The Boy Scouts are learning the hard way, the same lessons that churches around the country typically still haven't learned:
PHILADELPHIA - The city said it will evict a Boy Scout council from its publicly owned headquarters or make the group pay a fair rent price unless it changes its policy on gays.
The Boy Scouts' Cradle of Liberty Council, the country's third-largest, has been battling with the city for more than three years over the policy, which like the national Scouts organization forbids gays from being leaders.
The Boy Scouts have three choices here. They can leave voluntarily, they can compromise or they can pay the fair market rent rate for the use of the buildings. If they want to be effective as an organization, though, the only choice they can make is to leave voluntarily as the other two options either give their enemies what they want or worse--provide them with more money to operate on.
There is no constitutional right to use public property for a non-governmental function, however that is beside the point. The real issue at stake here is whether or not the Boy Scouts will give in and surrender to those that want them to change or not. It would no doubt inspire a lot more confidence in their supporters and parents in general if they would peacefully, and respectfully, bow out and stop using the public property. That would speak highly of their commitment to the two traditional American values: God and liberty.
Not being able to use public property might actually teach many of these boys a good lesson about politics and government in general. They might get a good look at the true nature of government and be able to appreciate the importance of the individualism that is so often down-played by "traditionalist" groups.
Exactly right. The scouts, like every other organization that relies on government for subsidies, needs to withdraw from that arrangement if they wish to keep their foundation secure. Getting in bed with government, as plenty of "private" colleges and other organizations have learned, is simply a way to allow fickle fingers to come in a muss up your good works.
Yes, it'll be difficult, and I frankly wonder if they have the cojones to do it, but that's the only way they have a chance of surviving.
That's the biggest reason I oppose vouchers for education. As we saw with the GI bill and student loans, as soon as an organization becomes hooked onto the teat of big government, they become an arm of that government, under a myriad of ever-changing rules and requirements, until whatever distinctives they once had are legislated or surrendered away. Vouchers will not only raise private tuition to the level of the voucher (why charge less?) but they will ensure that no private school can afford to buck whatever crazy government directive comes down the pike.
The only problem with having no vouchers is that most parents will scream about having to pay for their kids' own education and even when that's resolved, others will worry about the "vast number" of kids whose parents won't be able to afford to pay for it. I'm not sure that there is that much of a valid concern, there, though because any parent who can't bring themselves to find a school that is willing to take them on a reduced rate or with a scholarship is probably not going to care anyway.
Unfortunately, most people won't be able to appreciate that and will be literally terrified of possibly having a lot of maleducated people. The fact that that is what already exists is beside the point, as admitting that their greatest fears are already true, is too much to expect. It's the same problem with the war on drugs. People worry about drug dealers getting to their kids with legalized drugs, not realizing that it is only possible for that to easily happen because there is no legal system.
Word up on that post.
It is in looking back that I now appreciate the significance of the Boy Scouts. In the recent generations reared by mom alone, you begin to realize the direness of neeed for conduits with which to instill unadulterated foundations for manhood. The Boy Scouts are indeed probably the last institutions of childhood to not have been poisoned by the Dewey philosophy of prima seclorum.
It makes you admire the vision of the founders of the American Red Cross for refusing government grants back when modern socialism was still an pollyanna and virgin ideal.
Right on, Mike. (This is why I railed against Bush's Satanic 'Faith-based initiative' as well).
That old joke tells the story all to well.
To the question "What do you think I am, anyway?", the answer is "We've established that, now we're dickering price."
Organizations that take money in order to get in bed with Big Brother (be it a subsidy with stolen funds, like vouchers, or directly as per Satan's 510-(c)3 Faith-based Churches) have a name:
"whore".
As Heinlein once said, if you don't like that choice, don't play the game.