Merlyn_LeRoy
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Posts posted by Merlyn_LeRoy
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Majority of what? Of the populace nationally? Various polls show the country split on the issue. Of BSA members? They ran the straw poll in 2013 before the last vote and the majority were against it, but one can argue the sample size and methodology (as you can with any poll really).
What we can take from either the national polls or the membership pole is that the issue his pretty equally divided, and no where near the 70+% with which the BSA board passed this policy change. That is what I suspect @@Stosh is referring to in part -- the board's vote does not reflect the parity on this issue.
Well then, I don't know what you meant by "true majority", since there's no real data.
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...or maybe it is when a minority votes in a controlled environment that make them the majority and force that upon the true majority.
BSA should have let all registered members vote up or down on the issue. Then we'd have the answer as to who had the majority. Given this issue is split nationally, I find it VERY odd that BSA's board voted over 70% to allow this when not even that many of their own members, let alone the national, feel that way.
So, do you have any real poll that shows how the majority feels?
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The irony is thick today.
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Stosh complains about the minority ruling the majority, unless the majority votes the way he doesn't like, then he complains about that.
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We are no longer a country directed by laws enacted by the majority of the populace, we are a country directed by the intolerant minority. That's tyrany, always has been, always will be.
I could have sworn a majority voted in this change.
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But what if they practice it visibly? What if they don't say the pledge or really believe in citizenship? What then?
Atheism has nothing to do with citizenship.
Some religious people refuse to say the pledge (Jehovah's Witnesses, for one -- see Minersville School District v. Gobitis and West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette), plus there are members of BSA units who are citizens of another country, and having them recite the pledge could actually be considered a crime in their home country (since they would be pledging allegiance to a foreign power).
So you can't tell using either of those.
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As atheists don't believe in a higher level of existence, the premise of the question is wrong.
No, atheists just don't believe in gods. Gods aren't the only suggested way that a "higher level of existence" can be true.
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So you don't think that Russell T. Davies exists?
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it is if your chartered by a non faith based organization. I found this out the hard way the past few days.
Any BSA unit that is considered a public accommodation is required to admit atheists.
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Concerning Dale, BSA lawyers recently said this:
If the BSA were required to litigate today its defense in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000), it would almost certainly lose. Dale was a narrow 5–4 decision that balanced the government’s interest in protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation and the BSA’s right protected by the First Amendment to select its own leaders.
Concerning public accommodation law, from the same BSA legal source cited above: (Page 4)
Would-be adult leaders in the BSA who have challenged its leadership standards have used state or local place of public accommodation statutes as a legal basis to seek a position in Scouting. Place of public accommodation laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. There is no national determination of whether the BSA is a place of public accommodation. Some jurisdictions have concluded that the BSA is a place of public accommodation. Other jurisdictions have concluded that the BSA is not a place of public accommodation.
I'd say those are out-and-out lies by the BSA's lawyers, so the BSA could look like it was "forced".
"Dale was a narrow 5–4 decision that balanced the government’s interest in protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation and the BSA’s right protected by the First Amendment to select its own leaders."
No, the Dale decision said the BSA was a private organization, so it could discriminate in any way it liked.
"There is no national determination of whether the BSA is a place of public accommodation."
The supreme court ruled the BSA was a private organization. That means it isn't a public accommodation.
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Graham was not an oversensitive, fearmongerer.
Fearmongerer, as in "I am sure the new membership will not look kindly to that song"?
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I don't see how the BSA's changes make it into something else instead of remaining a private organization. Private organizations can exclude, include, or have some mixture of admitting gays or anyone else, and they can change these rules. What kind of change makes it into a non-private organization? What does it turn into, a public accommodation? Something else?
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I am sure the new membership will not look kindly to that song.
Graham Chapman seemed OK with it. He was gay*, you know.
(later he amended that to 75%/25% bisexual, favoring males)
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Sooner or later, the right case, state and judge will find for the plaintiff, and BSA will be out (self-insured for the 1st Million remember?) a mil.
How is that supposed to happen?
Lower courts are restricted by case law, including supreme court opinions. The BSA still says it's a private organization, and if they want to allow some units to allow gays and other units to decide for themselves, that doesn't change what the BSA is. Only the supreme court could reverse itself.
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The GSUSA has been a ghost ship since the '70s. I have no idea how or why their numbers are they way they are. But I do know this: I was a Brownie co-leader ten years ago. And if the Irving wants to follow the GSUSA template, the BSA program will consist of fewer units, lots of meetings and popcorn sales. Little else.
Well, you brought it up just when the BSA made a gay policy change, when a similar change by the GSUSA had no effect on membership, so I'd say you did it only to inaccurately slam the GSUSA.
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That plan is working great for the Girl Scouts, right?
Looking at the years immediately following when the GSUSA stated that gays and atheists could join (1993), it didn't affect their membership numbers at all. Are you trying to claim their recent membership drops are a 20+ year delay?
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What are you talking about? The article was pretty clear on what Mr. Boies said. He thinks that BSA is not going far enough and should compel religious units to open up to gays too. This other passage also says essentially the same thing; the liberals will not stop until ALL units are open to gays. It's there in black and white...pretty clear what both meant.
I was responding to people who think litigation will result.
The only parts mentioning litigation were about employment:
The Scouts will also on Monday bar discrimination based on sexual orientation in all official facilities and paying jobs across the country, heading off potential suits.
The rest of it just reads as the usual social pressure.
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Exactly what those opposing the ban fear.
No, that's over employment, which has been subjected to the 1964 civil rights act for half a century. That has nothing to do with church-chartered BSA units.
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We can also distinguish between public sinners (e.g. two men living together claiming to be married)
What if they are married, not just claiming to be?
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Looks like the BSA still has a blind spot where discrimination against atheists is something other than religious discrimination:
All other leader requirements, including “duty to God,†would remain in effect for all chartered organizations.
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The decisions concluding that the BSA is not a place of public accommodation all predate the decision in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, and the most recent decision is from 17 years ago. The conclusions in those decisions are largely result-oriented and from a time in which the courts viewed homosexuals and the BSA in different lights. Some of the jurisdictions have since been very critical of the BSA, including branding it a “discriminatory†organization.14 A court could conclude that the BSA is a place of public accommodation based on the size and inclusiveness of the Scouting program. And it is possible that some jurisdictions could reconsider whether to subject the BSA to place of public accommodation laws if presented with the question in the future.15
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[talking about a hypothetical lawsuit against a church CO for excluding a gay adult leader]
It is hard to imagine how a suit would survive against the BSA, which might be a place of public accommodation but whose policy is not at issue, or against a religious chartered organization, whose policy is at issue but which is not a place of public accommodation.
If the BSA is a public accommodation, they can't exclude people based on their religious views.
Also, of COURSE the BSA is a discriminatory organization; no scare quotes are needed.
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Anyone can, and probably has, been sued for anything. Can there be consequences? Yes, but not often enough or severe enough to stop the filing of baseless suits.
There are plenty of baseless lawsuits, but that's true no matter what. The BSA hasn't changed from a private group to a public accommodation, so bringing up the possibility of baseless lawsuits is just a scare tactic -- before, there was the possibility of baseless lawsuits, and after, there's STILL the possibility of baseless lawsuits. Hey, maybe if the BSA changes the official uniform, that'll spur some baseless lawsuits.
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NJ,
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To answer your question, I have already said that I would like BSA to allow Lone Scouting again. Let boys join BSA as Lone Scouts and let them choose for themselves who they wish to associate with.
Do they not have Lone Scouts any more? The BSA website still refers to the program:
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My mistake. I am not a lawyer, and I should avoid getting into legal arguments. I was thinking of the Catholic Charities vs State of Illinois adoption case.
That doesn't resemble the BSA situation at all.
The state of Illinois told Catholic Charities that they couldn't both accept state money for adoption services and discriminate; Catholic Charities sued and lost, so they closed down. They could have either continued with state funding and not discriminate, or without state funding and discriminate, but they didn't choose either of those.
The BSA is (finally acting more like) a private club; they can discriminate. Allowing gays in some units won't change that. The national BSA has backed up BSA units that don't allow women SMs, and a church-sponsored unit that didn't allow a Muslim SM.
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Seriously? One gay person wants to join my unit. Our CO says they don't allows gays. There's your standing.
What's the CO? If it's a church, they won't lose.
Path To Save Bsa?
in Issues & Politics
Posted · Edited by Merlyn_LeRoy
| If the local public schools (PTAs, etc.) allow BSA back into the schools, they may offset these losses. We'll see.
This doesn't change the legal issues with public schools, since the BSA still excludes atheists.