Scouts can lease public land, despite stance on gays: court

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

By Dan Levine
SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Dec 20, 2012 4:49pm EST

(Reuters) - The Boy Scouts of America can lease public land from the City of San Diego for a cheap rate, even though the scouts prohibit atheists, agnostics and homosexuals from becoming members, a U.S. appeals court ruled.

In an opinion on Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said two leases held by an organization chartered by the scouts do not violate the constitutional separation of church and state.

The Boy Scouts policy of denying membership to gay scouts and scout leaders has prompted protests and lawsuits. In 2000, the organization won a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing the organization to ban gays, whose conduct, the Boy Scouts argued, violated its values. The Scouts reaffirmed the policy earlier this year.

In San Diego, an organization chartered by the Boy Scouts leases portions of two popular city parks to provide children with an urban camping experience. In exchange for spending money developing facilities on the land, the Scouts pay virtually no rent.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/20/us-usa-boyscouts-ruling-idUSBRE8BJ1BT20121220

[forestpath]

1. This is outrageous.

[Viking12]

2. Sounds like the city provides equal access for all

As long as the isn't preferring the Scouts, I don't see what the problem is.

From the Reuters link in the OP

The city has leased 123 parcels of land to nonprofit agencies, the overwhelming majority of which are secular in nature, the court wrote, and 96 of those leases require no payment of rent.

"The city's practice of leasing its lands is by no means occasional or targeted in favor of sectarian organizations," it wrote.