ACLU strike again . . .

[thomas]

this time it's against teh Boy Scouts of Amercia in Balboa park San Diego:

article by Hans Zeiger

January 14, 2004

The ACLU needs a new summer camp for its young folks, preferably in San Diego's Balboa Park. The PC Scouts, as we'll call them, will head off to Balboa to obtain Rights Badges (as opposed to merit badges) and learn the meaning of the PC scout Oath: "On my self-esteem, I will do whatever feels good for myself; And to question authority, To help myself at all times, To keep myself physically gratified, Mentally interested, And morally tolerant."

But the ACLU has a bit of a problem: the coveted camp in Balboa Park is currently being used by the Boy Scouts of America, the arch-enemy of the ACLU. In order to train up a vast new generation of PC scouts, the ACLU must figure out a way to move the Boy Scouts out of Balboa Park (and out of the rest of America too).

On Thursday, the ACLU came much closer to its goal. The landlord of the Boy Scout camp in Balboa Park, the City of San Diego, switched sides from supporting the Boy Scouts to supporting the ACLU in its quest to destroy the Scouts. As settlement of an ACLU lawsuit against the City of San Diego and the Scouts, the City of San Diego decided to abandon the Scouts in their appeal to remain in Balboa Park.

Last July, U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones ruled that the Boy Scouts of America is a religious organization. Their presence in Balboa Park was considered a violation of the separation of church and state. Because the Scouts believe in God, said Judge Jones, there is "overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence" that the Scouts have received preferential treatment in being able to lease Balboa Park.

Under terms of the new settlement, San Diego must request Judge Jones to cancel the Boy Scouts' lease on Balboa Park. The city will also pay the ACLU nearly $1 million in court costs and attorney fees, which will, of course, help finance further attacks against the Boy Scouts.

Now that the City of San Diego has given up on the Boy Scouts of America, a nearly 90-year relationship has come to an end. It began after the 1915 San Diego World's Fair in Balboa Park when the Santa Fe Railroad donated its Pueblo Indian Village to local Boy Scouts with approval by the San Diego Parks Commission. For 25 years, the Scouts used the Indian Village as a headquarters and recreation site free of charge. During World War Two, the military took possession of Balboa Park and the Boy Scouts launched their volunteer campaigns to help the war effort from a makeshift headquarters in a local theater.

At the end of the war, the San Diego City Council passed a resolution authorizing the Boy Scouts to take charge of several acres of land in Balboa Park. Through fundraising and volunteer work, a state-of-the-art swimming pool and a 600-seat outdoor amphitheater were constructed. In 1949, the Boy Scouts Desert Pacific Council headquarters building was completed.

Parts of Balboa Park remained undeveloped by 1957, so the city council agreed to transfer additional property to the Boy Scouts for maintenance and operations. A fifty-year lease was signed with a rental fee of one dollar per year.

Today, Camp Balboa accommodates up to 300 campers at a time, and it offers a variety of year-round programs. Each year, 12,000 Boy Scouts take part in day camps, weekend camps, and merit badge classes.

But the Boy Scouts don't have exclusive access to their own camp. Anyone can use it. Last summer, the two-day San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Festival was held at Balboa Park.

And the Boy Scouts take good care of Balboa Park. The Scouts have spent millions of dollars developing and maintaining the public park over the years, without burden to the city and its taxpayers. In the language of free market think tanks, that's a classic public-private partnership.

The ACLU cares nothing about saving taxpayers money, nor that the Scouts perform millions of dollars and thousands of hours worth of public service for the San Diego community, nor about the fact that the Scouts have been in the park for most of nine decades. The ACLU simply wants to destroy the Boy Scouts of America.

The ACLU is celebrating the capitulation of the City of San Diego. Now the Boy Scouts are left quite alone in a hostile court system to appeal the ruling of Judge Jones. It is likely they'll be kicked out of their historic camp for good if Americans don't act fast.

The Boy Scouts need our help. Citizens of San Diego must pack the next city council meeting and express their disapproval of this hideous surrender to the ACLU. Congress must immediately seek the impeachment of Judge Napoleon Jones who ruled that the Boy Scouts cannot have dealings with government because the Scouts is a religious organization.

And the Boy Scouts need help with legal bills. Americans from coast to coast must send checks to the Boy Scouts (www.scouting.org) and to the Scouting Legal Defense Fund (www.defendscouting.com).

The Boy Scouts have done plenty of good turns for San Diego. Now it is time for San Diego

[ordos45]

Perhaps the city will capitulate again when it realizes the cost of park upkeep?

[danielsh]

I'll begin by declaring my loathing of the Boy Scouts of America.

[Wolf]

(sigh) If only I were allowed to name all the folks I considered real jerks...

Dan, as you say, there is no justification for what the ACLU can do here, and, therefore, it has no standing. I appreciate your non-partisan assessment.

However, I want to know why the ACLU is painted as such a "left-wing" organization. Shouldn't the American Civil Liberties Union be something that is nonpartisan, as well? What about the right to bear arms? This is only an example. But I wonder how this organization got to where it was?

[ordos45]

Like Wolfwiz said, I appreciate your non-partisanship. 

Loathe the Boy Scouts as an organization, okay. 

Now, although I see absolutely nothing wrong with making the Scouts go away, I don't imagine that the ACLU had firm legal justification for this suit.  And the ends don't justify the means.

 

Good statement.  I think the city should think about how much it costs to maintain the park on its own however, once it makes these volunteers leave.  But if the Boy Scouts wanted to show their ideal of good sportsmanship, if they are kicked out, they will continue to aid in maintaining it out of uniform.

[thomas]

I agreethe article in very right, but I thought he presented well, and yes I know the PC scouts are just a joke of his.

I think that scouting does need some re-organization but to ban them from a park when they are saving San Diego millions and using a park for what is ought to be used for is absurd.

on his trek to Eagle, a scout is required to have a minimun of 12+100 (group effort total) hours before he may reach eagle, and you'll typically have about 45 hours excluding your Eagle project.

[Acriku]

As long as the ACLU is protecting individuals' rights given by the Bill of Rights, to hell with anybody who dislikes them because of any other reason.

[TMA_1]

the boy scouts have been around for decades, it is a shame that people hate them simply because they hold to simple, old fashioned values.

I laugh at people who ridicule these groups and these values simply because it is hip or trendy. As my good friend robbie would say, "they feel jaded, because its cool to be jaded".lol

They remind me of all the movie stars during the oscars a bit ago. During the independant film awards that was on a bit before the oscars, many of the same stars that were at the oscars were at these independant film awards. At these awards they wore dark and drab looking clothes, and then after a few hours poof! they came to the oscars in multipule thousand dollar clothes! lol That is what robbie meant by "jaded".

and these are the people I laugh at. They dont think, they follow interest groups.

I am not speaking towards you Dan and Acriku. I believe from what you write that you guys are pretty educated in these matters, and I would like to hope that you guys really try and make up your own minds. I just hope you guys arent "jaded".lol

[Dunenewt]

Balboa Park is a really nice place and, whatever happens, I hope it stays that way.

Isn't that where they have the international village?

[danielsh]

the boy scouts have been around for decades, it is a shame that people hate them simply because they hold to simple, old fashioned values.

Simple, old-fashioned values like, "All Atheists are evil and wrong," and "No homosexual could possibly be morally straight or clean."  Yes, I wish everyone was that old-fashioned.  I wish that we could live again in old-fashioned America, where gays were locked up as soon as they came out of the closet, where "moral decency" laws kept two men from looking at each other funny---in public or in private---where Atheists were ostracized, where Communists were executed.  God bless America!  Old-fashioned America.

[TMA_1]

yeah dan. Now instead of that you have the wonderful virtues of teen pregnancy skyrocketing, aids and other STDs growing with the rapid excelleration of premarital sex. Now prison systems cannot even contain the amount of prisoners that are taken. Now dan you have drug use that is still on the rise, so that over 70 % of all kids that are seniors in highschool have smoked pot.

Listen dan, I totally understand where you are coming from, but it is just as closed minded to think that when i referred to "old fashioned" values, I was only referring to the bad ones. The values of our age have changed, and many for the good. (like racial equality, more open mindedness towards others and a bunch more). Still though there are always bad traits in every single time and place in society. Look above, honestly we have our own problems to deal with and that is largely because the old values are really just antiquated to so many these days.

So yeah I still stand by what I said, I dont like "jaded" people, and dont respect those that feel we have improved, and do not mention the failings that we so readily have. I do not tolerate those people who find it cool and hip to go against the grain of society. It just bothers me when I try talking tos ome liberal blowhard, and ask them about the issues and they cant answer even half my questions!

I wasent referring to you in the first place dan, as I have said before. I respect your opinions most of the time. Just want to make sure I havent offended ya or anything. :)

[Wolf]

Yeah, Dan, when TMA said old-fashioned, I think he was talking about the general mind-set of the BSA, with goals towards outdoorsmanship, good deeds, and such things like that. I don't think he was thinking of oppression of homosexuals, or anything of that sort.

[TMA_1]

exactly wolfwiz :)

[danielsh]

Fair enough, but people don't hate them because they're outdoorsmen who perform good deeds.  People hate them because they have created an institution that excludes ('oppresses' is perhaps too strong a word) those who differ from them.

As to TMA's societal problems, I would like to put forth the idea that the Boy Scouts of America were not and are not the last bulwark of moral decency in this country.  (Pardon the hyperbole.)  I do not see premarital sex as some kind of serious social problem, either, and would suggest that people have the right to take what actions they will as long as those actions do not harm others.  But that freedom should come with education (for example, about birth control) and philosophical change.  People are beginning to take advantage of the freedoms that they have, and that's creating societal friction.

However, I say emphatically that the solution is not to advocate a "return to traditional values."  When has that worked?  When has social change been halted by tradition?  If we are to create order, elements of the old must be abandoned and elements of the new must be incorporated.

Not that I want to create order, by any stretch of the imagination.  I want the Right to keep crying for a return to tradition---to keep passing laws that fight change---to keep fighting tooth and nail against Progress---so that sociopolitical conflicts will develop.  I want a return to the Sixties, but I want it done right this time.

[Dunenewt]

Ok, I used to be in the Scouts and I was an Atheist and I know Muslims and Hindu's that went there.

[TMA_1]

you want to return to the sixties? lol dont you understand that those kids during that time were the grown ups who raised us? and may I say did a pretty crappy job at it.lol

Listen it could never return to the sixties because much of that was pure idealism and innocence, and not only this but you are being very generalistic towards the "sixties". Most of those people you see as progressive were largely "jesus freaks" who were ultra-christian. most people dont realize that though.

[danielsh]

Well, this thread isn't so much about history, but whether the idealists of the 1960s were in the minority or the majority doesn't matter, what matters is they created change.  And you're exactly right, those sometime idealists have now largely taken control of the very Establishment they once opposed---hence the emphasis on doing it right this time.

Dunenewt:  The Scouts ban Atheists.  There's no arguing against that.  I used to be involved in the organization, but had they known that I didn't believe in a higher power (indeed, had I known at the time), I might have left for other reasons than a complete lack of interest.

[Dunenewt]

Well the fact is, I didn't know anyone who was a Christian out of about 50 people who attended my group.

[Acriku]

All you have to believe in is a god, not necessarily a Christian god.

[Dunenewt]

Well only about one person did, and he was a muslim.

[Acriku]

Perhaps you're the lucky one ;) In actuality, my local group when I was in cub scouts were not big on the God thing, we were literally friends and family. Probably as you go higher in the "chain of command" so-to-speak you find them to be more strict on the God part.

[Dunenewt]

Not really.  We just had to say something which was similar to our national anthem...I guess you would say that needs to be changed aswell...is the ACLU strictly American then?

[Acriku]

American Civil Liberties Union ;)

[ordos45]

ACACAPGU is a better name.  American Civil Anti-Christian And Pro Gun Union.  ;D  I've noticed a disturbing trend, with the Boy Scouts being a 'christian organization'.  Christianity is almost exclusive in the ACLU's anti-religious lawsuits.

[Acriku]

Or you could interpret that to be that Christianity is the most common found religion trying to infringe on people's rights, in which case the ACLU could not help seeming to be Anti-Christian. Like I said before though, they fought to keep a bible verse in a school yearbook, that doesn't seem anti-Christian to me.