"Diversity" A Liberal Fraud
2010-05-08 17:26:54 UTC
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/07/court-puts-boy-scouts-in-
a-moral-quandary/
By Robert Knight
Which of America's Founders could have foreseen a federal judge in 2003
kicking the Boy Scouts out of San Diego's Balboa Park, where the Scouts
had a lease on a campground for 25 years?
The judge, Clinton appointee Napoleon Jones, ruled that the Scouts are
"religious" and cannot lease city land. The American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) had filed the suit for a lesbian couple and an agnostic
couple over the Scouts' oath to honor God and be "morally straight."
First, the Scouts are not a religious group simply because they
recognize the Creator. By that reasoning, the Declaration of
Independence is a religious document, not to mention the Constitution,
which is dated "in the Year of Our Lord, one thousand, seven hundred and
eighty-seven." No, it's not Lord Krishna.
And even if the Scouts are a religious group, so what? Do only secular
groups have a right to lease public property? The San Diego ruling
violates the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantee and
establishes a de facto atheist religion. Surely, this is so wrong that
the Supreme Court will set things right, right? No.
On May 3, the court declined to hear Boy Scouts of America v.
Barnes-Wallace, leaving intact the abuse. This is not the first time the
Supreme Court has seen the Scouts mugged and bleeding and hurried on by.
In 2004, the court let stand a ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court upholding
Connecticut's ejection of the Scouts from the state employees charitable
donation program. Prodded by the usual suspects - gay activists and the
ACLU (pretty much interchangeable) - Connecticut officials said the
Scouts' policy of barring homosexual Scoutmasters violated the
sexual-orientation portion of the state's anti-discrimination law.
In 2006, in Evans v. Berkeley, the court let stand a ruling against the
Scouts and for the city of Berkeley, Calif., whose city officials had
ended a 50-year-long arrangement that had allowed the Sea Scouts to use
a public marina's dock at no charge. Citing a local law barring
discrimination based on sexual orientation, the city had upped the
Scouts' rent to $500 a month, prompting the Scouts to sue the city for
violating their freedoms of speech and association.
Much of the media, which has been bashing the Catholic Church over the
scandal of homosexual priests molesting boys and young men, which
constitutes 80 percent of the abuse cases, can't find a single reason
why the Scouts would want to bar gay men from taking boys camping.
The Scouts are caught between a rock and a hard place. Either they drop
their moral standard and put boys and their own legal survival at risk,
or they face endless harassment designed to bankrupt them.
Since 2000, when the Scouts won in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale,
they've been under constant assault. It's as if they lost the case. More
than 50 United Way chapters dropped them, as did many public school
districts. Philadelphia is still trying to eject the Cradle of Liberty
Council from its headquarters, which the Scouts built in 1928 in a city
park.
The current Supreme Court's unwillingness to take this slam-dunk First
Amendment case from San Diego indicates that the justices don't
understand the ramifications of turning the Scouts into the equivalent
of the Ku Klux Klan. Or they understand it and some of them don't mind.
It takes just four justices to decide to hear a case. What did they
think was more important?
Maybe they simply don't trust Justice Anthony Kennedy for the fifth
vote. He wrote the Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003 that overturned
sodomy laws partly because international elite opinions rated higher
than that of elected representatives from the Lone Star State.
Perhaps the justices are waiting for conflicts among cases at the
circuit level in order to intercede. However, given the stakes here for
the freedoms of religion and free assembly, one might think the ongoing
attacks on the Scouts would warrant the court's attention.
Robert Knight is a writer for Coral Ridge Ministries and the author of
"Radical Rulers: The White House Elites Who Are Pushing America Toward
Socialism" (radicalrulers.com, 2010).
a-moral-quandary/
By Robert Knight
Which of America's Founders could have foreseen a federal judge in 2003
kicking the Boy Scouts out of San Diego's Balboa Park, where the Scouts
had a lease on a campground for 25 years?
The judge, Clinton appointee Napoleon Jones, ruled that the Scouts are
"religious" and cannot lease city land. The American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) had filed the suit for a lesbian couple and an agnostic
couple over the Scouts' oath to honor God and be "morally straight."
First, the Scouts are not a religious group simply because they
recognize the Creator. By that reasoning, the Declaration of
Independence is a religious document, not to mention the Constitution,
which is dated "in the Year of Our Lord, one thousand, seven hundred and
eighty-seven." No, it's not Lord Krishna.
And even if the Scouts are a religious group, so what? Do only secular
groups have a right to lease public property? The San Diego ruling
violates the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantee and
establishes a de facto atheist religion. Surely, this is so wrong that
the Supreme Court will set things right, right? No.
On May 3, the court declined to hear Boy Scouts of America v.
Barnes-Wallace, leaving intact the abuse. This is not the first time the
Supreme Court has seen the Scouts mugged and bleeding and hurried on by.
In 2004, the court let stand a ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court upholding
Connecticut's ejection of the Scouts from the state employees charitable
donation program. Prodded by the usual suspects - gay activists and the
ACLU (pretty much interchangeable) - Connecticut officials said the
Scouts' policy of barring homosexual Scoutmasters violated the
sexual-orientation portion of the state's anti-discrimination law.
In 2006, in Evans v. Berkeley, the court let stand a ruling against the
Scouts and for the city of Berkeley, Calif., whose city officials had
ended a 50-year-long arrangement that had allowed the Sea Scouts to use
a public marina's dock at no charge. Citing a local law barring
discrimination based on sexual orientation, the city had upped the
Scouts' rent to $500 a month, prompting the Scouts to sue the city for
violating their freedoms of speech and association.
Much of the media, which has been bashing the Catholic Church over the
scandal of homosexual priests molesting boys and young men, which
constitutes 80 percent of the abuse cases, can't find a single reason
why the Scouts would want to bar gay men from taking boys camping.
The Scouts are caught between a rock and a hard place. Either they drop
their moral standard and put boys and their own legal survival at risk,
or they face endless harassment designed to bankrupt them.
Since 2000, when the Scouts won in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale,
they've been under constant assault. It's as if they lost the case. More
than 50 United Way chapters dropped them, as did many public school
districts. Philadelphia is still trying to eject the Cradle of Liberty
Council from its headquarters, which the Scouts built in 1928 in a city
park.
The current Supreme Court's unwillingness to take this slam-dunk First
Amendment case from San Diego indicates that the justices don't
understand the ramifications of turning the Scouts into the equivalent
of the Ku Klux Klan. Or they understand it and some of them don't mind.
It takes just four justices to decide to hear a case. What did they
think was more important?
Maybe they simply don't trust Justice Anthony Kennedy for the fifth
vote. He wrote the Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003 that overturned
sodomy laws partly because international elite opinions rated higher
than that of elected representatives from the Lone Star State.
Perhaps the justices are waiting for conflicts among cases at the
circuit level in order to intercede. However, given the stakes here for
the freedoms of religion and free assembly, one might think the ongoing
attacks on the Scouts would warrant the court's attention.
Robert Knight is a writer for Coral Ridge Ministries and the author of
"Radical Rulers: The White House Elites Who Are Pushing America Toward
Socialism" (radicalrulers.com, 2010).