scoutmomma

What religions does the BSA discriminate against?

Unitarian Universalists.

Scoutmomma

Pitt -- the University of Pittsburgh -- is not a public university. It is a state-related institution, one of four in Pennsylvania -- the other three being Pennsylvania State University, Temple University and Lincoln University -- as opposed to the 14 state-owned institutions of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, or private institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania. State-related institutions are privately chartered but receive some state funding, which has been dropping steadily over the years -- 25 years ago, it was around 32%. Ten years ago, it was less than 18%. I don't know what it is today, but am guessing it's probably under 15% by now.

Scoutmomma

Just wanted to say that my understanding in Lisabob's saying that SpiralScouts was not a viable alternative is only because there are so few SpiralScouts troops -- nothing negative implied toward the program itself.

Scoutmomma

I knew I had read the explanation of why the flag patch looks like that -- had to dig around a bit, but here it is:

http://www.mninter.net/~blkeagle/usflag.htm

Scoutmomma

My first post here, and how ironic that it's about an issue that involves my home council.

I'd just like to point out that the commentary that Beavah posted by Hans Zeiger did not include the fact (for those who don't know, as I didn't), that Mr. Zieger is not a local resident commenting on the situation. The bio footnoted to the column reads as follows: Hans Zeiger, an Eagle Scout and assistant scoutmaster in Puyallup, Wash., is spokesman for the Scouting Legal Defense Fund, a project of the American Civil Rights Union in Arlington, Va. He is the author of the 2005 book "Get Off My Honor: The Assault on the Boy Scouts of America."

Personally, I would have found the column more persuasive if it had been written by a local resident rather than someone so far removed from the local situation. I will add that I am not a disinterested party in this: I'm Committee Chair for my son's Troop.

Way way back near the beginning of the original thread that this spun off from, someone wrote: "I think it is a shame that the BSA is willing to throw an entire Council under the bus lest their religious mega-sponsors get pissed off and withdraw support."

I can speak to this point because in my opinion, BSA threw this Council under the bus four years ago.

In 2003, Cradle of Liberty Council adopted a really-and-for-true, honest-to-goodness non-discrimination policy. CoL adopted this policy in response to the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania's request that they do so or face being dropped from the local UW campaign. Money talks: CoL adopted a non-discrimination policy.

Then a few days later, CoL rescinded the policy. Why? Money talks: BSA threatened to pull their charter if they didn't.

Money doesn't always talk: United Way of SEPA no longer provides any funding to Cradle of Liberty Council.

As far as I'm concerned, BSA started this fire, you'll pardon the expression, not the City of Philadelphia.

As for someone's comment about Cradle of Liberty having to look for new digs: they don't have to: CoL has another home in the Firestone Center in Valley Forge, PA. (Council has two headquarters, having been formed from the merger of the former Philadelphia and Valley Forge councils.)

In my opinion, CoL should pay the increased rent. It can't have it both ways: be a private organization that can exclude gays and atheists (and agnostics, too, as I understand it), and then turn around and ask the City of Philadelphia to risk losing federal funding of its own by providing this space to BSA for such a token rent. The City is trying to find a way to make this work and not violate its own non-discrimination policy. The fact that they've come up with the higher rent rather than just evict CoL from the Marks building is proof of that. The City followed the terms of the lease, which states that either side can end the lease with one year's notice to the other side. Philadelphia gave notice to CoL a year ago in July, so would be within its rights to throw the Scouts out now, but it's not doing that, offering the increased rent as an alternative.

Since 2003, CoL has lost many Scouts and parents over this issue, which continue to affect Council fundraising efforts and, in some cases, membership efforts. Just for one example, I know of a troop in Council that is struggling now with finding new membership because it lost its entire supporting pack over this when the pack leaders all resigned after CoL rescinded the non-discrimination policy. There is a parent of a Scout in my son's Troop who has declined an invitation to become a registered committee member because of BSA's gay/atheist policy. There are parents in this Troop who will not donate to Friends of Scouting because of that same policy, but generously support the Troop. I've talked to District Execs about this (there have been several in the last four years -- a lot of turnover at the Council level), and they've all acknowledged that it's a problem throughout Council but their hands are tied because they can't offer a local option on this policy. It's the elephant in the living room: it's always there but no one likes to talk about it.

I don't see this changing any time soon. But anyone who thinks the City of Philadelphia "sprung" this on Cradle of Liberty Council is mistaken. This has been going on for years.

Scoutmomma