03/09/2004: "Boy Scouts appeal rejected"

The Boy Scouts have been making a case up the appeals ladder regarding their position with gay leaders. The supreme court ruled a number of years back that it was legal for the Boy Scouts to have a policy forbidding gay troup leaders or gay employees. In this I think the court made the right decision.

As a result, the Boy Scouts have gotten significant backlash from state and local agencies. It used to be that the Boy Scouts got lots of favors from local governments and schools. They'd get cheap rent on buildings, plenty of grants and donations, and a general endorsement as well. That has all changed with the Boy Scouts refusal to bend to popular pressure on the issue of gay leaders.

So the Boy Scouts brought a case to the Supreme Court saying that they were being discriminated against. The particulars of the case was that they were removed from a Conniticut state employee charitable donation payroll deduction plan.

The Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Here is an article on the subject.

This is one of the rare cases where I agree with the Supreme Court twice in a row on the same issue. The state has the right to encourage certain behaviors. Grants, cheap rent, charitable donation drives, these are all things where the state is trying to encourage a certain behavior set from the citizens of the state. While I may disagree with what they are encouraging, it is not a legal matter but a legislative matter that hopefully we can influence by the way we vote.

Now, if on the other hand, the state was refusing to rent to the boy scouts facilities that they were renting to other non-government groups or were asking a higher price than the "normal" price, that would be discrimination and should be handled by the court.

Any organization, from the KKK to the Boy Scouts to the Red Cross deserve the right to rent public facilities at a standard rate. Not every organization, definitely not the KKK, deserve special treatment such as grants and reduced rent from the government. It is up to the state to decide which groups are worthy of that special treatment.