[Apologetics] Supreme Court lets stand ruling saying Boy Scouts cannot lease city-owned parkland because the group is religious

[Art Kelly]

http://tinyurl.com/27dnok7

Court won't hear appeal on Boy Scouts land rental


By The Associated Press

Monday, May 3, 2010 at 7:30 a.m.

  <http://www.signonsandiego.com/photos/2010/may/03/157177/>  

John Gibbins / 2004 U-T file photo

This 2004 aerial shows 18-acre Camp Balboa in Balboa Park which the Boy
Scouts leased from the city of San Diego for $1 per year. The Scouts
also had free use of an aquatic facility on city-owned Fiesta Island in
Mission Bay.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday decided to let stand a ruling
saying the Boy Scouts cannot lease city-owned parkland in San Diego
because the group is a religious organization.

The high court refused to hear an appeal from San Diego-area Boy Scouts
who have traditionally leased Balboa Park camp space.

U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones Jr. ruled in 2003 that San Diego
acted improperly when it leased 18 acres of camp space to the Scouts
because the group is a religious organization. The judge said the lease
violated federal law that prohibits the government promotion of
religion.

The Boy Scouts say they have no theology and only hold the position that
children should "do duty to God" to become productive citizens.

The American Civil Liberties Union had sued San Diego and the Boy Scouts
in August 2000 on behalf of a lesbian couple and an agnostic couple,
each with scouting-age sons. They filed the lawsuit after the City
Council voted to extend the group's 50-year lease for another 25 years.

The Boys Scouts have been the target of preferential treatment lawsuits
since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2000 that the group has a
constitutional right to exclude openly gay men from serving as troop
leaders and because it compels members to swear an oath of duty to God.

The group had received support from the Bush administration, which in
March 2004 filed a friend of the court brief arguing that even though
the organization believes in God and members take an oath to do their
duty to God, it is not a religious organization.

The case is Boy Scouts v. Barnes-Wallace, 08-1222.

The Associated Press




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