This is a typical example of the Boy Scouts wanting to have it both ways. They have sued for and won the right to discriminate as a private non-sectarian quasi-religious organization so that they can deny membership to atheists and gays. Fine with me. Still a free country. What's not fine is that when faced with the totally predictable consequences of being a private organization that discriminates, i.e a cutoff in publicly funded subsidies and perks, they sue for the right to be treated as something other than what they sued for the right to be treated as in the first place.

Of course all this stirs the RW to righteous anger. The Righties love the Scouts not in small part because of the organization's religious bent coupled with its ability to recruit in schools. They're not exactly the Gideons, but they're better than nothing. So they portray the city's action as being on the same level as knocking down someone's Mom, grabbing her purse and then before running off kicking her and telling her that her apple pie sucks. Philly is doing the right thing here by standing up to these jerks, but at a price.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PHI...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

What? You mean we can't eat our cake and still have it?

If I was a Cardinal for the Cathlic church, that is where I would hang out. I am just lucky I don't and won't ever have kids. So this is not my battle.

Who still thinks the boy scouts are relevant? They're clearly a bunch of right wing extremist wackos.

I don't think the kids are, at least they don't go into it that way. But I wonder about a lot of the leaders.
Whatever the case, the Scouts are iconic for a lot of people and too often get a free pass on their crap because of it.

Like I said before, I am an Eagle Scout, a Dem, and so was 90% of my troop. In fact, 3 of us served in the Marine Corps. All the troops are different, it all depends on the parents and how they view the politics of today. We were smuggling beer, wine, pot, etc. on campouts all the time. I of course didn't indulge, but others did. I was a good boy....yeah right, I can't lie very well.


Of course this was way back when in the 70's and 80's

Hey Tap, hope you caught my response to your post on the Mormon's thread.

Didn't Penn & Teller do a bit on their show on Showtime about the scouts? They pointed out how they're mostly backed by the LDS and they took a group of gay kids and matched them up with heterosexual kids and the gay kids kicked the ever lovin snot out the hetero boys in scout based competitions.

my only memory of being a cub scout

approximately 1964, I am 10 yrs old, we do overnight campout, my dad is scoutmaster and least qualified to camp out anywhere

rains like hell and he and i end up sleeping in his car all night...

Yeah, I have that episode on iTunes.

There was also a young man protesting the scout's discrimination policies, a young man who thinks gay people are pedophiles, and a couple of older guys who happen to be gay, one leaving the scouts and one kicked out because he was an avowed homosexual.

Penn and Teller were also making fun of the scout's diction, also complaining the scouts wanted to use public land at the expense of the taxpayers for being discriminatory against gays and atheists.

Of course the kids aren't.

In fact, at the local level, there are even parts of the organization in which the Christians magnanimously allow atheists and homosexuals to hold positions of responsibility, but that doesn't change the fact that the leadership and the organization overall is basically running a Hitler Youth program.

There's a real point here that I think should be addressed. Not so much that the Boy Scouts should be allowed the same privileges as the other groups, more that the other groups should probably not be given breaks in the manner they are. Churches shouldn't be given special pricing by any local, state or federal governments.

Thanks for the kind words. We are all still very close, even though we're spread out all over the country. My best friend and I met when we were toddlers, my mom was walking me in the stroller and we met his mom and him. We are 2 weeks apart in age, went through high school on the cross country, swimming and track teams for 4 years. We were both in the BSA and achieved Eagle within 2 weeks of each other, in birth order, me 1st him second. We are closer than brothers, he married my best girl friend, and they have a son. It's really cool. So the Boy Scouts aren't all bad, their roots are in a different era, and a troop has to evolve, just like us. Again, Thanks for the kind words. Oh, and as for my temperament, not so fast. I've lost it a few times, I'm just mellowing, well maybe not.
See ya 'round the board, Tap