The issue argued before the Court was not specific ro gays but addressed the
questiona s to whether an organization had the right to set standards for
membership of that organzation. The Court ruled that yes, it does. That is
the extent of its ruling.
That the BAS excludes gays is abhorrent. The struggle now is to force change
within the BSA so their specific policies change. It is not to deny them or
any other orgnaization the right to set standards which was sole issue
before teh Court. ( The ambiguity of clasue on which they choose to
discriminate needs to be challened in pubic debate) We can choose to boycott
the BSA, deny them taxpayer support in any form through legilation or
applying existing law, set up a parallel alternative Boys Scaout like
organization--
--- or revisit the case in the courts specifically targeting the issue of
discrimination against gays in itself, something not addressed in the
original case. Yes ,the Court says, you have the right to discriminate. The
second case needs to address the issue of whether they can receive public
support when they decide to discriminate, delineating the consequences of
disicrimination.
Dave Dix
Phillips
Ward 6
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 10:42 AM
Subject: Re: Piling on Boy Scouts, and PC
> I find it ironic that Mr. Shilepsky, who I unfortunately have voted for in
> the past, uses words like "group think" and "concentration of coercive
power"
> to defend the actions of an organization that went all the way to the
highest
> legal power in our land to ensure that some people can be discriminated
> against simply because they are romantically attracted to adults of the
same
> gender. Uh, what does that have to do with Scouting again?
> As I said before, I do not challenge the Boy Scouts' right of existence
and
> had vaguely positive feelings about the organization until it chose to
> legally enforce a message of intolerance. But I don't want my tax dollars
> legitimizing and promoting them in a place where my son goes to school. I
am
> sure that there are many anti-gay groups that will fill the monetary and
> publicity void, people more comfortable throwing around hysterical
> comparisons to Nazis--and McCarthyites.
>
> Britt Robson
> Lyndale
>
