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City hikes Boy Scouts' rent by $199,999 over gay ban

By Joseph A. Slobodzian

Inquirer Staff Writer
The Boy Scouts of America's refusal to bend its rules to permit gay scouts will cost the organization's local chapter $200,000 a year if it wishes to keep its headquarters in a city-owned building on Logan Square.

Representatives of the Boy Scouts of America's Cradle of Liberty Council were notified that to remain in their 79-year-old landmark headquarters, they needed to pay the city a "fair market" rent, Fairmount Park Commission president Robert N.C. Nix said yesterday. Currently, the rent is $1 a year.

The city decided on the rent proposal after it was unable to reach a compromise with the local scout council in talks that have gone on since May.

"Once we know what the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts want to do, we'll probably want to weigh in with the city about how to proceed," Nix told the park commission.

Barring a resolution, the Cradle of Liberty Council - about 64,000 scouts in Philadelphia and parts of Delaware and Montgomery Counties - must vacate the property at 22d and Winter Streets after May 31.

"It's disappointing, and it's certainly a threat," said Jeff Jubelirer, a spokesman for Cradle of Liberty Council, referring to the rent's impact on the scouts' chances of staying on the site.

Jubelirer said $200,000 a year in rent "would have to come from programs. That's 30 new Cub Scout packs, or 800 needy kids going to our summer camp."

Nevertheless, Jubelirer said, scouting officials will ask City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. for details on the real estate appraisals that yielded the $200,000 rent figure.

Cradle of Liberty officials have said they could not renounce the scouts' long-established policy of not opening membership to atheists or openly gay people without running afoul of their charter with the scouts' National Council.

City officials have said they could not legally rent taxpayer-owned property for a dollar a year to a private organization that discriminates.

The land belongs to the City of Philadelphia but has been leased since 1928 for that token sum to the scouts, who built the landmark Beaux Arts building.

That lease came into question only after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2000 in a New Jersey case involving an openly gay scout who was barred from serving as troop leader.

The high court in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale ruled, 5-4, that the scouts, as a private organization, have a right of "expressive association" under the First Amendment to set their own membership rules.

The scouts have long required members to swear an oath of duty to God, and their rules prohibit membership by anyone who is openly homosexual. For that reason, scouting officials initially greeted the Supreme Court's ruling as a victory.

That mood quickly evaporated, however, as local government officials around the nation began reexamining long-standing preferential relationships with scouts.

Unlike the scouts, public officials are also bound by a line of Supreme Court opinions barring taxpayer support of any group that discriminates.

In Philadelphia, officials wrestled for months for a way to let the scouts remain at their longtime headquarters.

At one point in 2005, the city and scouts seemed poised to agree on a policy statement adopted by New York scouts. That statement, while not renouncing the bars against atheist or gay members, affirmed that "prejudice, intolerance and unlawful discrimination in any form are unacceptable."

But last year, Diaz wrote Cradle of Liberty Council officials to say the suggested policy statement could not be reconciled with the city's own anti-discriminatory fair-practices ordinance.

Again, both sides began trading proposals. That ended May 31, when City Council voted 16-1 to authorize ending the lease with Cradle of Liberty Council.

The resolution was introduced unexpectedly by Councilman Darrell L. Clarke and passed, 16-1, with no debate.

Both Clarke, a Center City Democrat whose district includes the scouts building, and Diaz, a prominent member of the city's gay community, said they hoped the resolution would spur talks to resolve the dispute.

Nix said yesterday that those talks had apparently failed, leading to the lease proposal.

City hikes Boy Scouts' rent by $199,999 over gay ban (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20071018_City_hikes_Boy_Scouts_rent_by__199_999_over_gay_ban.html)

Talk about city officials being bullies!! Philadelphia is the city where American Liberty was born. Now it is reversible of Liberty, dictating who can do what, when, where, why, ect. ect. :'(

As a Eagle Scout, I do really feel for the boys put in this position.

Hello Dreamweaver,

Brother, the founding fathers wouldn't be welcome there either. Nothing resembles their intentions and what they sought to preserve with our documents of freedom. Our documents of freedom have been tread underfoot and made of no effect.

The intolerable circumstances that prompted the American Revolution are present today - JUST MUCH WORSE! Freedom has been taken away from good and given to evil. Christians are being persecuted and our rights are being removed. Day by day, the evil gets worse and it's endorsed by powers who don't have the legal or Constitutional authority to do so. In fact, law and the Constitution are trampled underfoot AND THEY KNOW IT!

I doubt that Christians will be here another thousand years, but let's suppose that we are. We would be forced to either take our country back or leave it because things are becoming more intolerable by the day. I personally believe that the Rapture of the CHURCH and the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST will be soon. If not, this is quickly becoming a place where decent people can't live. There are hosts of Christians who WILL NOT compromise with the devil, nor will they allow their children to be raised by the devil. We will raise our children in the LORD and demand our right to do so, and that is the END OF THE STORY!

There is a LIMIT to what evil we will tolerate in our presence or the presence of our children, and many are determined to breach that limit soon - with or without our permission. We will have to stand up and say "NO!" and mean it. The time may come soon when we will be forced to declare where we stand:  either with GOD or the devil. GOD tells me to NOT send my children through the fire, and I WON'T! Further, nobody else will send my children or grandchildren through the fire while I live - NO COMPROMISE - END OF STORY!

Brothers and Sisters, here's an example of recent progress made by the devil. There is a plan being pushed to eventually distribute birth control pills to 11 year olds with or without parental approval. That's on top of sex education and tolerance for alternative lifestyles at 5 years old - with or without parental approval. Can anyone see where this is going? Can you live with this and tolerate this? I CAN'T AND I WON'T! The government WILL NOT be doing any forced indoctrination of this filth with my grandchildren. There are many first peaceful measures that should be exhausted. The first one should be all of us STANDING UP AND SAYING NO! This should definitely be a matter of prayer for all of us. Regardless, the end result should be the same for all of us:  NO! - This won't be tolerated.

Brothers and Sisters, if this is the end days of this Age of Grace, we've only seen the beginning of evil. I don't know when JESUS will come to take HIS CHURCH Home, but I do know there are many things that Christians MUST stand for until JESUS takes us home. May GOD give all of us the strength, courage, and guidance to do just that.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Ephesians 6:10-17 NASB
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Scout backers crash
Philly mayor's e-mail 
Barrage of 150,000 messages after city
hiked rent $200,000 due to 'gay' policy

Outraged citizens crashed the e-mail system of the Philadelphia mayor's office after the city accused the local Boy Scouts chapter of discriminating against homosexuals and forced the organization to pay $200,000 rent for its city-owned headquarters.

About 150,000 Boy Scout-related e-mails were removed from the city's e-mail system, reported the Bulletin newspaper of Philadelphia.

"We were deluged," said Terry Phillis, chief information officer for Mayor John Street. "We pulled the messages off so they wouldn't take the system down. It had to be done to protect system integrity."

As WND reported, Philadelphia's city council voted to renege on a 1928 ordinance allowing the Cradle of Liberty Council to have its headquarters in a building on a parcel of public land "in perpetuity" for $1 a year.

Phillis believes there was "an active campaign to let city council know they were against what happened."

The city told the Scouts they must either adopt the city non-discrimination policies, pay the market value rent of $200,000 a year or give up the building space.

The Bulletin said the e-mails criticizing the city's decision threatened the computer system despite a sophisticated filtering system designed to prevent overloads.

A city council man who supports the Scouts, Frank Rizzo, said he will answer every e-mail he received.

"I received more than 1,000 e-mails just Sunday," he told the Philadelphia paper. "... I believe I have an obligation to people who write to me. I treat it just like it was a letter."

City officials in San Francisco and Boston have made similar decisions to displace the Scouts because of the group's behavior code.

Jeff Jubelirer, spokesman for the Cradle of Liberty Council, told the Associated Press last week the higher rent money "would have to come from programs. That's 30 new Cub Scout packs, or 800 needy kids going to our summer camp."

"It's disappointing, and it's certainly a threat," he said.

Homosexual organizations previously challenged the Scouts' policy, but lost at the U.S. Supreme Court level, where a 2000 ruling confirmed that as a private group, the Scouts could set restrictions for their leaders.

The activist groups then turned their sights on property arrangements such as in Philadelphia, where the Scouts had been using a parcel of public property, only with some maintenance costs, for years.

The Philadelphia Scouting council in 2003 said it would adopt a nondiscrimination policy on homosexuals, but reversed itself within weeks and then dismissed an 18-year-old who publicly announced his homosexuality during that time period.

Former WND columnist Hans Zeiger, who wrote a book about the Scouts and their battles, "Get Off My Honor: The Assault on the Boy Scouts of America," said the Boy Scouts since 1911 have been reaching out to the disabled, racial and ethnic minorities, Native Americans and inner city children with the lessons of right and wrong.

"When it comes to a Scout troop, sexual orientation is an issue that goes beyond differences in skin color or economic status. It affects such matters as tenting arrangements and the development of pre-teenage masculinity in a close-knit group of boys and men," he wrote.

"The BSA's position against homosexuality is not just an issue of moral principle in an effort to affirm the Scout Oath and Law, it is a serious safety effort to prevent cases of sexual abuse and harassment," he wrote.

"So here's what I say to the radical Left in the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed … Take away the funding. Seize the 75-year-old headquarters building. The Scouts can survive without it," he wrote at the time.

WND also reported earlier this year a Scouts victory when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit dismissed a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union to stop the Defense Department from allowing the Scouts to hold its National Jamboree every four years at Fort A.P. Hill in Fredericksburg, Va.

The ACLU, suing on behalf of individual named taxpayers, had argued allowing the Boy Scouts to hold the event on public property is an unconstitutional establishment of religion, because the organization's membership is limited to those who believe in God.

The ACLU points out the Boy Scouts require members to swear an oath to "do my duty to God and my country."

The court ruled the ACLU did not show standing to bring the lawsuit.