Merlyn_LeRoy

There goes there participation in the Christmas Parade, The Veteran's Day Parade, The Independence Day Parade, They will be the Only Scout Not Saluting the Flag. How can they attend a Court of Honor, after all it is a celebration to honor people besides JESUS. And Lord Forbid Boy Scouts of America's NATIONALISTIC SPIRIT Which of these are actual requirements for membership, as opposed to things you think ought to be imposed? Can't Follow the Rules get out That includes not making up new, non-existent rules.

Or when Scout stuff in the US and the UK circa 1920s used a common good-luck symbol: http://wednesdaysheroes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/swastika-boyscouts4.jpg

Well, the original significance of the pledge was to sell copies of "The Youth's Companion" and American flags, and promote international socialism. By the way, the pledge's author's cousin's book "Looking Backward", a vision of the coming Socialist utopia published in 1887 and set in the year 2000, is oddly entertaining, if a bit dry (since it's an author tract).

The BSA website says: Repeat the Pledge of Allegiance. While the promise, scout law, etc. says: Understand and agree to live by the Scout Oath or Promise, Scout Law, motto, and slogan, and the Outdoor Code. It looks to me like he doesn't have to "take" the pledge, just repeat what it is. He could e.g. start out "the wording of the current US pledge of allegiance is blah blah blah" and he wouldn't be taking the pledge.

Non-Americans can take the Pledge of Allegiance just like a citizen; nothing excludes them in the pledge's language. I disagree; some countries would even consider it a crime to pledge allegiance to a foreign country.

What are you going to do with your two wives or three husbands in heaven?? I 'd assume Christians would believe Matthew 22:30, though I have heard there are some small sects of Christians that don't allow remarriage after death, but I don't know if that's true or not.

sooner or later it will probably bite them in the form of a discrimination suit. The BSA is still a private organization; the only lawsuits that could succeed under the new membership policy are identical to the lawsuits that could succeed under the old policy, and no lawsuit over mere membership could win. The BSA probably doesn't even need to be consistent or follow their own written policies.

But that isn't what you said before; you said: He said he was an atheist....but has no clue what it is......The second he very clearly articulates what it is and still professes he is.....he will be asked to leave. The Catholic equivalent would be if a scout clearly articulated what being Catholic entails and still professes that he's Catholic. Is that enough to get kicked out?

Why would you ask him to leave? You've previously said your program has (or you suspect it has) atheists members, and that you're handling all the "rules hoops", so do they even realize that atheists can't be members? Or would they only find out as they were getting kicked out?

You need to consider race when it's a motive to a crime, or you're simply ignoring the motive for the crime.

Merlyn: Well, it sounds like a legal issue, not a race issue. That's why the NAACP was started by people who were lawyers. Does it really matter whether the victim is black, white, brown, red, yellow, blue or green? Is it significant if all of the victims were black, and the perpetrators were white, and often members of law enforcement or the legal system? If people are out there killing other people (even the reason why is not important) they need to be held accountable and at the very least, taken out of society and locked up for a long time. Guess how hard it is when the sheriff is doing the lynching.

Well, the NAACP was originally started to cut down on all the lynching.

Besides which, the NAACP (I assume you meant) was started by mostly white people, and it was 25 years before the head of the NAACP was black, since there weren't a lot of black lawyers around 1909.

Or the Business Software Alliance, which mostly exists to fight illegal software copying and IP infringement. Kudu, I seem to remember the opposite, where someone pointed out that the BSA's trademark for youth groups wouldn't cover the name of a vehicle, since they can't really be confused with each other. But it was a long time ago that I saw that.

I started out by stating that while certain atheists I would welcome, rules would have to be enacted to remove quickly those who can not show tolerance for other members beliefs or traditions. Which apparently encompasses every atheist who has the gall to speak out or resist infringements on their rights. Yet when pointed out, as to when and where atheist have been intolerant you respond with, "So What".. or "free speech" or "it's not illegal" Yeah, putting up billboards saying "I can be good without god" is sooo intolerant. Oh wait, it's purposely putting it up on church property illegally during the night -- oh wait, you initially claimed that, but it wasn't that at all -- then the atheists must have deliberately selected a billboard owned by a church -- oh wait, you tried to claim THAT, but that wasn't true either -- oh, then those horrible atheists sued the church -- oh wait, that's just more lies about atheists made up by you. Maybe you should stop lying about atheists.

No, I am commenting on billboards you put up that are A) around churches, B) disrespectful.. The one on the property was simply because it was on the property, proclaiming something disagreement with their ideas however tastefully done.. The message on the billboard is not the point on that one, even if it was an OK message, it would have ben NOT OK to have to thumb it at the enemy.. Which, as I already told you, was not the decision of the atheist group. The billboard company came up with that suggested spot along with 6 other spots. Yet you keep wanting to dishonestly blame the atheists as if they did it deliberately, and you keep lying about atheists. Coining a favorite phrase from Merlyn.. You don't get to dictate to people what is and is not harassing.. For legal purposes, yes, a billboard can't be harassing. You can whine and say it is, but that won't support a lawsuit. Many of these billboards were forced to be taken down, (or moved in the case of the one on the church property..) Due to being DISRESPECTFUL. So what?

That one would have been ok.. That's the one you were bitching about earlier; I guess you never even bothered to learn what the billboard you were bitching about actually said. The other stuff wasn't discrimination at all, just plain harassment.. There was nothing that would be gained by your group by doing it.. Wrong again. David Silverman (current head of American Atheists) has stated many times that AA increases its membership from their billboard campaigns. And no, it's not "harassment", it's just a message you don't like. That's your problem.

Ok let’s start with the 10,000 public schools you got to drop BSA.. I would say that someone who burns down a building might also argue they were effective at what they did.. The real determination is to figure out if this brought you closer to what your end game, or not.. You don't define my "end game". Any public school illegally discriminating against atheists is a far more important and immediate problem than the BSA's petty bigotry. Stopping this discrimination took priority. But you'd have to respect the civil rights of atheists to understand that distinction. The rest of your post is pointless, because you totally discounted stopping illegal discrimination against atheists as an end in itself. So do you really think that if the blacks put up a billboard next to a whites only school reading “Death to whitey†this would have gotten the schools desegregated faster?? So do you really think that an atheist billboard that shows an atheist and says "I can be good without god" is equivalent to “Death to whitey� See, you don't really respect atheists at all. That's why I consider your "support" for atheists in the BSA to be worthless.

Well fred, your entire contribution to this thread has been to insult me and whine about atheists, so I'd say you're pretty sad yourself.

Now all you need to do, moosetracker, is show that the peaceful black liberation activists (who filed lawsuits), and the peaceful gay rights activists (who filed lawsuits), are different from the peaceful atheist activists who file lawsuits. Where's the atheist equivalent of the black panthers? So basically the group that was totally ineffective.. Moosetracker, I got about 10,000 public schools to drop BSA charters and end illegal discrimination against atheist students. I don't call that ineffective.

You just don't know history, moosetracker. There were the black panthers and Malcolm X, and for that matter MLK was considered extreme by a lot of people at the time. The Stonewall riots were actual, violent riots, and you might want to look into more radical gay rights groups like Bash Back. So your fainting couch antics in protesting how horrible atheists are for having the gall to file lawsuits is pathetic.

Contempt, no.. Because I don't hold the man/women & dog in contempt. WHOOSH is the sound of my point going way over your head.

The other group, (Couple & their dog) just can't plausibly be tied in to the black population.. Of course they can; all you need to do is hold the black population in contempt.

Not know their place or too uppity.. Let's say I owned two cats, one sweet and loveable, and one that is a cranky flea bitten bag that is always out fighting cats and even a dog or two in order to be king of the neighborhood, but both are part of my family and even the cranky one has traits I like, though I kind of wish he had a better personality.. Now use this analogy about blacks.

Which is exactly why potential charter organizations, including churches otherwise open to the BSA, are leaving or not signing up. It's only a matter of when, not if, CA and beyond start this step in attacking churches. I doubt that could be the reason, since the first amendment wouldn't allow it.