SheKnows Message Boards - View Single Post - Ah..... It seems th Boy Scoucts may have to change thei discriminatory ways..........

kwright · #1 (**permalink**) 03-11-2006, 05:49 AM

Court: Bias has a price for Scouts

By Claire Cooper -- Bee Legal Affairs Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Friday, March 10, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO - In a unanimous decision against a division of the Boy Scouts, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that groups receiving government subsidies may be required to pledge compliance with anti-bias policies - including those that protect atheists and homosexuals.

The decision, handed down against the Berkeley Sea Scouts, was a blow to the national Scouting organization, which in past landmark rulings had been assured the legal right to exclude boys who are gay or don't believe in God.

Thursday's ruling did not take away that right. But it allowed local governments to make bias costly - in this case, by withdrawing free berthing privileges at the Berkeley municipal marina, worth thousands of dollars a year to the Scouting group.

Some governments across the country have begun withholding a variety of subsidies from Scouting organizations for failure to adhere to local anti-bias policies.

Other local governments have been sued for granting subsidies.

That has generated a new round of constitutional cases, which the Scouts have been mostly losing.

The California Supreme Court decision was consistent with the majority of others to date, including one by a federal district judge in a similar case that arose in San Diego.

Ruling that the Scouts' First Amendment rights were not violated, state Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote, "To require a group operating as part of an organization with an official policy of discrimination that it agree in advance not to discriminate in the use of the city's free marina berths is a reasonable and narrowly tailored step to implement the diversity and nondiscrimination provisions" of local laws.

The Berkeley Sea Scouts maintained they'd never excluded any boy on the basis of religion or sexual orientation. They declined, however, to sign a pledge that they never would, for fear of jeopardizing a low-cost maritime liability insurance policy provided by the Boy Scouts of America.

"We believe that sexual orientation is a private matter, and we do not ask either adults or youths to divulge this information at any time," the local group told the city in a 1998 letter that promised in general terms to comply with the anti-bias laws.

When pressed on that point during oral arguments in January, a Sea Scouts lawyer admitted to the justices: "We are bound by what the Boy Scouts tell us we have to do."

The court's opinion states that Berkeley "reasonably concluded the Sea Scouts did not and could not provide satisfactory assurances because of their required adherence to BSA's discriminatory policies."

Since Berkeley terminated free berthing for the Sea Scouts in 1998, one skipper, retired teacher Eugene Evans, has kept his vessel afloat by covering the annual berthing fee of more than $500 out of pocket. The program teaches seamanship and related skills to a diverse mix of teenagers.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, which has supported the Sea Scouts' suit, says that before 1998, Evans had been covering the incidental expenses of low-income teens who otherwise could not have participated, but he hasn't been able to do so since taking on the rent.

"A bunch of poor kids have had to drop out of the program," foundation lawyer Harold Johnson said Thursday, because the Sea Scouts "don't agree with the ideology at City Hall."

On the other side of the case, City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque said the opinion was "profoundly important not just for the state but for the country," standing for the proposition that "the taxpayers have no constitutional duty to fund private discriminatory clubs."

In a prepared statement, Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who had submitted a friend-of-the-court brief siding with Berkeley, called the ruling "a victory for all Californians who oppose discrimination."

Speaking for Boy Scouts of America, Robert Bork Jr. said no decision had been made whether to seek review of the ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court, or whether to stage the likely high court showdown on another of the subsidy cases that are working their way through the nation's courts.

Among them is the San Diego case, which was heard last month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In that case a federal judge in 2003 ruled against the city, saying its decision in favor of leasing city park space to the Boy Scouts amounted to unconstitutional support for a religious organization.

The U.S. Department of Justice and six states have filed briefs supporting the Scouts in the 9th Circuit. As in the Berkeley case, California is on the opposite side.

The national Scouting group was not a party in the state court case decided Thursday, but it had submitted a friend-of-the-court brief. In a statement, it said it was "dismayed" by the decision.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/v-print/story/14228306p-15051756c.html