Merlyn_LeRoy

My CO is NOT going to change unless they get sued. How long until that happens.

Why would they get sued?  People have to have grounds for a lawsuit, and suing just to punish someone is illegal.

So now BSA is taking over and deciding who's a bona fide religious organization before the charter them?

How is this different from the BSA not allowing Wiccans to charter units, or changing the religious award rules to prevent a Wiccan award, which they've been doing for years?

Why thank you for your insightful personal attack.  Now if one has something to say on the subject, we would all like to hear it.

The subject being your paranoia?

You're insane, Stosh.

A baker that wouldn't put 2 brides on top of a cake lost their business and has to pay $135,000.00.  They were not mean or demeaning, they just wouldn't disrespect their God.  $135,000.00.

An LGBT organization didn't levy that fine -- A complaint was filed by two people, and Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian determined the fine for violating state law.  This fine is comparable with other fines from OBLI (e.g. http://www.ktvz.com/news/Bend-dentist-loses-discrimination-case-appeal/19864260 )

A pizza parlor that wouldn't cater a hypothetical gay wedding (not even a real service request!) suffered death threats, protests, and had to shutter their doors.

And that's illegal.  However, if you're going to try to justify excluding all people from the BSA who merely share a trait with some jerks who issue death threats, I've previously posted in this forum about atheists who get death threats and rape threats from Christians for getting a prayer banner or a cross removed from public property, so to be consistent you'd have to use that as a reason to exclude Christians.

 Agreed I am wrong on that, but they will not be able to use religious convictions or belief as a reason. Which is wrong.

I disagree.  They can opt out if they homeschool their kids; unvaccinated kids are a public health hazard for other people.

 Just wait till the poop hits the fan in CA with the vaccine law that their governor signed into law mandating that ALL children must be vaccinated no excuse.

That's not an accurate summary of SB277; medical reasons, plus homeschooling/special education/independent study can get exemptions (basically, if your child isn't attending school with other children).

That seems pretty important. Additionally, the same official BSA page that is linked to in the original post also has a link to a fairly lengthy legal memo in which the BSA's attorneys lay out the argument for why the BSA and the religious organization/CO would win such a case. I would not be surprised if one of the reasons why that memo is there, in a public place, is to try to scare off anyone considering bringing such a lawsuit after the change goes into effect. I have read it and it would give me pause if I were considering such a thing.

I think the legal argument laid out for why they "must" change their leadership standard is a total sham, done in an attempt to save face while making the change.  They claim that "The inescapable consensus in the legal community is that a protracted legal battle to defend the BSA’s current standard excluding gay adult leaders is unwinnable", yet religious discrimination is much more protected than sexual orientation; they say that "No one seriously doubts that the BSA’s and its chartered organizations’ right to maintain duty to God is protected by the First Amendment", but the Dale decision was based on the first amendment right of freedom of association, which still holds for anyone the BSA wants to exclude.  And they still include double-talk like "Let there be no doubt, the BSA will steadfastly defend the right of religious chartered organizations to select leaders whose beliefs are consistent with those of the religious organization" -- unless, say, a UU unit wants an atheist to be the leader.

There goes another irony meter.

We all discriminate in one way or the other so all this talk about being non-discriminatory is basically political BS.

No, it's pretty clear that people are talking about specific types of discrimination; what YOU'RE doing is BS, because you're just equivocating, which is little more than wordplay.

Well, if the BSA allowed atheists like Shaw and Twain to join, maybe it'd be better off.

I'll still contend that the common meaning of the term is the now-discredited legal doctrine of racial segregation in American government, regardless of where the term is used.

"Separate but equal" means just that -- it's been in the news quite a lot regarding civil unions vs. gay marriage.

The 14^th Amendment does not include the term “separate but equal.â€

I know.  That's why I I quoted the 14th.

“Separate but Equal†was strictly about race, both in its origin and its demise.

Wrong.  The phrase "separate but equal" has been used in other court opinions that are not about race.

I can't take seriously your argument that "separate but equal" carries no insinuation of racism.

It doesn't.  "Separate but equal" is from the 14th amendment, which requires "...the equal protection of the laws."  This qualification of equality isn't restricted to racial equality, even if the most famous application was on race in Brown v. Bd of Edu. et al.  The exact phrase appears in other court opinions, and it's been applied to sex a number of times, and gays in Romer v. Evans.  It was even the basis of Bush v. Gore.

To add to NJCubScouter's list, church units can limit membership to only members of that church/denomination if they want to.  The only limitation from the national BSA I've ever heard of is that they won't allow units to exclude members based on race.

Scouter99, you're comparing apples and oranges, in this case government actions and private organization actions.

I also believe that by picking sides in these issues the BSA has hurt the brand immensely. The right wanted to changed the BSA from being an American patriotic institution to being a conservative religious one. And look where it has got us - no more special access to government resources, little to no public school support, military COs are all gone, reduced support from private institutions, etc.

 

I’m not surprised that Gates has come out for change, the writing is on the wall.

He's going about it wrong, then -- one reason he cited why he wants a change imposed from within instead of imposed by the courts is so the BSA could continue to discriminate against atheists, which won't change the situation with government & public school support:

"AND IF WE WAIT FOR THE COURTS TO ACT, WE COULD END UP WITH A BROAD RULING THAT COULD FORBID ANY KIND OF MEMBERSHIP STANDARD, INCLUDING OUR FOUNDATIONAL BELIEF IN OUR DUTY TO GOD AND OUR FOCUS ON SERVING THE SPECIFIC NEEDS OF BOYS."

STEM Scouts seems to be an odd beast -- it's actually under Learning for Life, not Scouting:

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/05/11/understanding-the-difference-between-stem-in-scouting-and-stem-scouts/#comment-142386

...

1. STEM Scouts IS part of the Learning for Life program

...

— Richard Stone

STEM/Nova Training and Education Chair

But by using the scout oath as part of the program, it's cutting off any possible government support.  Also, it seems to be the only L4L program where members count as a Scout ("... a boy in a STEM Scouts lab counts the same as a boy in a Boy Scout troop.")

The point brought up about BSA now coming into conflict with the discrimination laws in various states is definitely a valid one.

No, laws against sexual orientation discrimination have been around in some states for quite a while, and similar religious discrimination laws for even longer.  It's not a new thing, and a gay marriage opinion from the supreme court won't change any of that.  Massachusetts has had gay marriage for over a decade.

...

And, it is absolutely partly connected to the reality that the continued attacks and lawsuits under the current system are taking away from effectively focusing where we need to, and also taking very large monetary resources as well.  

The lawsuits are (and can only really be) against whatever the official BSA policy is; any legal problems due to that policy can't be avoided by unofficial actions on the part of councils or troops.

He totally ignores the fact that everything he's afraid of from rogue councils and supreme court rulings on sexual orientation already exist for analogous religious discrimination against atheists.

So how did Uncle Adolph, Joe Stalin and Mao define "murder"?

I give up -- how did they?

FYI, Pascal didn't actually write that. "Religious conviction" is a mistranslation of the French "par un faux principe de conscience" ("by a false principle of conscience").

 

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/17776/did-pascal-write-men-never-do-evil-so-completely-and-cheerfully-as-when-they-d

 

The idea that Pascal was some kind of foe of religious belief is ... comical.

The idea that such a quote is against religious belief per se is also comical.

Man is corrupt, God is not. So long as that is understood first by all, then at worst mans corruptness is temporary. But God as a consistent starting place is forever. I'm speaking pragmatically of course.

 

Barry

What's pragmatic about a starting place that necessarily has humans in it, yet you want to give it the cloak of certainty?

 God will always be the reference even a 1000 years later. That is not possible with man.

Barry

Your god, nor anyone else's is "the reference".  Like I said in another thread, you always have humans in the loop saying what god(s) want.

Yes, but the difference is man does it more often and more discretely because there are no hard set standards that are known by all that don't change with time. Man is fickle and changes at the drop of the hat. Man is not moral, God is. 

 

Barry

But what you have are people saying what they say their god wants.  Some people mistake this for knowing what their god wants, thus Pascal's quote.

I prefer people who are a good deal more circumspect about being absolutely sure they know who their god wants to kill.

And if you think there aren't such people, check out Theodore Seeber's comments here:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/michaelnovak/2015/05/turnabout-questions-for-atheists/

He quite plainly says he would kill people if he thought his god wanted him to kill people, and that killing all the children in Jericho was a moral act.