New Study Reveals Youth Unprepared to Make Challenging Ethical Choices

[Kudu 186]

>The primary purpose of the BSA is secular. Applying the 3 prong test

>from the Lemon-Kurtzman case doesn't raise any concerns: (1) The

>primary purpose is secular, (2) There is no advancement or inhibiting

>of religion and (3) There is no government entanglement of religion.

 

For what it is worth, in its letter "inhibiting" Unitarian-Universalist Scouts from wearing their church's religious award on the BSA uniform, the BSA (a government-established monopoly on Scouting) rejected the UUA's characterization of the BSA as a secular organization:

 

"This version of 'Religion in Life' contains several statements which are inconsistent with Scoutings values. Boy Scouts is not a secular organization as stated in Religion in Life; Boy Scouts is an ecumenical organization which requires belief in God and acknowledgement of duty to God by its members."

 

Lawrence Ray Smith, Ph.D

Chair, Religious Relationships Committee

Boy Scouts of America

 

http://www.uua.org/news/scouts/scouts_to_uua.html

 

 

Please forgive me for submitting the following references to BSA as a religious organization, complied by Stephen Hansen, without reading the entire thread to see if they have already been cited:

 

I think it is appropriate to provide references to some legal cases in which the BSA has said that it is a religious organization. (And, I agree that BSA is not a religion. There is a difference between a religion and a religious organization.)

 

In case no. 92C-140, Riley County District Court, Bradford W. Seabourn vs.

Coronado Area Council, December 16, 1992, the BSA filed a "Separate Answer"

with the following as its "Sixth Affirmative Defense:

 

"Boy Scouts of America is a religious organization, association or

society, or nonprofit institution or organization operated, supervised or

controlled by or in conjunction with religious organizations, associations or

societies within the meaning of the Kansas Act Against Discrimination, expressly

permitted by the Act to limit the occupancy of its real property, which it owns or

operates for other than a commercial purpose, to persons who believe in God or to

give preference to persons who believe in God."

 

Recently, in the Balboa Park case, U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones

Jr. ruled that "The Boy Scouts are a religious organization"

(http://www.bsalegal.org/downloads/1DE211_July_2003_Order.pdf pp.11).

The judge based that finding on assertions made by BSA in pleadings of

that case. That finding was not disputed in the BSA appeal of that case. Indeed,

in the appeal brief, the BSA compares itself to a number of specific religious

organizations, and argues that such leases may be extended to religious organizations

(http://www.bsalegal.org/downloads/Ninth_Circuit_Brief.pdf ).