Re: Benefits of Federal Charter
Randy Finder (NARAHT@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU)
Wed, 31 Aug 1994 09:11:00 EDT
> I'm in need of the collective wisdom and knowledge of this group.
>One of the new unit commisioners attending commissioner basic training
>this past weekend asked a question that nobody really knew the answer
>to. He asked what good was the BSA's Congressional Charter? That is,
>he wanted to know what benfits, either tangible or not, were derived
>from being Federally chartered.
> We suspect that there are some tax benefits, and probably some
>prestige, but other than that we drew a blank.
(Warning this messsage contains references to the 3G's, please be nice)
This was discussed on rec.scouting about 6 months ago. BSA and GSUSA
have separate congressional charters so each has the right to use
the name scouting. However BSA's charter is for scouting for Boys and
GSUSA's charater is for scouting for girls. (I guess GSUSA could sue to
force BSA to not allow girls into exploring)
BSA has used the existance of the congressional charter to eliminate
competition over the years. There were at least 2 groups in the first 15
years of BSA which were eliminated/merged with BSA and at least one
atempt turned back in the 1950's to start a rival scouting organization
(US Scouts?)
It does have an achilles heel however. The way that the charter is written
BSA must follow the laws of all of the states or lose it, so if a liberal
state added sexual orientation to the list of hiring descrimination
no-no's. BSA's choices might be to either move all council offices for
the state out of the state, or give up its congressional charter.
(Hiring descrimination != Membership descrimination. A Club can be all
black, it just can't require that the hired secretary be black.)
This is the explanation as I understood it...
Mike?
Kathie?
> Anybody know the definitive answer? Mike? Kathie?
I'd like their comments too...
YiLFS
Randy Finder
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
