me on this one.)
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 21st, 2007 at 7:55 am
Jamila,
From http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/us/06scouts.html?em&ex=1197262800&en=534f254f49c4457d&ei=5087
Ms. Sobel said the city required that any organization that rented property from it agree to nondiscriminatory language in its lease. The Boy Scouts skirted the requirement by never having had to sign a lease because they were given use of the building by city ordinance in the 1920s.
and:
WHEREAS, Pursuant to the terms of the permission granted to the Boy Scouts, the building and property is to be surrendered to the City within one year after notice of a desire to terminate given by the Commissioners of Fairmount Park, with the approval of the Mayor and City Council
No lease. Just because there is shoddy reporting wrt use of language doesn’t mean there was a lease. Notice that the paraphrase from a government official says that there was no lease. The word “lease” is just the term that the reporter used to describe the arrangement. The reporter and the editor did a crappy job on that. All evidence points to the fact that there was no lease, rather there was an ordinance that granted “terms of permission.” There is and was no lease. At least there is no evidence for the existence of a lease. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it. If you don’t have any evidence and it’s just that you can’t personally believe that there was [not] a lease, can you please drop it now?
The quote just above the preceding paragraph indicates that the city is following the terms of those terms of permission in terminating the arrangement with the BSA. So can we all just drop the whole “raw deal to the BSA” stuff, too? Unless, of course, you have evidence that indicates that the city is illegitimately terminating the arrangement.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
December 21st, 2007 at 9:04 am
Probably my favorite part of that whole resolution was the paragraph where they said:
Oh, so then according to the terms of the original ordinance, the building became property of the city immediately upon being built? Gosh, I guess that invalidates the entire argument that the city owes the BSA something, doesn’t it? Shocking.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 21st, 2007 at 9:09 am
Jake Squid:
Yeah. This reminded me of what Mythago said wayyyy back at comment #37, and it’s something my granddad and father, both lawyers, used to say as well:
Right now, Jamila, you have neither facts nor law. Please offer some.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 24th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I keep quoting the article but I don’t know why you seem hell bent on ignoring it.
The article says the following: “On May 31, the City Council voted 16-to-1 to authorize ending the lease,….”
I don’t understand how I can be any clearer.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 24th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Wait a minute. That paragraph does not necessarily mean that there was no lease, only that the BSA never had to sign a lease.
I never attacked the city to begin with.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 25th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
My point is that all of us here have access to the exact same article that clearly states a city ordinance gave the BSA usage of the land and that the city voted to terminate the “lease”.
And the exact same article states that the use of the land was pursuant to a city ordinance, as you note. A city ordinance is not a lease.
All that aside, ordinance or lease, in what way did the City act improperly? What terms of the alleged lease did it violate?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 26th, 2007 at 9:15 am
Jamila Akil said:
I’m curious. What type of lease do you believe there was that all involved did not sign it? And if the BSA did not sign this lease, why is the City obliged to adhere to it? What legal standing would this lease have, if such a thing existed?
What I’m getting at is that I don’t believe that any such lease could exist in any legal sense, as leases, in the legal sense, are contracts. And to be legally binding in any fashion, contracts require all parties bound by or benefitting from the contract or their legal representatives/guardians to sign in order to evidence their willingness to enter into this contract.
So please explain to me what type of contract, specifically a lease-contract, are you implying could have existed? Because, at this point, without any evidence provided on your part to support your claims other than a journalist’s colloquial misuse of the word “lease”, I think you’re just making stuff up to continue an argument that you have already lost.
This comment was written by MisterMephisto.Report this comment to the moderators
December 26th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
… I think you’re just making stuff up to continue an argument that you have already lost.
I love this aspect of internet interactions. Welcome to the non-FTF world, where one never has to admit to being wrong.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
December 26th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
MisterMephisto Writes:
As I said before, I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know the names of every variety of lease that can exist under the law and the terms of agreement that occur under each variety of lease. According to this link I found: “Lease” means any oral or written agreement, express or implied, creating a landlord-tenant relationship. It includes subleases.
I think there was the kind of lease that is created by a city ordinance which does not require the rentor to sign anything. Eighty years ago when the BSA first built, moved into, and began paying rent on the building many of the laws that now exist covering rental agreements might not have ( most likely didn’t) even exist.
All leases don’t require a signature; they don’t today and they didn’t back in the 1920’s either. Whether a lease is signed or not, as Sailorman has already pointed out, there can be a such thing as a tenancy-at-will where the renter pays rent and the landlord accepts the rent; this tenancy-at-will is usually on a month to month basis but can go as long as both parties agree on it without there being any signatures on a piece of paper. A landlord-in this case the City-has obligations under a tenancy-at-will just like any other landlord and the law will require the City to abide by those laws.
Three years ago, the City declared their intentions to terminate the tenancy-at-will (or whatever type of lease agreement they had going on with the BSA) when they gave the BSA time to either change their policy of discrimination against gays or risk having the lease not renewed.
I disagree but at this point I doubt I’ll convince you, as you certainly won’t convince me.
As has already been stated, all contracts do not require a signature on a piece of paper.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 26th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
mythago Writes:
The City might not have acted improperly, if the BSA decides to sue then the courts will determine who was in the wrong and what price that party will have to pay.
Because there don’t appear to have ever been any written decisions made about what was going to be done when the BSA no longer wanted to pay the rent or the City stopped accepting it, either the BSA could be out of luck or they could be entitled to monetary remuneration from the City for the cost of the building and its upkeep over the years.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 27th, 2007 at 8:22 am
As I said before, I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know the names of every variety of lease that can exist under the law and the terms of agreement that occur under each variety of lease.
That’s fine, because it’s irrelevant to the question: What were the terms of this lease? What terms of this lease did the City violate? If you don’t know the answers to those questions, then there’s no point in claiming here that the City did or did not fulfill its side of the bargain.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
December 27th, 2007 at 8:39 am
mythago Writes:
At this point all we know is that the BSA agreed to build a building and pay $1 rent per year in exchange. The City council agreed to this. There don’t appear to have been any clearly spelled out terms within the ordinance governing what would happen when either side wanted to break the agreement.
I never claimed that the City did or not fulfill it’s side of the bargain and you would know that if you had done more than give my posts a cursory read.
As I have said for the umpteenth time, if the BSA takes this to court then a judge is going to decide what terms were broken.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 27th, 2007 at 9:05 am
No, at this point we know that:
–in 1928, the BSA received permission from the city to build the building, with the understanding that once it was built, it belonged to the city–and they built it when they understood, or should have understood, what the grant of permission said;
–the BSA’s discriminatory policies cannot legally continue to be subsidized by the city, and letting them continue to use the building for free or nearly free, instead of at fair rent prices, counts as subsidization;
–the city has to give the BSA one year’s notice of eviction, and after that year is up, the building has to be surrendered to the city (which means there was an exit clause on their agreement; “we get one year’s notice, you get the building back”);
–the city has done this, which means it’s fulfilled all of its legal obligations.
[Summary of the above-linked resolution of the city terminating the arrangement with the local BSA council whereby the latter gets to occupy the building of the former.]
As far as I can tell, the city could, according to the terms of the agreement, terminate the agreement with the BSA for any reason whatsoever. They don’t have to give them a chance to continue using the building while paying fair rent; they don’t have to give them a chance to simply end the discrimination and continue using it. Just like any other arrangement which explains what the rules for termination are, all they have to do is follow those rules–which they have done.
The only thing the city has ever owed the BSA is one year’s notice, which has been given. If the BSA wanted compensation for building the building, they should’ve hammered that out before accepting the “it’s yours once it’s built” agreement. You can’t say “Oh, I’m doing this without thinking of the cost to myself at all, you don’t owe me anything!” and then later complain about not having your costs covered.
The city has been trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient to the law, clean, and brave. Maybe if the Scouts had been more thrifty they could obey the law more cheerfully? Why weren’t they prepared? Not very mentally awake, if you ask this former Girl Scout.
This comment was written by Gwen.Report this comment to the moderators
December 27th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Jamila,
what COULD convince you? I’m asking seriously, because this isn’t about “belief”, it’s about a legal question that can be answered. And I”m not trying to be insulting, but you seem to be exhibiting the classic “a little information is dangerous” attitude: you are talking about laws, and trying to make analyses based on general legal issues, but you’re simply not using the laws correctly, or citing them right.
I see nothing wrong with using links, but there’s a reason that people spend a long time studying law, and property law in particular. You have to remember that there are the general rules, and there are the specific ones. SPECIFIC RULES “WIN” (usually) over general ones. You’re talking about general rules (e.g. your comments about ‘contracts’ and ‘agreements’) while many of us are referencing specific ones.
For example, you said
So what? It is IRRELEVANT whether “a” contract can be formed without “a” signature. As they say, that’s what you learn in your first year of law school: technically and generally correct, factually incorrect (never trust a first year law student.) What is relevant is whether THIS arrangement, taking into consideration the particular facts of THIS case, and all the other laws that apply to THIS situation, from the statute of frauds to municipal statutes to Philadelphia caselaw, meet the criteria for legal action against the city, which action could prevent the city from asking them to leave.
Do you see what I mean? Generalities don’t work.
Incidentally, you referenced me when talking about a tenancy at will, and you said
Yes, there are laws about a tenancy at will. Do you know what they are? I suspect you don’t, because you appear to be suggesting they’re in support of your position. The laws for commercial TIW basically amount to this: The landlord can put the tenant out at any time, with minimal notice (usually one month, if rent is paid monthly) and the tenant can do shit-all to stop it.
And, incidentally,
If you won’t understand, and can’t be convinced, why the %^$@!# are you still posting on the thread?
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
December 27th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Gwen:
LOL!
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
December 27th, 2007 at 9:37 am
It’s not that I’m hell-bent on ignoring the article, so much as that I think that the actual legal documents quoted take precedence over a one-word reference in a newspaper story.
Why are you hell-bent on ignoring them?
Or the city could be entitled to monetary remuneration from the BSA for 80 years of fair market-rate rent, right Jamila? That would be fair, wouldn’t it?
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
December 27th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Myca Writes:
You mean the one legal document that Ampersand pointed us all to explaining exactly what the city council did?
I’m not ignoring it; the document shed no new light on whether or not what the BSA had with the city was a lease or not–which was the original thrust of my argument.
No, it wouldn’t, because the city agreed to rent the building for $1 to the BSA in return for the BSA placing the building there and handing the ownership rights of the building over to the city in the first place. It was the city that determined it no longer wanted to rent to the BSA, not the other way around.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 27th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Sailorman Writes:
At this point, nothing. Down the line when and if this all gets taken to court and a judge declares that there was no lease agreement and the BSA is SOL then I’ll just have to take the courts word for it.
I’ll take your word for it.
There were no specific rules/laws/regulations cited that pertained to this case. You admitted that you have never heard of a tenancy-at-will existing for 80 years; you suggested that maybe-possibly-kinda there coulda been a short term lease, but then again, you can’t say for sure. Everything you have said has been kinda iffy.
What specific laws/rules/regulations have you or anyone else on this thread cited that pertained to city ordinances created yesterday, let alone 80 years ago?
What section of any legal code did you cite when speaking of this particular case and how it relates to the creation or non-creation of a lease by a city ordinance?
It is not IRRELEVANT at all when someone is suggesting to me that a contract couldn’t have existed because there was no signature.
DUH!
You think I have been asking about leases and contracts and for someone to look up the city ordinance for my own good health?
No, I don’t.
Do I need to know what they are to suggest that the City will have to follow them like any other entity would?
The longer I’ve posted on this thread the less I think that any of you actually know what my position is. So let me clearly state it for you now: The City and the BSA had a rental agreement of some type ( a tenancy-at-will, a short term lease, I don’t know) that was created by the first City ordinance almost 80 years ago; the city may have violated the terms of that lease by terminating the $1 a year rental specified in the first ordinance; a court will determine whether or not there was any violation and what, if anything, the BSA is owed.
I do understand, you’ve tried to convince me but failed, and if this is the last post on this thread that you will make addressing me then I’ll happily stop posting until there is some update on this case.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
December 28th, 2007 at 8:18 am
But this is false. It’s known to be false. If it were true, that the city somehow had no right to terminate the rental arrangement with the BSA council (no matter what laws were passed, no matter how illegal it became to subsidize the council because of its discriminatory practices), there wouldn’t have been the “one year notice” rule. (That would be the “we’re giving the BSA council one year’s notice of eviction as per the agreement” bit in that ordnance you’ve read.) There was; therefore there were rules set up for a unilateral termination of the agreement by the city; therefore such termination is, obviously, not blanket-ly outlawed by the original agreement.
This is also false. The BSA agreed to build the building at its own expense. The BSA also agreed that it would be the city’s once it was built. It’s in the original grant of permission to build the building; if the BSA was too stupid to read it before building, that’s their problem, not the city’s. The BSA was being Helpful, and now it would be pretty disingenuous of them to say, “We were doing it without thought to cost for ourselves! Aren’t we great? Oh, by the way, we expect you to compensate us for all our work.”
Aaaand…
…this is also false. The city determined that it could not legally continue to subsidize a discriminatory organization by, essentially, giving it $199,999 a year. Let me repeat that: it could not legally continue this agreement. Luckily, the agreement had rules for termination by the city, so the city didn’t also have to break the original agreement in order to obey the law.
The BSA, on the other hand, are the ones who decided that it didn’t want the council to rent the building from the city any longer, either by paying fair market rent prices or by stopping its discriminatory practices (and the city was, it sounds like, rather eager to continue subsidizing the BSA council to the tune of an annual $199,999, and would do so if their hands weren’t tied by the BSA’s idiocy w/r/t the unclean gays). This is the BSA’s fault, not the city’s.
So here’s the history, if I understand it all correctly:
1. The BSA got a grant of permission from the city to build a building for it, with the understanding that the building belonged to the city and was on city property and there’d be no compensation except for a warm fuzzy feeling inside. The BSA built said building.
1. The BSA started renting the property for $1 a year.
(I’m not sure which of these came first, but they weren’t tied together anywhere outside of, perhaps, the BSA’s collective mind. Nothing the city can do about BSA delusions.)
2. The BSA council made the building its headquarters.
3. Either the city decided it couldn’t subsidize organizations that discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation first, or the BSA decided it wanted to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation regardless of the loss in government subsidies first–and then the other one happened.
4. The city realized it couldn’t subsidize the BSA by continuing to rent the city’s building to the BSA for less than fair-market rent.
5. The city attempted to get in contact with the BSA to let them know that they were going to terminate the rent agreement, as per the terms of that agreement.
6. The BSA didn’t respond.
7. The city passed the resolution terminating the agreement in one year unless the BSA cut the discrimination crap out, or agreed to actually pay the rent the building (which still belonged to the city, recall) required.
I don’t see what more the city could or should possibly do to make the BSA happier about all this. The city has acted sensibly in this, and in accordance with the law and the agreement with the BSA. The BSA is the one that built the building without guaranteeing that it’d get recompense for it 80 years down the road if it stopped getting charged a dollar in rent–that’s their problem. The BSA is the one that decided to keep on being discriminatory, making it impossible for the city to subsidize it. The BSA is the one that decided it didn’t want to pay fair market rent, all the while crying about how many poor children would be hurt by it if they did. (Yeah, I don’t think they can blame their idiocy on the city here.) What on Earth could the city have done to keep the BSA from whining about how the city is picking on it by not honoring imaginary contracts and agreements the BSA dreamed up without ever putting on paper, not falling all over its feet to sing the praises of the council for building the building for free 80 years ago (like it agreed), not buying the city’s own building from the BSA, hurting all these poor heterosexual Boy Scouts by doing what the law required?
This comment was written by Gwen.Report this comment to the moderators
December 31st, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Since this one seems pretty much beaten to death, and we’re well over the 100-comment threshold, I’m going to hijack the thread and see if anyone notices.
RonF in comment 94:
Interesting and infuriating (and thanks for noticing, albeit belatedly). In the “less likely to vote for” surveys I’ve seen, depending somewhat on the wording, homosexual usually checks in at around 35-40 percent, but atheist gets a clear majority and by far the top number — I think it was 63 percent in the last one I saw. A pollster/pundit was quoted to the effect that “Americans want their leaders to have a moral framework; we want them to believe in something higher than themselves.”
Now, I want to know: what in blue blazes gives people the idea that an atheist has no moral framework??? Apparently a lot of religious people (including, but not limited to, the BSA national leadership) think that if you don’t have the threat of hell keeping you in line, you can delight in breaking all ten commandments every day and twice on Sundays. They don’t seem to realize that humans are hard-wired for empathy and that any normal four-year-old can understand the Golden Rule, usually expressed as “you like it when people share their toys with you, so you should share too” or the converse “how would you feel if someone did that to you?” Granted, I live in sinful Massachusetts, but while I’ve heard just about every parent I know use some variation of the above, I’ve never heard any parent or teacher or Girl Scout leader try to inculcate good behavior by saying, “God will be mad if you do that.”
As for believing in something higher than oneself, besides the Golden Rule, how about the rule of law, or the Constitution (”how would you feel if someone promised to uphold the Constitution and then turned around and trashed it?”), or reality?
Thank you. I feel better now. (It occurs to me that since my daughter belongs to a cooperative troop and I get to run one meeting a year, I am officially a Girl Scout leader. I’m also a semi-pagan agnostic. Be very afraid.)
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
December 31st, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Well, it’s not my thread. But I’ll be glad to respond.
I haven’t heard anyone say that an atheist has no moral framework. I’ve never seen it in any BSA publication. For that matter, I haven’t heard anyone else say it either.
And BTW, a requirement of their member organizations’ individual members to hold religious belief is a central principle of both the WOSM (of which the BSA is a member) and the WAGGGS (of which the GSUSA is a member). That pretty much encompasses about 98% of all Scouting movements in the world.
BTW, I’ve never heard a Boy Scout/Cub Scout/Venture leader say that to a kid either. From my viewpoint, anyway, they’d be out of line if they did.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
January 1st, 2008 at 2:09 am
Obviously, atheists can have moral frameworks. There are probably some stark fundies who disagree, but by and large I think there’s a consensus on this - even among the people (like me) who wouldn’t be likely to vote for an atheist.
It’s worth pointing out that those who claim adherence to an orthodox established faith do have something that atheists don’t - a commonly-understood framework that many, many other people already know about and to which the candidate’s behavior can be compared. Frank the atheist may well be the most decent person around - but he’s probably not able to point to a book that a billion people already own, or a four-thousand-year-old religious/ethical tradition that a billion people already understand, and say “the fundamentals of my beliefs are found here”.
I note that the pollster/pundit being semi-quoted wasn’t saying why S/HE wouldn’t vote for an atheist - they were instead trying to explain the behavior of others. It might be simpler to just ask people who actually wouldn’t vote for an atheist, why not. I don’t think the answer would very commonly be “because atheists have no morals” - as noted, not that many people think that.
For me, the answer would be that the existence or nonexistence of God is a huge component of a person’s view of the world, and I am uncomfortable granting political authority to people whose vision of the world is radically different than my own. I don’t think that’s a controversial position; I believe, in fact, that it is the default for most of us. Sometimes there’s no, or little, option - if you’re a flat-earther, you’re pretty much out of luck finding a candidate who endorses your view. Atheists are thicker on the ground, but not that much thicker.
In a world where it was 90% atheists and 10% believers, it’d be the other way around. I somehow doubt the atheists would be staying up at night worrying about how it’s impossible for a fundamentalist Christian to get political power.
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May 28th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Well; this is waking back up. The Cradle of Liberty Council is suing the City of Philadelphia to block their May 31st eviction.
Apparently they’re basing the suit on First Amendment grounds. From the story:
Hah! We’re not going down quietly. I wonder how this lawsuit is being funded, on both sides.
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May 28th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I find it mystifying how many people are unable to understand that ‘the right to act like a bigot’ ≠ ‘the right to suffer no consequences for acting like a bigot.’
Yeah, apparently some people just can’t accept the perfectly predictable consequences of their actions.
—Myca
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May 28th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Like insisting on sitting in whatever seat on a bus they choose to regardless of their skin color? The result of that was perfectly predictable. The long-term consequences were rather different, though.
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May 28th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Yes, that’s right, Ron.
The Boy Scouts are totally like Rosa Parks here. Fight the power.
Christ, do you even understand how offensive and ignorant that is?
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
May 28th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
So, Ron, in your view:
* The “right” to receive government hand-outs while discriminating about gays
(equals)
* The right to be treated equally regardless of race.
I have to agree with Myca; that seems ridiculous.
Tell me, if the government were giving hand-outs to an organization that discriminated against Jews or Blacks or Christians, would you still feel the First Amendment would require the government to continue giving hand-outs forever?
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May 28th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Ron’s not saying that the Scouts are Rosa Parks, he’s saying that “the results of this action is predictable” isn’t a valid criticism.
How did you get the != to appear like that?
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May 28th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Since what I was referring to was, “if you keep discriminating against gay people, the government will no longer give you a sweetheart handout,” it seems like a pretty valid criticism.
They knew the consequences of continuing to commit themselves to bigotry, committed themselves to bigotry anyway, and threw a tantrum afterwards.
I would suggest that the most valid comparison is not in fact “Rosa Parks”, but rather “most toddlers”:
Me: “Stop hitting him, or you’ll go in a time out.”
Toddler: *HIT*
Me: “Okay, time for a time out.”
Toddler: “ButitsnofairyousaidIcouldstayupandplaywaaaaahhhhhhh!”
I googled “does not equal” and cut and pasted. I can never figure out special characters, but now the internet is my keyboard.
—Myca
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May 29th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Well, it’s not a perfect analogy. Rosa Parks knew quite well that her then-novel actions of insisting on her 14th Amendment rights had good odds of ending up with her being hauled off to jail or paying a fine. IIRC, the long-term effects of advancing the civil rights agenda was not something she had on her mind at the time, but it was a great thing that it happened.
The BSA takes the view that it’s standing up for it’s First Amendment rights. Of course, in this case it’s actions weren’t novel, it was proceeding as it had for the last 90 years in actions that the Supremes have ruled are entirely legal - it was the City of Philadelphia that changed their stance. The fact that this was predictable is not so clear; after all, it’s a matter of public record that the City had granted the lease in perpetuity. It was not necessarily predictable that it would go back on it’s word.
In any case, we’ll see if the courts agree that their 1st Amendment rights override the City of Philadelphia’s actions. I’m sure that whoever loses this case will appeal at each step, so this will at some point - probably in a couple of years - end up being decided by the Supremes.
As far as it being discrimination - sure it is. But the word discrimination takes in both good and bad things. The BSA discriminates against pedophiles as well; I’m sure you agree that that’s a good thing, as is the fact that they don’t discriminate on the basis of race. You don’t agree that discrimination against homosexuals who are open about their sexuality is reasonable and call it bigotry. Others disagree. I don’t expect to persuade you to change your viewpoint.
I’m not going to repeat the argument about this being a handout. Anyone new to this thread can go upthread and read it. Suffice it to say that while those who support the City’s actions in this case call this a handout, the viewpoint of others (including myself) see this as the City unilaterally reneging on a deal.
If the government was actually giving handouts to such organizations, I’d oppose it. If, OTOH, they had made a deal with such an organization receiving value in kind it would be desirable but non-trivial to abrogate it. My instinct would be to set up a deal to return to the organization the property that had been handed over so as to wash my hands of them. After all, it wouldn’t be moral to benefit from a deal with such an organization.
How legal is it for a private organization to discriminate on the basis of race? Or religion?
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May 29th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Ron:
It doesn’t appear to be true that the lease was granted in perpetuity — although I can see why the boy scouts want to spread that false claim. From comment #165:
From that, it seems likely that the terms of the original agreement made it possible for the City to choose to evict the Scouts with a year’s notice, at the city’s discretion. That’s what the Scouts seemingly agreed to, but they’re not willing to abide by that agreement now.
It’s perfectly legal for a private organization to discriminate on the basis of race or religion, within certain limitations. (A supermarket can’t decide not to sell to customers, or hire employees, based on race, for instance; however, the KKK is perfectly within its legal rights to refuse to accept non-white members.) However, just because the Boy Scouts aren’t breaking the law doesn’t mean they’re entitled to public handouts forever. I’m not breaking the law, but that doesn’t mean that the city owes me a residence.
It’s not necessarily the case that the Supremes will hear this case; the question isn’t if it gets appealed, but if the Supremes choose to hear the appeal.
If you’re not interested in defending your view, no one’s making you post on this thread.
It’s entirely unacceptable for you to use pedophilia as an analogy for homosexuality on “Alas,” Ron. Don’t defend the comparison, and don’t do it again on my blog; next time I delete your post. (There’s absolutely no reason you couldn’t have used some other crime for your comparison: For instance, no one would object to the BSA refusing to hire convicted thieves, or drunk drivers, or… But instead, you chose to use the slander that’s been used against gays for decades. Classy.)
Discrimination against gays is unreasonable because the state of being gay does not harm anyone (unlike, say, drunk driving). Being gay is thus a lot more like being a cartoonist than it is like being a drunk driver.
Where it’s unlike being a cartoonist, of course, is the long (and ongoing) history of discrimination and abuse against gays. If you discriminate against cartoonists, that’s just a bizarre quirk; when you discriminate against a commonly discriminated against, oppressed class of people, you’re contributing to a system that does enormous, real harm to innocent people.
By perpetuating this bigotry, the Boy Scouts are sending a message that they approve of bigotry, hatred, discrimination and abuse, and wish it t0 continue. They’re also teaching the boys they work with that being a hateful, irrational bigot is acceptable behavior.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
May 29th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
It’s entirely unacceptable for you to use pedophilia as an analogy for homosexuality on “Alas,” Ron.
Ah, shit. The idea that one follows from another was not what I had intended. I simply put down the first crime that came to mind, and when I think of crime and kids together that’s what I came up with. It’s a major worry of mine, especially this time of year when we get the new Scouts into the Troop, along with new parents. Maybe I watch too much “Law and Order SVU”. I had thought the “as well” indicated a separation there. I assure you that I do not presume or present that gays are pedophiles or that pedophilia is a form of homosexuality.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
May 29th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Thanks for the clarification, Ron. It’s appreciated.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
May 30th, 2008 at 1:51 am
What Mandolin said. :-)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
May 30th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
A deal which included the option to end said deal on one year’s notice. What’s the issue again, beyond “we <3 BSA”?
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May 31st, 2008 at 11:01 am
Ron F;
1) its kind of irrelevant to this discussion, because your comparison is so wacky, but Rosa Parks DID have as part of her intention/hope building a bigger movement for civil rights. Also, her actions were not novel, simply well organized.
2)Do you really support the boyscouts ban on gays? If so, why?
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
May 31st, 2008 at 11:27 am
What would it take to change your viewpoint regarding the “unilaterally renege” issue?
I mean, don’t you have the ability to change your views based on, you know, the underlying facts of the actual agreement (as opposed to what you WISH the facts of the actual agreement WERE?)
I base my opinion on what is true, not what I would like to be true. if someone dug around in the city archives and found something with a requirement to pay then $10,000,000 to terminate their lease… hey, i’d change my position. I still wouldn’t like the scouts, though.
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May 31st, 2008 at 5:43 pm
[...] it is. I’ll stand by my original claim, thank you. In another thread, Ampersand objects to an argument put forward by RonF on the grounds that he “chose to use the slander that’s [...]
This comment was written by Ehrenreich on female moral superiority. | Feminist Critics.Report this comment to the moderators
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:02 am
With regard to gay adults I support what’s become known as “local option”, which means that a given unit would be free to either accept them or ban them as they please. This is the current policy with regards to female leaders. The Mormons, for example, have female leaders in Cub Scout Packs but do not have them in their Boy Scout Troops. It’s got to do with their religious doctrines; apparently boys are supposed to be under the supervision of their mothers until they turn 12, at which point the fathers are supposed to take over. Most other units don’t care. So if a unit wanted to accept them, fine, and if they didn’t, fine again. I suspect that if “local option” was accepted, you’d see a number of urban units with gay adult leaders, but not so many in suburban or rural units.
Personally, for about 2 years we had a man in our unit who I figured was gay, but he never discussed his private life and it wasn’t my place (though both personal inclination and National policy) to ask. He was great with the kids, being much closer to their age than I am, and really helped the program. I was sad to see him leave.
“Local option” was considered and rejected at the National level a few years ago. The Relationships Committee killed it. That committee at the National level is comprised of representatives of all the major organizations that sponsor units throughout the country; thus, they have a representative from each of the various churches, the American Legion, the VFW, the Lions Clubs, the Odd Fellows, etc. I believe that the Mormons explicitly stated that they’d pull out if it was approved, and the Roman Catholics are said to have done so as well. Between them that would be 22% of the membership right there. Other organizations would likely follow suit. The Mormons profess that their opposition to local option (which, remember, would not require them to accept gay leaders) was that this meant that their kids might run into gay leaders at Jamborees and camporees and other multi-unit activities. How the kids would know that some leader that they’d never met before and would only see for a day or so (or maybe even an hour) was gay is not obvious to me. Maybe they’re worried about a week at summer camp.
If the BSA was mandated to accept gay leaders by the courts it’s my guess that the membership lost would not come close to be being made up by the membership gained. Local option would not have the same effect at the parental level, but at the organizational level it probably would (i.e., due to the RCC and the LDS pulling their units out).
Openly gay kids are another matter. For one thing, don’t forget that Scouts sleep together a fair amount. This could lead to kids having sex together, which is a real bad idea for numerous reasons and is also against National policy (usually brought up in the context of Venture Crews, which are co-ed, or when we have the rare outing with a Girl Scout Troop). In fact, it’s against National policy for unmarried adults to have sex on a campout. People have been tossed out (both adults and kids) for violating that policy.
The other thing is that campouts can be stressful for kids for various reasons; they’re outdoors 24/7 regardless of whether it’s nice weather or thunderstorms, they’re working hard, they’re doing unfamiliar things, they are often quite physically tired at the end of the day, they are truly dependent on each other for things like eating, etc., etc. I have seen a number of physical confrontations. Not all of them have been limited to fisticuffs. Adding sexual tensions to that is something that in my judgment is truly dangerous. Don’t forget that we have saws and axes around and that every kid has a knife. While I discredit the definition of “homophobia” that the left promotes, unreasoning fear of homosexuality does exist, especially on the part of kids who are just going or have just gone through puberty and are trying to figure out which team they play on. The last thing I want to have to do is to call up Mom and Dad and tell them that their kid got stabbed because he made a mistake as to how receptive his tentmate was going to be towards his advances. What, you never made a pass at someone only to find you’d completely mis-estimated their level of interest? You think 13-year olds or 14-year olds are going to do a better job?
I have no moral qualm about having a gay kid in my Troop or having gay kids in the organization overall. But I see a safety issue, and on that basis I say “no”. Now, if society changes in such a fashion that this is no longer a worry, I’d be open to changing my mind. But the BSA will have to follow, not lead, on this issue I’m afraid.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 am
It’s my guess that you are exposed to plenty of homophobes in the BSA, but due to selection bias you have little contact with those parents who keep their kids out of BSA to avoid having them exposed to the BSA’s bigoted attitudes.
Kids are already having sex together. Even the “straight” ones.
Are you shitting me? You’re worried about kids assaulting each other, and you GIVE THEM KNIVES AND AXES??? And your strategy to cope with this is to keep the gay kids out???
(I suppose they might trade racial insults, too, which might also lead to murder. Better keep the nonwhite kids out as well.)
Seems to me that the BSA shouldn’t be giving knives and axes to children who haven’t thoroughly demonstrated their ability to control their temper at least enough to refrain from murdering each other. I know this seems like an extreme opinion, but I’m going to have to stick by it.
Indeed I have. Somehow, these folks have consistently managed not to assault me, though IIRC various cutlery and large bludgeoning instruments have often been available. They must have picked up the “reject a pass without resorting to murder” skill somewhere — though clearly not at the BSA, as it appears, shockingly, that the BSA doesn’t teach this skill.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:26 am
“the local option” reminds me of “states rights”.
I’m in a ‘gay’ relationship now, but I lost my (straight) virginity on a BSA campout–I ended up doing the same kids eagle scout project for him four years laer, but that is another story.
Sex happens., and has nothing to do with gay people. Straight boys also have sexual tension with each other. Give me a break.
What a long tortured rationalization of discrimination. The oddest thing is that you seem to be totally okay wiht closted adults and youth participating in BSA; is that a fair reading?
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Thanks for the info, Ron.
Exposing your precious children to, say, people who’s deeply-held religious views deny the primacy of Christ in God’s creation? No problem.
Exposing your precious children to gays? Out of the question.
Always fascinating to learn what is really central to someone’s world view. Who needs the love of Christ when we can unite behind the hatred of fags?
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June 2nd, 2008 at 1:47 pm
It’s my guess that you are exposed to plenty of homophobes in the BSA,
Unlike you I don’t have to guess; I’ve been active in the BSA for 16.5 years as an adult (plus about 12 years as a Scout). I haven’t met any homophobes. I’ve met people who think that National’s policy in this regard is all wet, and I’ve met people who think local option is the way to go. I haven’t met anyone who thinks that gays should be kept out purely on a moral basis, although I don’t have much contact with LDS Scouters (they tend to keep to themselves).
but due to selection bias you have little contact with those parents who keep their kids out of BSA to avoid having them exposed to the BSA’s bigoted attitudes.
I’ve met a couple of people who have voiced dissaproval of the BSA’s membership standards. Of course, there’s a certain number of people who I wouldn’t meet at all on that basis, but I don’t know how many.
Kids are already having sex together. Even the “straight” ones.
Yep. No doubt. So are some of the adults, for that matter. No human endeavor is perfect. But we do a pretty good job of a) setting standards and b) living up to them. The fact that we can’t do so perfectly is no reason for abandoning them. Heck, I was solicited myself by one of my fellow staff members at Owasippe Scout Reservation when I was 16. The fact that this is going to happen occasionally is unavoidable, but you want to minimize it, not bless it.
Are you shitting me? You’re worried about kids assaulting each other, and you GIVE THEM KNIVES AND AXES??? And your strategy to cope with this is to keep the gay kids out???
No. Our strategy for coping with this is to teach kids proper usage procedures and safety standards and enforce them. I also have had occasion to tell a couple of parents that “It turns out we can’t trust your son. Either one of you will have to come out on outings with us or your son will have to leave our Troop.”
I suppose they might trade racial insults, too, which might also lead to murder. Better keep the nonwhite kids out as well.
Racism turns out not to be a problem. Nor do differences in religion or economic class. When the Hindu kid professed vegetarianism to everyone who wanted to listen when his parents were around and then started woofing down bacon on the campout, the Christian kids didn’t turn a hair. They were the ones trying the vegetarian sausage substitute that we’d bought for him. He liked salami sandwiches, too.
Seems to me that the BSA shouldn’t be giving knives and axes to children who haven’t thoroughly demonstrated their ability to control their temper at least enough to refrain from murdering each other. I know this seems like an extreme opinion, but I’m going to have to stick by it.
When I come across a kid like that we do take action. But it hasn’t been a problem. So far. Generally the kids are quite attentive to proper handling and use of edged tools, since they know that no one else will let them near them. Actually, the one kid who came closest to landing a fatal blow on another kid tried to use a stave, not an edged tool. Fortunately the other kid was faster and ducked. That kid was out of the Troop pretty fast after that.
Indeed I have. Somehow, these folks have consistently managed not to assault me, …. They must have picked up the “reject a pass without resorting to murder” skill somewhere — though clearly not at the BSA, as it appears, shockingly, that the BSA doesn’t teach this skill.
That skill is up to the parents to teach, not the BSA. And I don’t know how old you are, but I’d imagine that you weren’t 12 at the time and in a tent with them.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Exposing your precious children to, say, people who’s deeply-held religious views deny the primacy of Christ in God’s creation? No problem.
Actually, the Mormons tend to be pretty insular within the organization. They don’t mix much with the Christians, Buddhists, Moslems, etc. in any case. From what I can see a lot of them DO think it’s a problem. Sometimes I think they’re a little deficient in that “A Scout is a friend and brother to any other Scout” department, not to mention the bit about respecting religious differences. I’m not tremendously thrilled with the LDS flavor of Scouting for a number of reasons.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:17 pm
“the local option” reminds me of “states rights”.
Also known as “federalism”, the basis of our government?
I’m in a ‘gay’ relationship now, but I lost my (straight) virginity on a BSA campout.
To one of your fellow Scouts? Presuming you were both male, how is that losing your straight virginity?
Sex happens, and has nothing to do with gay people. Straight boys also have sexual tension with each other. Give me a break.
Indeed, sex does happen. But in a mixed heterosexual environment we can at least keep the sleeping and bathing arrangements organized to minimize opportunities. That kind of thing is non-obvious, though, when you’ve got gay kids in the mix.
What a long tortured rationalization of discrimination.
Not really, it’s pretty straightforward.
The oddest thing is that you seem to be totally okay wiht closted adults and youth participating in BSA; is that a fair reading?
Hm - define “closeted”. A kid who never talked about his love life (either in reality or on a hypothetical basis) at a campout or Troop meeting would be pretty much like every other kid at that campout or Troop meeting.
Sexual activity or attitudes towards the same is not part of the BSA program and is not something we talk about. The parents sure as hell don’t want it discussed. Teaching kids what’s right and what’s wrong about sex is the parents’ job and neither I nor they want me involved in it, especially the ones who disagree with National on the matter. That’s right, there’s plenty of parents who think the BSA is wrong on this but have their kids in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. We talk about it, when the kids can’t hear. We do have one woman who’s a conservative fundamentalist Christian (most everybody else is Catholic or Lutheran or Methodist, with a couple of non-denominational folks, and a few who don’t seem to go to church). She doesn’t rant in front of or proseltyze the kids, though; I’ve spoken to her about that, parents don’t send their kids to us for us to teach them our political or religious views.
See, when people say “I don’t want my kids exposed to the BSA’s attitude towards gays”, you have to understand that there is no teaching on the matter in the BSA program. All the kids would know would be what they see or hear in the media, and that doesn’t get much play these days since it’s pretty much a settled issue. Dale vs. BSA was settled, when - 2000? I was driving home from a Troop Canadian canoe trip when I heard the news on the radio. There isn’t a kid in my Troop who was older than 8 then, and most are much younger.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Wow. Had it not been for a BSA member lovingly describing the BSA, I never would have come to actually loathe the BSA - I would have remained with a mild dislike.
The BSA just seems creepier and creepier the more we get descriptions of it from one of its more fervid members. It also seems more and more discriminatory each time we hear more about its internal functioning.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Surely you understand that we wouldn’t want our children participating in a ‘whites only’ summer camp either, whether or not their curriculum specifically included doctrine on how ‘black people are dirty.’
—Myca
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June 2nd, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Gotcha. “I’m not homophobic; I don’t dislike gays. I just don’t want them anywhere near me or my family, ’cause they might sex us up.”
Well, proper safety standards include not hitting people with axes. Even if they’re gay. Even if you’re mad.
Ron, the whole “Gays might drive my kid to murder” thing is a cop-out. If a kid can’t be trusted with a knife in an environment that includes gays, then they can’t be trusted with a knife in an environment that excludes them, either.
Excellent. Problem solved. Let the gay kids in, throw the murderous kids out.
Nine, actually. And we weren’t in a tent, but even if we had been I find it hard to believe that bloodshed would have ensued.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:19 am
Just to clarify; no, I am not male. I dropped out of girl scouts when it got boring and my female best friend and I “joined” her brothers boy scout troop. I suppose her dad/leader was violating the other segregationist principle of BSA, but I’m glad he did. I learned a lot of things I couldn’t in girl scouts.
Incidentally, he did keep an eye on us, but adults can only do so much. I ‘m not advocating for BSA sex free-for-alls or anything, but in my case, I don’t think the chaperone-failure hindered my scouting experience or my boyfriend’s, as, like I said, he made Eagle Scout, a lot of friends, found role models and we were together for four years.
The reason I asked about closeted kids, is to point out that even with your careful attempts to keep the “straight” and “gay” kids neatly separated, unless you search and root out any secret homos (or secret homo tendencies) all the “sex” issues you mentioned still remain.
And, what about a kid that does his best to stay closeted, per your standards, but is “outed” by another scout, parent etc. Does he still have to go? Even if he tried “not to talk about his dating life”? Please. What about the kid that is obviously effeminate whether or not he thinks of himself as gay? He cant go in the closet to hide that, but he provokes all the sexual anxiety you seem to think scouts and leaders need protection from. Should you be able to boot him too, on that basis?
Finally, as for your comment about federalism–my point, as you know, is that when it comes to persecuting minorities “the local option” and “states rights” are hollow principles standing in as a justification for otherwise unjustifiable bigotry.
Why should the Mormons have a right to discriminate against gays? Why should you? Besides, past history shows that Mormon theology is very responsive to immediate political exigencies–they are perfect targets for reform.
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:08 pm
So instead of, say, educating young Scouts about homosexuality and changing Scout social policy to accept homosexuality as a credible, “clean” orientation -
You ban the gay kids.
Interestingly enough, that is not going to help other children be more comfortable, and by association less violent, toward those different from themselves. It just reinforces the idea that gay kids are different in a way that makes them targets, and that it’s okay to be violent toward them.
You claim to be afraid for them, and yet your solution does nothing but continue to put them in danger.
…I’m not even sure I have a coherent response for that, just a lot of spluttering and going “But how does that help?!”
This comment was written by Sara no H..Report this comment to the moderators
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:35 pm
aroundthebend213 writes:
I was one of those feminine straight guys during my time in the BSA.
I made it all the way to First Class before the abuse at the hands of two boys in the troop became so bad, and the leadership so unwilling to do anything about it, that I quit. The weren’t the only boys in the troop who were abusive, they were just the worst. After reaching First Class, I started working with one of the other boys in the troop — the son of the Scout Master — to start working towards Star. I guess they realized that I’d make it to Eagle at the rate I was going and decided I wasn’t going to make it to Eagle.
That’s what the policy does, Ron. I was a good Scout. I learned a lot from my 9 years or so in Scouting, but in the end, homophobia drove me out, and I wasn’t even gay.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 9:39 am
I think that’s the problem Ron’s not seeing here. He seems to be saying that life for a closeted Scout is the same as life for a straight Scout - “A kid who never talked about his love life (either in reality or on a hypothetical basis) at a campout or Troop meeting would be pretty much like every other kid at that campout or Troop meeting”.
If your organisation says that gays can’t be members because they’re unclean, how can you condemn homophobic abuse that occurs at the hands of those members? How can you protect Scouts (straight and gay) who suffer from it within the organisation?
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June 4th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I’m also not getting the Crazed Homophobic Scouts with Hatchets argument. If the problem is that some Boy Scouts react to perceived homosexual advances with violence, that’s a problem even if there are no gay Scouts in the group.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 10:52 am
I made it all the way to First Class before the abuse at the hands of two boys in the troop became so bad, and the leadership so unwilling to do anything about it, that I quit.
Which was a gross failure of the Troop leadership.
I’m also not getting the Crazed Homophobic Scouts with Hatchets argument.
The examples and discussion above seem to think that this is what I’m worried about; some kid who is a known bully or shows some other kind of anti-social attitudes towards other kids in general or gay kids in particular going after an effeminate or gay kid. It’s not. Not because it’s not bad, but because that kind of kid is a standard problem in Scouting - indeed, in any youth group, school, etc. There are techniques for dealing with that.
No, what I’m worried about is the situation with a kid who has never acted out, never bullied anyone or stolen anything or been disruptive but who does something stupid for the first time ever in our experience when he perceives his sexuality to be challenged. Sexuality is a hot spot; kids, even adults, who are otherwise quite reasonable people can be capable of quite anti-social stuff when sexuality is involved.
The presumption here seems to be that there’s a continunum; someone who’s will react inappropriately where sexuality is involved is an overall problem and I’ll know who to watch. That would be consistent with the worldview that of course alternative sexuality is entirely acceptable and that someone who doesn’t accept it is therefore unenlightened and intolerant and is also racist and sexist and [whatever]-ist and that this will be apparent. I don’t think that’s true. It has not been my observation. I think that I stand a pretty good chance that somewhere along the line I’ll end up finding out that this is a problem with someone who’s otherwise a great kid only after the fact. And then it’s too late.
For my part this is not a hypothetical discussion. I actually take responsibility for 20 of other people’s kids eating, sleeping and working together often. I ensure that they get the Scouting program, but my #1 responsibility is not pushing a particular political viewpoint, it’s ensuring the safety of the children entrusted to me. Should something happens that makes the news, you all get to talk about how horrible it was and how this is due to discrimination and homophobia and society’s attitudes. I get to make the phone call; “Mr./Mrs./Ms. X, please prepare yourself for a shock. I regret that I have to tell you that ….”
My dad helped run a summer camp for years and he had to make that phone call twice. I knew one of the victims personally at age 13. I don’t want to make that phone call. I have to be able to look in the mirror and at our parents and the community at large and honestly say that I did what it took to not have such a thing happen. And I can’t blame it on society at large or an individual or anyone or anything. It’s my personal responsibility and my judgement. Right now it’s my judgement that this is a bad idea, based not on my own personal feelings about homosexuality but on what I think is the best way to ensure the safety of each and every child that I work with. I can’t afford to say things like “Getting to know a gay kid is the best way for straight kids to learn that gay kids are just like them.” Teaching kids is a process. I start teaching them “Trustworthy, Loyal, …” at age 11 but they don’t magically get it and live by it at their first Troop meeting. What if a kid who we perceive is a pillar of the community has been pumped full of homophobia by his parents for years? What do I say to the gay kid’s parents?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 10:57 am
I made it all the way to First Class before the abuse at the hands of two boys in the troop became so bad, and the leadership so unwilling to do anything about it, that I quit.
Which was a gross failure of the Troop leadership. The examples and discussion above seem to think that this is what I’m worried about; some kid who is a known bully or shows some other kind of anti-social attititudes going after an effeminate or gay kids. It’s not. Not because it’s not bad, but because that kind of kid is a standard problem in Scouting - indeed, in any youth group, school, etc. There are techniques for dealing with that.
No, what I’m worried about is the situation with a kid who has never acted out, never bullied anyone or stolen anything or been disruptive but who does something stupid for the first time ever in our experience when he perceives his sexuality to be challenged. Sexuality is a hot spot; kids, even adults, who are otherwise quite reasonable people can be capable of quite anti-social stuff when sexuality is involved.
The presumption here seems to be that there’s a continunum; someone who’s will react inappropriately where sexuality is involved is an overall problem and I’ll know who to watch. That would be consistent with the worldview that of course alternative sexuality is entirely acceptable and that someone who doesn’t accept it is therefore unenlightened and intolerant and is also racist and sexist and generally anti-social and that this will be apparent. I don’t think that’s true. It has not been my observation. I think that I stand a pretty good chance that somewhere along the line I’ll end up finding out that this is a problem with someone who’s otherwise at least apparently a great kid only after the fact. And then it’s too late.
For my part this is not a hypothetical discussion. I actually take responsibility for 20 of other people’s kids eating, sleeping and working together often. I ensure that they get the Scouting program, but my #1 responsibility is not pushing a particular political viewpoint, it’s ensuring the safety of the children entrusted to me. Should something happens that makes the news, you all get to talk about how horrible it was and how this is due to discrimination and homophobia and society’s attitudes. I get to make the phone call; “Mr./Mrs. X, please prepare yourself for a shock. I regret that I have to tell you that ….”
My dad helped run a summer camp for years and he had to make that phone call twice. I knew one of the victims personally at age 13. I don’t want to make that phone call. I have to be able to look in the mirror and at our parents and the community at large and honestly say that I did what it took to not have such a thing happen. And I can’t blame it on society at large or an individual or anyone or anything. It’s my personal responsibility and my judgement. Right now it’s my judgement that this is a bad idea, based not on my own personal feelings about homosexuality but on what I think is the best way to ensure the safety of each and every child that I work with. I can’t afford to say things like “Getting to know a gay kid is the best way for straight kids to learn that gay kids are just like them.” Teaching kids is a process. I start teaching them “Trustworthy, Loyal, …” at age 11 but they don’t magically get it and live by it at their first Troop meeting. What if a kid who we perceive is a pillar of the community has been pumped full of homophobia by his parents for years? What do I say to the gay kid’s parents?
I expect that in time things will change. But they’re not there yet. Until they do, the safety of individuals under my care takes precedence over any particular social agenda. Those of you who feel differently are quite welcome to form your own youth groups and run your own program, and good luck to you. Sincerely. I hope I’m wrong. I’m not going to take the chance.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Oh man, or what if he’s a member of a gay-hating gay-exclusionary youth group? That would be even worse!
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Mythago, thank you for helping me crystallize what I see going on here vs. what you all see what’s going on here.
You see, the argument isn’t about Crazed Homophobic Scouts with Hatchets. It’s about Decent Kid Horrified Over What He Just Did. Which I’ve seen in other contexts a couple of times.
You would like to think that any kid who would react badly to a sexual advance is a Crazed Homophobe. Sorry - not so. A kid who has been taught that homosexuality is wrong is not a Crazed Homophobe. He’s going to be a decent kid who holds a quite mainstream viewpoint on homosexuality. He’s going to be a lot of the kids in my Troop. He’s going to be a lot of American kids in school, church, soccer teams, etc. all over America. And he knows he’s supposed to be, and is, quite tolerant of gay kids in all those places. But he’s a kid, he’s not an emotionally mature adult, and he quite possibly react wrongly in a given circumstance.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 11:57 am
how does forcing gay kids into the closet help with this Ron F? Not infrequently its the conflicted closted teens that react the most strongly to “advances,” advances which will happen in any context in which you have teenagers and adults.
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
A curious discussion. I’m reminded of the passionate disputes over whether Thomas Jefferson had sex with his slave Sally Hemings – because once the issue of SEX enters the discussion, the larger and undisputed fact that he exercised absolute right over every aspect of her life somehow faded into the background.
We’re talking about the Boy Scouts of America, people. We’re obsessing over the degree to which the BSA discriminates against maybe 10% of the population, with nary a mention of the undisputed fact that the BSA openly discriminates against 50+% of the population: girls. Concerns about sex and gender roles seem to be embedded in the organization’s core, and no resolution of the “gay scout” issue is going to change that.
The real dispute is not about whether Philadelphia should remove a subsidy to the BSA because the BSA discriminates. The real question is why Philadelphia waited so long.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
The real question is why Philadelphia waited so long.
Possibly because the Scouts are providing services to the community that Philadelphia wanted.
Services which I am sure the liberal-left will be jumping into the fray to replace. Right?
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June 4th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
@nobody.really
While I hate participating in a threadsurrection, I feel I should point out that there is a seperate-but-equal facility within the Boy Scouts, in the form of the various counterpart girls’ programs (Girl Guides et al). Now, obviously, this seperate-but-equal crap is inferior to an integrated program, but it exists. That’s a completely different caliber of problem from the outright ban that gays face.
This comment was written by Silenced is foo.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
The Girl Scouts are a separate organization, just fyi.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
SiF, The egalitarian solution appears to be an integrated scouts community: boys and girls, gays and straights, all cohabitating, where they can all learn to get along, but the segregation of boys and girls is rooted in the desire to minimize the opportunity for children to initiate sex in what is a relatively intimate, relatively unsupervised environment, where children of widely differing ages and maturities intermingle.
If the barriers fall away as you wish, how would you prevent sexual contact between these minors, and how would you handle the parents who are apt to tar and feather you, and the entire scout organization, for it?
This comment was written by Maco.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Actually, i did mention sex-segregation in my early post about my experiences with scouting.
As for Ron F’s concerns, I have not been operating on the “crazed homophobe” argument, but I fail to see how banning gays and forcing gay kids into the closet makes the situation you describe more and not less likely.
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Which specific services have the BSA been providing to Philadelphia that they will be unable to provide from a different address? Or are we to understand that scouts were actually camping on the grounds of the Beaux Arts building?
In any event, the best guide I have to what the “community of Philadelphia” values is reflected in their elected officials – the same officials that voted to terminate the lease. But admittedly it all seems so unnecessary, given the conservative-right tradition of jumping into the fray to remedy the harms of discrimination. Right?
That said, this discussion raises an interesting question: To what extent should government resources be expended on useful bigotry? The films Miracle on 34th Street and Santa Clause II each feature a competent, independent lead lady who skeptically refuses to believe in Santa Claus (and, metaphorically, in God). Unlike Miracle, however, the lead lady in SCII is a public school principal who will not tolerate non-curricular distractions in the school, including Christmas decorations (and, metaphorically, religious expression). Let’s take it up a notch: What accommodations should government make to retain the services of a public school principal who was talented but insisted on discriminating against religious kids? Would the argument, “But, gosh, she’s really good, and education is important” be good enough?
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
And again, Ron, this is a problem that doesn’t require any gay Scouts to be in the troop, and isn’t limited to issues of sexuality. What about the kid who completely misinterprets an innocuous comment or action from another straight Scout as a homosexual advance? What about the kid who perceives his masculinity to be challenged? Or his deeply-held religious beliefs? To say “we must exclude gay Scouts in order to protect them” is, let’s just call it convoluted.
On the subject of the actual dispute between Philadelphia and the BSA, I’m still not seeing the basis for the suit. Philadelphia apparently attempted to negotiate something that would not require it to violate the law; when it could not, it terminated the agreement pursuant to terms of that agreement permitting it to do so. Other than “Stop being mean to the Boy Scouts!” what is the problem?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
mythago, i keep asking that question as well: no response yet.
Anyway,
I think it is reasonable to accede that putting people in close proximity at certain ages frequently requires at least some assumption of, hmm… mutual ignoring? At this point and age I could care less who sees me in my altogether, but as a child I’d have been quite dismayed to know that there were people in the room who were viewing me as a sexual object whilst I changed/showered.
At the time, i’d have made not very much distinction between the imagined discomfort of bing watched by a gay boy and the discomfort of being watched by a woman; if anything, I’d have been more squicked by the gay boy. (*1) It would have been imagined discomfort, probably: surely some of the people who saw me WERE gay, and I didn’t know, and they were in all likelihood too busy getting on with their lives to think about my patootie one way or the other. But if you had asked me at the time I’d have been against sharing a bathroom, changing space, tent, etc with a gay boy–because it would have made me uncomfortable, and I wouldn’t have cared about him then. (*2)
But I think there’s a valid distinction to be made between
1) thinking that discrimination is bad (right on); thinking that we should not encourage, in the long run, discrimination (again: right on)
and
2) acting as if there is no discrimination, right now.
From the BSA perspective, it’s obviously easier to remove anyone who is the likely source OR TARGET of trouble, than it is to deal with or prevent it. The first seems “fair,” the second seems cruel. But from a pure efficiency standpoint, it may make sense. It’s not how I would choose to run a charitable and putatively “good works” organization though; seems a bit backwards.
(*1) In context of other discussion, folks here seem to have no problem with the concept that veing VIEWED AS a sexual object is problematic. It’s even more problematic for youung kids, i agree. And because of the U.S. socialization against gays, it is–unfortunately–more problematic for young men.
(*2) See, e.g., the “who should be allowed in women’s bathrooms?” argument that I recall has popped up here a few times, mostly w/r/t to trans.
This comment was written by sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
The problem, Mythago, is that working with kids can be stressful for Boy Scout administrators. Adding legal action to that is something that is truly dangerous. Don’t forget that there are saws and axes around, and every administrator carries a knife. The last thing we want is to have to call up some city official’s Mom and Dad and tell them their kid just got stabbed because he evicted the Boy Scouts.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
@Maco:
I went to a mixed-gender school with mixed-gender classes, as I’m sure most folks did these days.
I was continually disappointed with the lack of orgies. I’m sure a mixed-gender scouts organization would be similarly uninteresting.
And for the record, I’ll take blue feathers, if you please. They bring out my eyes.
This comment was written by Silenced is foo.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2008 at 4:24 am
Bjartmarr: ROTFL ;)
This comment was written by sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2008 at 9:41 am
SiF, I don’t think that analogy is a useful one. You don’t remember any orgies in high school, ergo you don’t foresee a problem with a thousand male scouts and a thousand female scouts sleeping in adjacent bunks in the mountains for two weeks?
What two kids do under the bleachers after class is not the school system’s problem. What happens at camp is the scouts problem. I’m asking you, if the scouts integrate, how would you deal with the risk of sexual activity among the children, and how would you address the parents afterward?
This comment was written by Maco.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Bjartmar, thanks for setting me straight. I don’t know WHAT I was thinking.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
And again, Ron, this is a problem that doesn’t require any gay Scouts to be in the troop, and isn’t limited to issues of sexuality.
I believe you’re wrong about that.
What about the kid who completely misinterprets an innocuous comment or action from another straight Scout as a homosexual advance?
Haven’t seen that happen. I don’t see much of a risk that it will happen. I’m not worried about innocuous comments. I’m worried about out-and-out sexual advances made mistakenly.
What about the kid who perceives his masculinity to be challenged? Or his deeply-held religious beliefs?
Reactions to challenges to masculinity (as opposed to a sexual advance) tend to involve insults, etc., not physical reactions. At least, they don’t get physical before they get loud enough that someone steps in. I’ve never seen or heard of a reaction to violations of religious beliefs. The Mormon kids can be a little snotty in general, but I don’t know if that’s religious or not. Kids keep those to themselves.
To say “we must exclude gay Scouts in order to protect them” is, let’s just call it convoluted.
Seems pretty straightforward to me. Sex is a special case; it engenders extreme feelings and reactions where other stuff doesn’t.
SiF (if you’ll permit the acronym), at that school you reference how much of the time did you spend sleeping in your own bed at home and how much time did you spend sleeping 100 miles away from home in a tent with someone else? After busting your ass a good part of the day in conditions you’re not used to?
Sailorman:
At this point and age I could care less who sees me in my altogether, but as a child I’d have been quite dismayed to know that there were people in the room who were viewing me as a sexual object whilst I changed/showered.
[ old_fogey ]
When I was a kid you cleaned up in a gang shower both after Phys. Ed. in school and at summer camp. That’s one room (at camp, a solid wooden fence enclosure) with shower heads two feet apart around the perimeter. At summer camp it was not at all unusual for 20 kids and 4 mature male leaders to all shower together. Hell, that’s how I found out what I was going to look like when I got older. There was a certain amount of reluctance among kids who were behind the group average in the puberty curve. Some kids didn’t like it at all, but trying to exercise the alternative of staying dirty would eventually end up with your peers encouraging you to take a shower. The occasional joke/insult was made, but not too often. Probably too often for those who were the subject of them, though. Again, I’m talking overall, not just in Scouts. Going to class funky more than a day or two was not tolerated by either the teachers or your peers.
[ / old_fogey ]
When I first returned to Scout camp they all still had the old gang showers. But now adults never shower with youth, they have separate times assigned for them. When the kids use such showers they wear their bathing suits in and wouldn’t dream of taking them off. These days the camps are spending $$ building shower houses where there are a number of individual stalls, often partitioned so that they can be used by adults and youth simultaneously.
When I tell the kids the “old_fogey” story above, their reaction is “How gay is that!?” My rejoinder is “Back then people might suspect you of being gay if you wouldn’t take a shower with everyone else.” Attitudes have changed. Attitudes like that towards getting naked with each other for purely utilitarian reasons partially fuel my concerns.
At one camp where there is still a gang shower we had the Cub Scouts in. Youth until 8:00, adult females from 8:00 to 10:00, adult males from 10:00 on. Given it’s Cub Scouts, there’s plenty of adult females. The shower accomodates about 15 people at once. Five other adult males and I show up at 9:50 to take a shower, anticipating that we’d have to wait until 10:00 PM, no problem. We’re pretty funky, though. There are women waiting outside. 10:00 PM we get out of the car. A woman leaves, another woman goes in. We want to shower and then get to bed, 0600 comes awfully fast. “Hey, it’s guys’ time now” “Well, we have to finish our showers.” “So, get in and shower. What are you waiting outside for?” It turns out that the women are showering one woman at a time in a shower that would accomodate all of them. They were scandalized when we suggested that they were all women and could all go in at once.
Attitudes are very different these days. Lots different from, say, Japan. When I was there with a Venture group all they had were gang showers in the camps, and no concept that the youth and the adults should be separated (by age - we were separated by sex). There was insufficient time to do the youth/adult separation so we just told the kids “We’re in a foreign country, deal with it and don’t tell National” and they accepted it. We stripped down, the kids stripped down and everything seemed fine. I found out later that on the women’s side the girls went in with their bathing suits on and promptly got yelled at by the female Japanese leaders for being unhygenic. They stood their ground defending their modesty, though. The Japanese leaders must have thought those Americans were pretty prudish.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Oh, and I had forgotten about the “we can end this lease in a year” bit. So I’ll concede that point. They are within their legal rights on that basis. Whether or not the reason they gave for ending the lease is something that makes a difference legally is not something I have sufficient knowledge of. We’ll see what the lower courts think and whether the Supremes a) grant certorari and b) agree.
SiF, the GSUSA is a separate organization from the BSA and takes great pains to make sure people understand that. The relationships between the two organizations is arms-length. Given the numerous stories I hear from fathers with daughters in the Girl Scouts, the GSUSA seems to be a lot less accepting of men getting involved as leaders than the BSA does of women doing the same.
BTW, if you don’t want your kid in a discriminatory organization, the GSUSA is not the way to go. Unlike the BSA, they have a complete ban on boys in all parts of their program, whereas the BSA is co-ed from ages 14 (or graduated from 8th grade) through 21. I personally have no problem with accomodating young girls in all aspects of the program in principle. I’d like to see how that would be done before I sign off on actually doing it.
The GSUSA is opposed to the idea; they want their monopoly on the franchise. The GSUSA and the BSA looked into a merger about 10 years ago and there were some position papers written. The GSUSA decided to pull out.
I can just see a mixed group going on a campout and the boys assuming the girls will be doing the cooking and cleanup. Someone would get their shit straightened out ….
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Is there anything in the specific language of the lease REQUIRING a reason for ending it? Or does it simply say that the city may end the lease on a year’s notice? If the latter, then what’s hard to understand, legally?
RonF, again, you phrased your concern as “what if one Scout freaks out and goes after another one with a hatchet”. If that is a concern, then you have a problem regardless of whether you have gay Scouts.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
If that is a concern, then you have a problem regardless of whether you have gay Scouts.
Well, yes. And the problem is, “dealing with teenage humans [males]” - which is something we as a species have struggled with for a long time. The Scouts are one answer, with an established track record, however imperfect it may be. Talk to me about YOUR successes in running camps for thousands or millions of gay-and-straight integrated youths, and your critique of the Scouts’ handling of the situation gains some relevance in my eyes.
Ron is saying “I have a difficult situation to deal with. Adding another factor would make it even more difficult or impossible.”
Parallel: there is domestic violence against both men and women. There are no good non-bigoted moral reasons to segregate the sexes in domestic violence shelters. There are outstanding pragmatic reasons to do so.
Ron is acknowledging that there isn’t a good (in his lights) moral reason to keep gay youth out of Scouts. He is asserting a pragmatic one. I was in Scouts for a long time; his reasoning is not insane.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Let’s just say, for the purposes of argument, that this problem of completely normal-seeming youth with no track record of aggressive or antisocial behavior suddenly arming themselves with deadly weapons and attempting murder when they perceive they have been propositioned for hot male-on-male smoochin’ and stuff is actually statistically significant, that it exists outside the realm of anecdote and bizarre what-if scenarios.
Absent such behavior occurring in a rampant and ubiquitous fashion, this is not a reason to ban gay youth from the group.
The BSA is not an organization devoted to safety above all things. They take kids out into the wilderness where opportunities for injury abound, they take them out to sea on boats, and they give them weapons and sharp tools, expose them to poisonous animals and plants, freeze ‘em, cook ‘em, . These dangers are not just theoretical or historical: they are real and ongoing and an integral part of the activities — I’m sure the BSA (and its insurers) plan for a certain number of injuries every year. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn that kids have died while on BSA sponsored activities. Kids Do Get Hurt.
They expose the kids to these dangers because they judge, correctly, that teaching a love of nature, self confidence, self respect, and various other skills are all worth a small risk to kids’ safety. And yet, bizarrely, they judge that the teaching of respect for others, and respect for people who are different, and inclusiveness, and non-discrimination, are not important enough to outweigh the “risk” of gay-induced homicide.
Sorry, I’m not buying it. It trips the bullshit-meter. What doesn’t trip the bullshit meter, is the idea that they’re discriminating because they think gays are icky.
Oh, and for the record, from the sixth through the twelfth grade I went on ten school-sponsored, co-ed, gays-included outdoor trips each lasting from three to six days. We slept in tents, in cabins, and under the stars. We were at times in dangerous situations, and sharp tools were available. There were zero fights due to unwelcome sexual advances, gay or otherwise. There have been zero murders in the history of the program (I’m fairly certain I would have heard about them.) And while I can’t testify to the absence of gay orgies in other guys’ tents, I find the concept laughably unlikely.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Oh, bite me. If the discussion is limited to high-level leaders of the BSA, then you need to STFU just as much as I do.
RonF is trying to justify the exclusionary policies of an organization he loves by inventing a rather far-fetched problem that a) he’s apparently never encountered in real life, b) would exist even if there were no gay Scouts and c) is the sort of behavior BSA is supposed to teach these boys not to do.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 6:31 am
BSA is already straight-and-gay integrated. The question is how to deal with gay scouts. Force them into the closet, shame them and blame their existence if some homophobic violence happens? Or develop a policy of non-discrimination and education?
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Fine, then. Talk to me about your success is running a camp for 25 kids for a week. For participating in it for 12 years as a youth and running them for about 17 years as an adult for a total of at least 1 year total under canvas (well, rip-stop nylon these days …). Because the high level leaders have to deal with corporations and organizations like churches and the VFW and the media, etc. But I have to deal with parents and kids, and answer to them.
Yeah, we do risky things. And in fact, kids do occasionally get hurt and very rarely die. But overall those risks are ones that both we as an organization and I personally know how to deal with and manage. We have rules in place and get training and I feel confident that given the training I get and the experience I have I can manage the risk. If something happens to one of my kids I can look Mom or Dad in the eye and say “I’m sorry, but I did everything I could to keep this from happening.”
Importantly, there are things that I don’t do and things I don’t permit because I don’t have the confidence I can manage them. And that goes for Scouters in general - I take kids rock climbing, but lots of Troops don’t because they don’t know how. But what we’re talking about here is one risk that in my judgement I can’t handle. If someone else can handle it, more power to them. Go for it. I believe that if I don’t think I can handle a particular situation I am obligated to not lead a bunch of kids into it. And I know a lot of Scouters who feel the same way; they don’t want it not because they have a big moral issue with gay kids but because they see the likelihood of conflicts they can’t forsee and can’t resolve and risk they can’t manage.
My job isn’t to wait until something bad happens and then deal with it. My job is to do my best to make sure nothing bad happens.
Oh, and for the record, from the sixth through the twelfth grade I went on ten school-sponsored, co-ed, gays-included outdoor trips each lasting from three to six days.
Good for you. You were fortunate. I don’t think I’d be so lucky. Not from what I’ve seen in my time in Scouts. And I think that the group of you overall are underestimating this risk, at least in part based not on experience with doing such things with kids but on your political beliefs.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Talk to me about YOUR successes in running camps for thousands or millions of gay-and-straight integrated youths
I can talk about MY experience in participating in a BSA camp, presumably including both gay (though closeted) and straight scouts.
My experience was that a groop of about 5 other scouts from my troop held me down, tied me to a tree, stripped me to my underwear, threw mud at me, and poured it down my underwear. This was done with the tacit approval of the scoutmaster. His actual words were, “heck, before I took over the troop, the initiation lasted for a week”
When I tried to fight back in order to prevent them from doing this, I was told by one of the eagle scouts in our troop that I was out of line for fighting, and that it was a harmless initiation.
This took place in the late 80’s (not sure of the exact year) at Camp Silverado, on Silver Lake, near Kit Carson, CA and my troop was from Vallejo, CA. There were no openly gay scouts there to trigger the kind of ‘gay panic’ RonF is (laughably) theorizing.
So what do we learn from this? Well, we learn that in an atmosphere where exclusion and scapegoating is accepted, kids get excluded and scapegoated. Exclusion never makes its targets safer. We also learn that the BSA is disinterested in protecting weaker scouts from stronger ones . . . that the ‘boys will be boys’ mentality of it (contra what RonF has to say) has to do with indulging the atrocities of youth rather than protecting against them. Finally, we learn that the most important safety priority of the BSA in that context is in keeping the victim from fighting back, because, after all, fighting back says that the exclusion and scapegoating is not okay.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Cue, “boy, I’m sure sorry that you experienced that, but it sure doesn’t indicate any larger problem, and the systematic endorsement of exclusion and hatred by the BSA certainly had nothing do do with the development of that kind of culture.”
Yeah. I can hardly wait.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Actually, cue the “I am sorry that happened to you” (and I am) but I don’t see the relevance. If you don’t like the values of the BSA, or think they are teaching exclusivism and hatred, then don’t participate.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Translation: if you don’t like the values of BSA because we exclude you and tolerate your persecution, then don’t participate! See, everybody wins!
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Hazing/initiation rites are hardly persecution. Myca had dirt thrown at him. Alert Amnesty.
When I was picking a college, I didn’t want to engage in the kind of fraternity assholery that was extremely prevalent at the time (this was before all the out-of-control type behavior led to scandals). I didn’t join Phi Delta Gamma and then demand that they behave in the way I wanted them to, I refrained from joining a fraternity. (In fact, I decided to go to a college that didn’t even have them.)
Certainly, there is hazing or initiation rites that go beyond the level of kinds being stupid and into the area of kids being hateful or dangerous. That shouldn’t be tolerated in any circumstance.
But what does any of this have to do with gays in scouting?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Heya Robert. Fuck you too.
Maybe you could discuss something painful from your life for me to mock?
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
What this has to do with gays in scouting is that the scouting leadership is clearly and obviously not interested in preventing persecution and attacks on other scouts, and that RonF brings that up solely as a way to justify their bigotry.
Or, as Mythago says:
I’m making the point that b) is right on. Scouts do gang up on and attack other scouts regardless of sexual orientation, and that Mythago’s point c) is correct, the BSA is supposed to teach them not to do it, but the problem is that they’re not teaching them not to do it. They’re condoning it.
I’d also like to add a point d) of my own . . . that the exclusion of gay scouts is symptomatic of the kind of organization that would condone something like that.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Oh and by the way, It’s mighty convenient how you ignored that the whole thing was nonconsensual.
I was literally grabbed by other scouts, tied to a tree, stripped, used for target practice, and reprimanded for fighting back.
I did not say that this was okay. I did not consent. I fought.
Just good fun, right? I wonder what your reaction would be were a random group of, say, your co-workers to do this to you?
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I’m not mocking you. I’m saying that what happened, while regrettable and undoubtedly uncomfortable for you, was not that big a deal. If my coworkers did it to me, my reaction would be negative. I’m 40, and we have a professional office. I’m not 12, at summer camp with a bunch of boys. What’s grossly inappropriate today is mildly inappropriate, though understandable, then.
And you’re right, the BSA is not supposed to teach/condone this kind of behavior. Good leaders try to prevent such things - and I imagine that RonF, who seems an exemplary Scout leader, does his best - but as you note, the BSA hasn’t achieved 100%. So this, by you, supports the notion that we should introduce a new and volatile element to the situation?
The failure to achieve a desirable goal 100% is not an argument for not pouring fuel on the fire. “You haven’t got that fire out yet anyway, so me dumping this gasoline on it will not make any difference.”
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Ron F;
It has to do with gays in scouting because the BSA policy and your justification of it 1)pretends that there aren’t already gay scouts or denies that they are as important/deserving as straight scouts and 2) blames (the potential for) violence and conflict around gender and sexuality within BSA on the presence and existence of gays.
Myca’s story disproves the latter assumption.
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I don’t know about Ron, but I’m perfectly aware that there are gay kids in scouts, and I’m not blaming the potential for violence on the existence of gays. The potential for violence is a human intrinsic. Openly gay boys simply add a potential outlet of that violence that scout leaders are ill equipped to handle.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
RonF writes:
Children have to be TAUGHT to hate. It’s a TEACHING process that adults typically engage in.
And it wasn’t limited to Troy and Travis (the two boys), it was a pervasive problem that they just happened to be more involved with. When NO ONE, not the Scout Master, not the Assistant Scout Master, not any of the more senior boys, NO ONE does anything about, it’s pervasive.
The problem in Scouting, with the potential for violence you’ve described, is a gross failure of male socialization. It really is “kill or be killed” as a way of raising a child. Women are far more likely to be victims of unwanted sexual attention, and I don’t see a rash of women up and killing the boys and men who are doing it. I don’t even see girls TRYING to kill boys who make passes at them at the ages those Scouts would be. What I learned about men from birth to age 33 is that men aren’t just socialized to solve things with violence, but that men MUST solve things with violence or become a victim of that same violence. What you and the BSA are doing is enabling that dysfunctional form of socialization. Feminism offers men a different way of relating that isn’t based on the biggest, meanest, least self-disciplined boys (and men) “winning”, but based on recognizing the shared humanity of everyone. Which to me — lowly 1st Class Scout that I was — seems more like a Boy Scout value than what you’re advancing.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
4 Points,
1. I’m really sorry for what happened to Myca. The leaders of the troupe did a crap job and shouldn’t have been trusted to look after other peoples kids.
2. I won’t put my sons (if I have any ) in BSA because of the ‘no gays’ rule. I think the rule is stupid.
3. I was in the scouts and had a positive experience. I love the out of doors and camping. If the scouts didn’t exist I think there would be a lot of boys that missed out on camping/outdoor experiences. (Knew a few, no idea on the numbers)
4. My scout masters had a zero tolerance with hazing and cliques. You weren’t allowed to be rude or mean to other scouts. They’d point out that it violated ‘Trustworthy’, ‘loyal’ and ‘courteous’ from the scout law. It was strictly not allowed to pick on the weaker, dorky, obviously gay (once he was out of the closet after college) kids.
Oh 5th point
If they’re so against homosexuality why do they have a rank name We Blo?
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
June 6th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Children have to be TAUGHT to hate. It’s a TEACHING process that adults typically engage in.
This comment was written by sailorman.Hmm? I’m not really sure that I agree with this at all. Do you have kids yet?
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June 6th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
This was also my Dad’s experience . . . he and a good friend of his (Who later turned out to be gay. Heh.) were in scouts together from their childhood, and his friend went all the way to Eagle, while my dad did one below. It really upsets us all what’s happened to scouting over the years, and how stubbornly they’ve clung to hate and bigotry while much of the rest of the world has moved on.
It used to be a great organization.
I think it has something to do with a changing definition of what being a ‘good kid’ means in American culture, and the weird identification of being a good kid as somehow meaning ‘culturally conservative’.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 7th, 2008 at 6:46 am
Myca,
I think you’re right, but I also think that scouts are in a lot of ways old fashioned and conservative (in the non-political meaning of the word). This makes them attractive to a lot of people who are conservative in the political sense of the word. There’s some overlap there.
They’re odd in a lot of ways. They’re the only organization I can think of that offers awards in both Environmentalism and marksmanship.
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
June 7th, 2008 at 7:43 am
It used to be a great organization.
When?
So far you’ve brought up the treatment of gays, adult leadership as it relates to keeping boys’ behavior in check, and exclusion/scapegoating.
Which of those things do you think used to be handled well? Because from what I know of Scouting, all of those are areas where the standard of practice now is considerably superior to any point in the past.
Or do you actually think that the Scouts of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s were a gay-tolerant hazing-free zone of multicultural love and harmony?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 7th, 2008 at 9:50 am
I thought he was saying that relative to the rest of society the scouts used be better than they are now. But I could have misread him.
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
June 7th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Exactly right, Joe. I grade on a curve.
Excluding black scouts would mean one thing in 1790, another in 1890, and a third in 1990.
Similarly, excluding gay scouts (while never admirable), meant one thing in 1958 and another in 2008. History is not static, no matter how many terribly silly people want to stand athwart it yelling Stop.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 7th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Additionally, the weird-ass Mormon takeover of the scouts is a fairly recent thing, which is a big part (I think) of why the BSA is standing by their stance on bigotry rather than shrugging and saying, “Yeah, times change. Looks like we need to stop being assholes. Sorry, sorry,” which is what I suspect would have happened had it not been for the strong cultural conservative influx.
So both: 1) it seems like the BSA cares more about being committed to bigotry than they did 50 years ago and 2) since the world has changed, it matters more and makes them look much worse then it would have 50 years ago.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 8th, 2008 at 3:03 am
I think the safety issue w/r/t gays contains a bit of special pleading - all sorts of things can drive people to violence, from race to religion to hobbies to opinions on popular music, we don’t use that as an excuse to exclude and thus implicitly disapprove of anyone in the pariah camp - but I’ve never led a camp like this before, only been a participant (and not with the Boy Scouts), so I’ll just leave it at that.
An important question to ask is, do you think the Boy Scouts’ historic and continuing discrimination against gay Scouts is and always has been solely a safety concern? Has there never ever been an element of “teh gays are UNCLEAN”?
You could historically, it was about sexual morality, but currently, it’s about safety. In that case, you’d have to accept that the rest of us find this hard to believe, and we find ad hoc rationalizations of this sort common with other forms of historical prejudice - and that some of the rest of us are legislators and city officials.
I don’t find this odd at all. You find a lot of hunters and sport fishermen among hiking and nature retreat enthusiasts. I know several myself. Anyone with a passion for the wilderness will have views that would be considered “environmentalist” from a political standpoint.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
June 8th, 2008 at 6:18 am
>An important question to ask is, do you think the Boy Scouts’ historic and continuing discrimination against gay Scouts is and always has been solely a safety concern? Has there never ever been an element of “teh gays are UNCLEAN”?
Sylphhead: the ban on open gay scouts and leaders in the BSA to my understanding is based on the code that says that members should be “morally straight.” Never mind that ’straight” doesn’t mean the same thing in the 1930s as today, or that the idea of morality and sexual identity are not necessarily exclusive, and so on and so on.
The BSA leadership’s interpretation of “morally straight” is a bit self-serving, methinks.
For people who go, “If you don’t agree don’t join,” what about a cub scout who starts as a little kid and loves scouts, but doesn’t know he’s gay until much much later? Why should they give up maybe the one activity they really enjoy, at a really sensitive age when you really haven’t figured yourself out yet anyway, in order to make other people happy?
This comment was written by Lyonside.Report this comment to the moderators
June 8th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Well, and furthermore, that being gay is ‘unclean’, and thus gay scouts and leaders are unable to take the scouting oath.
It really highlights the tortured justifications for why bigotry isn’t really bigotry, doesn’t it?
“What? The BSA called gay people unclean and morally bent? Why, that’s no reason to doubt that the policy is about keeping them safe! We just thought that the best way to keep them save was to convince everyone that they’re moral degenerates who are unfit to associate with our scouts lest their taint spread like an oily sheen, and . . . ”
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 8th, 2008 at 7:32 am
The “safety” issue is RonF’s personal justification.
The BSA as an organization justify the ban in explicitly moral terms. Homosexual conduct is immoral, etc.
So they might be wrong by your lights, but they aren’t hypocrites about it. They’re right up front.
Some Scout leaders, like RonF, don’t agree with the moral position of the national organization (or at least that is my understanding, please forgive if I’ve gotten it wrong) but do agree with the policy for pragmatic reasons.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 8th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Effeminate boys who are not gay could drive other boys to violence. Disabled kids? Hard not to be violent toward them. And what about those brown kids? Or, worse, those kids who worship God-not-mine? Gotta beat them up. And the kids with poor social skills. I wanna give them a smack myself.
Actually, we’d better just ban everyone from boyscouts. For their own safety. I mean, surely, something about every one of them must have the potential to inspire someone else to violence.
This comment was written by Geoid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 8th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
It wasn’t clear to me, as someone who just walked in on the thread, that Ron wasn’t claiming to speak for the entire BSA. If we can all agree that casting gays as “unclean” is unconscionable, I think we’re about 70% in alignment anyway.
I somehow doubt that. If BSA leaders were personally confronted about their policy - as opposed to speaking from a press release - I’d bet a shiny nickel that they would hem and haw, shift the blame, offer wild excuses.
Bigots aren’t the unshaven, steadfast, in-your-face he-men of backwoods imagining. They are for the most part cowards and weasels who would wilt under the light and would take the first opportunity to pass the buck of responsibility.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Myca, when I was 15 back in the late ’60’s I joined my Council’s Boy Scout camp’s staff as a Counselor in Training. There was a weeding-out process based on competency, attitude, work ethic, etc. About 1/2 way though the year, everyone who was left was going to be offered a contract next year. At which point the “initiation” began.
When my turn came I was stripped to my underwear, had lard and dirt rubbed in my hair and Ben-Gay and pine needles stuffed in my underpants. At which point I was blindfolded, bound with ropes on both wrists and led through the woods for various experiences meant to humiliate and upset me. I ended up the evening tied between two posts using “five clove hitches”. This is a single rope being tied round a post, then my wrist with my arm extended straight out, then my neck, then my other wrist extended straight out and then the other post. Clove hitches (as you know) being uninterrputed loops, letting my wrists drop meant the hitch around my neck tightened. This was next to the main camp road in the middle of the night while being mocked and with passersby being invited to enjoy the spectacle. It was the middle of the night so there were few passersby, but the one car that passed by and stopped was driven by my parents. Mom and Dad pretty much took the attitude that “everyone goes through it.” My two older brothers took the same attitude; in fact, they were both on camp staff already and pretty much organized the initiation. I suspect they took great glee in finally having a socially acceptable means of abusing their younger brother.
Afterwards it was adjudged that I had taken it in good grace and was an O.K. guy. Meaning that I hadn’t cried and didn’t go complaining to the Camp Director, I’d “taken it like a man.”
It’s called “hazing”. A common component of sports teams, fraternities (and from what I’m told, sororities), Scouting and just about any youth group back in the day. Nowadays that kind of thing will get you tossed out of Scouting, and adults who either turn a blind eye or participate get tossed out of Scouting and possibly brought up on charges. That’s a good thing. I have no nostalgia for the “good old days” in this regard at all. It served as a common experience to bind the Scouts together and to the institution, but it was a horrible way to do it. These days things like communal service projects where you get filthy and do hard physical labor for long hours next to your fellow Scouts/fraternity brothers/etc. does the same thing and produces something useful that you can be proud of in the bargain. Hazing is pretty much eliminated in Scouting.
So what do we learn from this?
Something different, it seems.
Well, we learn that in an atmosphere where exclusion and scapegoating is accepted, kids get excluded and scapegoated.
Except that initiation wasn’t exclusion. It was in fact a means of inclusion. Once you’d passed initiation, you were considered part of the gang, accepted at a basic level as someone to defend and be defended from outsiders despite whatever faults you might otherwise have. But the key to that was to go along with it, to submit. Some resistance was acceptable, but a complete refusal to submit or an appeal to authority (especially adult authority) was the red line you couldn’t cross. If you did, you would be excluded.
We also learn that the BSA is disinterested in protecting weaker scouts from stronger ones . . .
As I noted above, times have greatly changed. Also, I was far from a “weaker Scout”. Everyone got hazed.
that the ‘boys will be boys’ mentality of it (contra what RonF has to say)
Don’t put words in my mouth.
has to do with indulging the atrocities of youth rather than protecting against them. Finally, we learn that the most important safety priority of the BSA in that context is in keeping the victim from fighting back, because, after all, fighting back says that the exclusion and scapegoating is not okay.
Again, times have greatly changed. This kind of behavior is no longer acceptable and is punished. It comes from outside Scouting. I’ve had to periodically stop kids from trying to start it up.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Effeminate boys who are not gay could drive other boys to violence.
Reread my upthread posts - if you read them at all in the first place. I’m not talking about the sight of gay kids enticing abuse. I’m talking about misplaced sexual advances being met with what an adult would view as an out-of-proportion response.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I do not claim to speak for National Council. Their policies are stated on their web site and are the product of the organizations that sponsor Scout units. While the Mormons are highly influential, there are other organizations with almost as many kids in Scouting that have similar beliefs, notably the RCC from what I hear.
My attitude towards this is my own, but I know that many other Scouters share it. No one I know involved in running camping activities has a good word to say about having openly gay kids in the mix.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Joe:
They’re odd in a lot of ways. They’re the only organization I can think of that offers awards in both Environmentalism and marksmanship.
I’m curious as to why you see a conflict between these two?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Ron F
Why not just ban “sexual advances” between scouts then, rather than gays?
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 9:33 am
particularly as banning gays doesn’t have any impact on closet cases, who seem to me more rather than less likely to make inappropriate and unwelcome sexual advances of the sort you are focused on.
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Or even discuss what is and is not appropiete in making sexual advances, and how to deal with inappropriete or unwanted attention.
You could have a sexual advances awareness badge :)
This comment was written by VK.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Maybe because people who strongly believe in gay rights tend to avoid the Boy Scouts?
The Girl Scouts manage to run camps without excluding lesbians, and I’ve never heard of anyone jabbing someone in the eye with a popsicle stick, or bashing them over the head with the friendship totem, over misplaced sexual advances…
This comment was written by snowe.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
The Girl Scouts manage to run camps without excluding lesbians, and I’ve never heard of anyone jabbing someone in the eye with a popsicle stick, or bashing them over the head with the friendship totem, over misplaced sexual advances…
The two programs are not comparable. Neither are the populations they serve. The average GSUSA member is going to have far, far fewer nights in camp than a BSA member is. I don’t believe that they have access to woods tools (the generic name for knives, axes and saws). Girls are much less physically agressive than boys. And the attitudes towards femininity and lesbianism are much different than attitudes towards masculinity and gayness.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
VKWrites says:
You could have a sexual advances awareness badge :)
Apparently there already is one. I especially like the design of the badge. I’ll have to get on the committee in a few years that does the research to revise the requirements.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Maybe because people who strongly believe in gay rights tend to avoid the Boy Scouts?
I’ve met a number of people in Scouting who believe in gay rights. The real reason is that the people involved with the program at that level have an acutal understanding of the practical issues involved.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Sorry, you can’t believe in the inherent dignity and worth of gays and lesbians and then say they can’t be in your club because they aren’t morally straight, and somebody might stick in a knife their ribs anyways.
This comment was written by snowe.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Because environmental activism is aligned with the left, as is anti-gun activism. There’s no inherent conflict between the two. That just how the political coalitions have fallen out.
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Sorry, you can’t believe in the inherent dignity and worth of gays and lesbians and then say they can’t be in your club because they aren’t morally straight,
Sure you can. I believe in the inherent dignity and worth of shoplifters - they’re human souls, same as me. But I won’t hire one.
It is possible to disagree about values, even fundamental values, and still respect people’s humanity.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Being gay is analogous to being a criminal?
This comment was written by snowe.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Snowe, Excellent summary of what he said.
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
In terms of not being morally straight according to my lights, yes.
If you’re looking for a comparative with something you consider morally wrong, generally speaking it is going to be something with a negative connotation.
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June 10th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Well, most Christians aren’t morally straight with me, but I’d never advocate banning them from national organizations just because one of them might try to proselytize an uninterested person.
Shoplifting is a criminal act, being attracted to those of the same sex is not. I know you’re clever enough to spot the difference between CRIMES and different moral codes.
This comment was written by Snowe.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Of course. One is illegal and one is not. Not all law maps to morality, and vice-versa. Indeed, that would not be possible, since we all need to live under the same code of law, but we also all have the right to individual moral conscience.
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June 10th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Then why equate homosexuality to criminality as a justification for excluding them? I know that the national organization bans them b/c Teh Gays are icky and gross, but RonF was arguing that it due to improbably safety concerns, and that the discrimination is for their own good.
I really think that boys need some lessons on gracefully turning down romantic advances. When I was sexually harassed in middle school, I wasn’t allowed to turn around and start whaling on someone with my purse or textbooks! No one would have suggested banning the boys from school because they subjected the girls to unwelcome advances.
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June 10th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Then why equate homosexuality to criminality as a justification for excluding them?
I didn’t. I analogized homosexuality (a morally objectionable behavior) to theft (a morally objectionable behavior) to illustrate the point that a person can reject a morally objectionable behavior, while still respecting the humanity of the person practicing it.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
The BSA states that gays cannot be considered moral or “clean” people. That sounds remarkably dehumanizing to me.
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June 10th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Oh, of course it’s dehumanizing. And of course scout leaders who support the ban are supporting the hate and dehumanization.
That’s obvious.
Don’t mind the tortured justifications. Whether you think up philosophical justifications for treating your fellow humans like shit or not, it’s still treating them like shit.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 4:25 am
I think when I say “gay rights” and when ya’ll say “gay rights” we dont mean the same thing. Since my version involves to the right to not be closeted and not be shit on for whom you love. And the right not to be fired/banned for it either. Or called “morally objectionable” for …what exactly? What is it that is morally objectionable about me–please enlighten me, Robert.
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 6:44 am
I don’t think Amp wants his blog turned into a “let’s talk about why homosexual behavior is disordered behavior” site. The arguments are out there and are easy to find; look up the Catholic catechism if you want the basics.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 9:19 am
At first i was stuck on how the heck disorder (if I give you that for a minute) is immoral, and was offended.
After looking it up, I see that your idea of morality is based on what appears to me to be an arbitrarily defined “natural law;” I was looking for something rational to explain adhering to that, but basically we are just operating under two entirely different definitions of “morality.” I think all love and commitment is generally a moral good and that harm to living humans is a moral ill and I try to calculate accordingly. Sometimes I forget that others have wildly different definitions of morality. Based on my definition, discrimination against gays is immoral, and the premises supporting it are a good example of disordered, illogical thinking
But I guess you already knew that. Based on the catechism, why not exclude birth control users from BSA leadership and membership on the grounds of not being morally straight? What about chaste gays?
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Robert, you’ve been called out on indefensible analogies about gay people before. Just as it is not acceptable to analogize homosexuality to pedophilia for historical reasons, it is not acceptable to analogize it to criminality for historical reasons.
That’s the moderator hat, so stop.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 10:15 am
“Theft” was amps alternative suggestion last time, if I recall correctly. To my lights, its not okay to call homosexuality disordered and immoral on a site that wants to remain free of homophobia, but I know Robert is permanent feature around here, and that his reactionary opinions and love of debate keep things interesting.
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Wow, a talking hat – this is better than Hogwarts!
One guy’s 2 cents: I suspect that in the interest of promoting Pres. Bush’s comfort, he has been shielded from facts that he might have found disquieting. And I fear the world has suffered as a consequence. I don’t want to emulate the President, even if it means I must confront some unpleasant facts.
Thus, as a general matter I value hearing what people think. I may feel discomfort that Jo holds a given world view, and the occasion of my discomfort may be when I learn that Jo holds a given view. But ultimately it is the FACT of Jo’s view, not the EXPRESSION of that fact, that causes me discomfort. So if you’ve got some bad news for me, let’s get it out in the open.
With due deference to the moderators, of course. (Not that there’s anything wrong with moderation; it’s a perfectly valid lifestyle choice….)
With that wind-up – and to the extent that we can discuss it within the bounds of moderation – I am curious about Robert’s views here.
1. Is homosexuality a behavior? I understood the Roman Catholic perspective to find no fault with homosexuality per se, but rather with sex outside of (Church-sanctioned) marriage. Consistent with aroundthebend213’s remarks, I was not aware that the Church found fault with an abstaining homosexual, any more than it would find fault with an abstaining alcoholic. And this, I believe, puts the Roman Catholic Church in conflict with the BSA, which regards the STATUS of homosexuality as objectionable, regardless of conduct. Am I mistaken here?
2. Does the term “disordered” have a positive meaning – a test or standard by which to determine which things are “ordered” and “disordered” without reference to an authority figure? Or is it just a normative term, roughly equal to “bad”?
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 10:34 am
in this case, it means “against natural law,” natural law being the complimentary union of man and woman, with natural sex being that which is “open” rather than “closed” to producing life, as near as i can figure, but I am sure the actual Catholics around her have more clarity and education on the matter.
This comment was written by aroundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 11:07 am
“So if you’ve got some bad news for me, let’s get it out in the open.”
It’s been out in the open, in this and other threads. This is not the place for more of Robert’s hate speech. Take it to an open thread, or stop totally.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Nope, nothing rational about it. “Gays are icky because I choose to believe that they are icky.” Nevermind all that stuff Jesus said about not being a dick; it’s much more fun to concentrate on a few obscure lines here and there to justify dickishness.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Robert, might I suggest as an alternative, if you must compare homosexuality to something, compare it to something else your faith finds immoral . . . but something that is legally permissible.
Like so:
or
or, more directly: