NJCubScouter

Here is Eagle requirement Number 5: "While a Life Scout, plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project helpful to any religious institution, any school, or your community. (The project should benefit an organization other than Boy Scouting.) The project plan must be approved by the organization benefiting from the effort, your Scoutmaster and troop committee and the council or district before you start. You must use the Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project Workbook, No. 521-927, in meeting this requirement." (Emphasis added.) I think that's pretty clear.

David, I don't see how that helps the boys, who are the reason for the program. And I don't see how switching CO's "devalues" other CO's. Hopefully the new CO will actually want to have these Scouting units, which is to the boys' benefit.

First of all, Beavah, if anyone's a troll in this thread, it's not Merlyn. Merlyn raised an issue. Acco discussed the issue (and I agree with him.) You attacked another forum member. Who's the troll? And then you went on to discuss the issue. I have a better question for you: Shouldn't the parties abide by the language of the contract they entered into? It's my understanding that that's all the city is trying to do. It isn't obligated to pay the BSA council anything.

Beavah, well you did answer my question. I don't agree with your argument (and definitely don't agree with your statement that my reasoning is not a legal argument, since that's exactly what it is), but today I have to deal with some motions and things that I'm actually getting paid to deal with. I'll have to deal with your motion at a later time (and/or date.)

OGE, I'm deeply offended that you put me in a hypothetical story like that, I'm such a pacifist! (Just kidding about the offended part.) But you're correct, of course.

Well, Ed, I think that just detracts from your argument. (I had something else typed but it might have been considered un-Scoutlike.) That's not a word that lends itself to analogies very well.

Ed, did you mean "castigate"? Rather than "castrate"? If not, that's an interesting choice of metaphor, there.

Gonzo, show me where I claimed to be a court. I expressed my opinion. I don't think there's any doubt about this issue. If someone has a different opinion, I think they should clearly say so and explain their reasoning, as I did earlier in this thread. And I agree with you about making this a moot issue, except I don't see why the BSA (through its local councils) doesn't just find new CO's for however-many units remain chartered to government entities. Isn't that part of every DE's job, to find new chartered organizations?

Ok Beavah, I think you are playing word games here, but I'll play along for a minute. I'm saying it's unconstitutional. I have explained why in previous posts. If you are saying that it instead "might be" unconstitutional, then you are also saying it "might be" constitutional. How? Please explain how it could possibly be constitutional for a public entity to own and run a program that excludes atheists.

Gonzo, when I was in the Cub Scouts, in the 1960's (before any of this was an issue), my pack was chartered to the public school that I attended. The Institutional Representative (now called Chartered Organization Representative) was one of the school administrators. I remember going into his office a couple times with papers sent by my father (the Cubmaster, later Pack CC) for him to sign. (The annual charter, presumably.) I did not, at the age of 9 or 10, study these documents in detail, but I have to assume that the principal was listed on the charter as Executive Officer, Institution Head, or whatever the terminology was at the time. Apparently, nobody realized at the time that this was unconstitutional, because the issue of atheists in the BSA hadn't come up yet. Or maybe the BSA didn't actually exclude atheists at the time. In any event, it does now, and a public school cannot be the CO. Meeting there on an equal basis with other groups, not owned by the school, is a different issue.

Vol-scouter, just out of curiosity, have you ever known any devoutly religious people who were intolerant, angry and contemptuous of others? Or just one atheist? I have to tell you that in my experience, intolerant, angry and contemptuous people (as well as helpful, friendly, cheerful and kind people) are found in virtually all walks of life, races, ethnic groups, colors, religions (or non-religions), ages, national origins, sexual orientations, genders, activities, social classes, education levels, you name it. It doesn't mean everyone in the world is intolerant, angry and contemptuous.

jemek, you say that the boy's weight not meeting the recommendation on the chart is the only reason the doctor has not cleared the Scout for high adventure. I think you need to consider the possibility that the boy's mother either misunderstood what the doctor said or isn't telling you the whole story. And you can't really confirm what the doctor said, because it isn't your child and the doctor can't talk to you about it. I think you have to leave it to the boy's mother. Eagle92's advice is good advice for her to follow, in fact his #2 is basically what I am suggesting above. She should first make sure that this is the real problem. If the boy is grossly underweight it may be indicative of other problems, or the cause of other problems, that cause the doctor to err on the side of caution and disapprove the boy's participation in strenuous activities. We are not talking about hiking in town or canoeing here, we are talking about activities where you really do need to be at a certain level of physical strength and health to safely participate. I myself am somewhat in the same boat, on the other side of the river -- I would need to shed a few pounds to participate in the same kind of activities under the new chart. Of course, it wouldn't hurt me to do so anyway.

Beavah, I'm not discussing other posters with you, at least not in this public venue. Regardless of what you may think, there is an actual issue being discussed in this thread, you have posted about it, and that is what I want to discuss. So are going to answer the question I asked you this morning, or not?

Skeptic, it is unfortunate that Merlyn chooses to communicate in a way that makes some people "tune him out", because when he sticks to discussing legal issues, he is correct the vast majority of the time.

WAKWIB, wouldn't that mean this thread would go to Thread Heaven when it dies? I'm not sure that's the right place for it. Maybe something more along the lines of an exorcism would be in order.

Interesting, nldscout. That is generally not the practice in my state and I don't think it is true with West's federal reports either. Decisions of the Supreme Court and Appellate Division in NJ and of the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal are published all the time even though the decision is to remand to a lower court, and the case is still going on in the lower court. I guess things are different in Oregon.

I just looked for it on the legal research service that I use -- not one of the major ones but it would have a published decision of the Oregon Supreme Court -- and it doesn't seem to be there. Since this seems to have been a discovery ruling it may have been done by what in some places would be called a "memorandum decision" -- often just a one-liner -- and it might not be published in the online services.

I think another definition could be, if you watch the movie "Galaxy Quest" and don't understand what the joke is.

skeptic, that hurts because I tried to get my son, as well as some of his friends, to get both Scholarship and Reading, but they never made the effort. And all the kids I'm talking about made Eagle, and my son ended up with about 30 MB's in total, and he/they could have gotten these badges in their sleep. Even after I pointed out to my son that he had already done the "hardest" requirement for Reading (work x hours in a library, which he did for other reasons), he still didn't go through the incredible Herculean effort to get a blue card signed (30 seconds) and go see the counselor(s) for either of these badges (I'm guessing an hour, each, tops.)

They call themselves "Trekkers", since "Trekkie" is considered somewhat pejorative. But I'm sorry, if you're sitting there casually at home wearing a Starfleet uniform, you probably deserve to be called a "Trekkie."

My first merit badge was Coin Collecting. It's tough to remember (or choose now) what my favorite was. Maybe Dog Care, or Pet Care, or whatever it was called. I think that after more than 40 years it's pretty good that I even remember what my first one was!(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

Beavah, let me ask you a simple, straightforward question: Do you think it is constitutional for a public school to be the Charter Organization for a BSA unit? And why or why not? And just so there's no confusion, "BSA unit" means a traditional unit, i.e. pack, troop or crew (or ship or Varsity team, I guess.) For "constitutional", I'm talking about both the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment and the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, and the specific classification under the 14th amendment would be religion, that is, exclusion of a person on the basis that they don't believe in God. (In other words let's leave aside discrimination on the basis of gender, which is more complicated constitutionally, or sexual orientation, which is much more complicated constitutionally, especially on the federal level.)

If so, it would probably be out of concern for your well-being, Ed. (See your post in this thread dated Feb. 15, last sentence.)

Beavah, I think you should stop hounding Merlyn about how he chooses to spend his free time. Let's discuss issues here, not personalities.

Ed, I was focusing on the sentence of your post -- in fact, one of the relatively few sentences in this thread -- that actually deals with the BSA. Most of this thread is about other situations that may or may not be analogous, and may or may not exist. It just clouds the issue.