American Legion Tells Pentagon to Stand Up for Boy Scouts

[Matt]

American Legion Tells Pentagon to Stand Up for Boy Scouts
[url]http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewCulture.asp?Page=\Culture\archive\200411\CUL20041117b.html[/url]
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
November 17, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - Liberals offended by the Boy Scouts' moral code are now using "religious discrimination" as a tool to bludgeon the organization.

In response to a lawsuit filed in 1999 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, the Pentagon has agreed to inform U.S. military bases worldwide that they may not directly sponsor Boy Scout troops -- because the Boy Scouts require a belief in God.

"If our Constitution's promise of religious liberty is to be a reality, the government should not be administering religious oaths or discriminating based upon religious beliefs," ACLU spokesman Adam Schwartz was quoted as saying after the Pentagon agreed to settle the case.

But the head of the nation's largest veterans organization says the Pentagon should "stand firm" against the ACLU in its campaign against the Boy Scouts.

In a "strongly worded letter" to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, American Legion National Commander Thomas P. Cadmus wrote, "The idea that sponsorship of Scouting by American military units is 'unconstitutional' goes beyond the absurd, even well past the point of stupidity."

"How is it the government can fund chapels on military bases, and Chaplains in the military, but not accommodate Scouting?" Cadmus asked.

"Why is it that the rank of Eagle Scout is an attribute highly sought in candidates for military academies, but will soon become unwelcome on military bases? How is it the Congress can sanction Scouting by issuing them a federal charter, but the courts can declare them 'outlaws?'

"Is there no one in Washington, D.C., at the highest levels of government that will stand up for Scouts, for Scouting and support this movement that has long been an institution of highest reputation in America?" Cadmus asked.

"Where's the President? Where's his Cabinet? Where's the Congress? What are the courts doing? Where is the outrage?"

Cadmus said that on behalf of the 2.7 million men and women of the American Legion, he is asking the Pentagon to "hold the line of assault on the Scouts.

"Stand up to the ACLU," he said in the letter to Rumsfeld. "Find a way to give those who serve our nation the chance to serve their children. Do what is necessary to blend the private organization that Scouting is with the military organization of our Republic. It has been done freely and openly for almost 100 years." He called it a precedent that cannot be disregarded.

The American Legion is one of the nation's largest sponsors of Scouting Units across the nation. In fact, the December issue of "The American Legion Magazine" includes an article describing the assault on Scouting entitled, "On my honor, I must fight."

For the record, all Boy Scouts recite an oath that says:

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

They also recite a Boy Scout law that says a scout is "reverent." That means a Scout is "faithful in his religious duties and respects the convictions of others in matters of custom and religion," the Boy Scouts of America website says.

The Boy Scouts welcomes young people of all religious backgrounds, but it excludes homosexuals -- and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld its right as a private organization to set its own membership rules.

[Rspaight]

For the record, all Boy Scouts recite an oath that says:

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

They also recite a Boy Scout law that says a scout is "reverent." That means a Scout is "faithful in his religious duties and respects the convictions of others in matters of custom and religion," the Boy Scouts of America website says.

The Boy Scouts welcomes young people of all religious backgrounds

Except those that don't believe in God, apparently.

Liberals offended by the Boy Scouts' moral code are now using "religious discrimination" as a tool to bludgeon the organization.

Only the small-minded would think moral = religion. Typical right-wing website claptrap.

Ryan

[Matt]

You don't think the ACLU has an agenda they are pushing?

[Ess Ay Cee Dee]

Yeah, their "agenda" is the separation of church and state and preservation of our First Amendment rights. I think that's a pretty noble agenda.

[Matt]

Yeah, their "agenda" is the separation of church and state and preservation of our First Amendment rights. I think that's a pretty noble agenda.

I thought they were mad at the Boy Scouts for not admitting homosexuals.

[Rspaight]

I thought they were mad at the Boy Scouts for not admitting homosexuals.

No, as the article above noted, the Supreme Court has ruled that private organizations can legally refuse to admit gays, atheists, or whatever.

However, once the organization is directly sponsored by the government, which is the case here, it ceases being a private organization and becomes a publicly-funded organization. And the Constitution says you can't require a certain religious viewpoint to join a state-sponsored organization.

The argument about chapels and chaplains doesn't hold water, as those are provided as a service to the troops, not a compulsory condition of membership.

Ryan

[Rspaight]

Liberals offended by the Boy Scouts' moral code are now using "religious discrimination" as a tool to bludgeon the organization.

As an aside, I'm always amused by clueless right-wingers who call the ACLU a "liberal" organization. In a way, they're the most conservative activist group out there -- all they want to do is restrict the government's powers in a manner consistent with the Constitution.

Hmmmm. Small government, individual rights, strict adherence to the Constitution. Last I checked, those were conservative values. Shame our current "conservative" administration doesn't seem to care about them.

Ryan

[Matt]

Liberals offended by the Boy Scouts' moral code are now using "religious discrimination" as a tool to bludgeon the organization.

As an aside, I'm always amused by clueless right-wingers who call the ACLU a "liberal" organization. In a way, they're the most conservative activist group out there -- all they want to do is restrict the government's powers in a manner consistent with the Constitution.

Hmmmm. Small government, individual rights, strict adherence to the Constitution. Last I checked, those were conservative values. Shame our current "conservative" administration doesn't seem to care about them.

Ryan

Where the ACLU is politically must depend on what side of the fence you are on. They are against the death penalty, pro-homosexual, pro-socialism and haven't really done anything in the way of gun rights. I did not know they were for small government.

However, I can see why liberals and conservatives wouldn't want to be associated with them:

No Boy Scouts
The ACLU defends NAMBLA.
By Deroy Murdock

http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200402270920.asp

An old friend of mine once said this about the American Civil Liberties Union: "They're a bunch of whale-saving, criminal-loving pinkos — and thank God for them."

This remark nicely summarizes the ambivalence with which many people regard the ACLU. Few organizations dance closer to the very edge of the loony-Left precipice than it does. There seems to be no thug too hardened nor any cause too exotic for the ACLU to champion. At the same time, if America ever were unlucky enough to face a president who decided to remain in the Oval Office past her expiration date, the ACLU would battle her and her junta with every sharp courtroom argument, pointed legal filing, and well-aimed briefcase it could muster.

That said, the ACLU lately has stained the dark side of its reputation through its actions in two cases involving the treatment of vulnerable, young Americans. The ACLU is defending those who abuse children while attacking those who give them moral guidance. This contrast reveals the priorities of today's ACLU.

The Manhattan-based public-interest law firm is defending the North American Man-Boy Love Association in a $200 million civil lawsuit filed by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Curley. The Curleys claim that Charles Jaynes was driven by the literature and website of NAMBLA, an outfit that advocates sex between grown men and little boys, reportedly as young as age 8.

Jaynes did not simply read NAMBLA's materials and ponder its message. He and Salvatore Sicari actively sought a boy with whom to copulate. They picked 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley of Cambridge, Massachusetts. They lured him into their car as he played outside his home in October 1997. When Curley resisted their sexual advances, they choked him to death with a gasoline-soaked rag. Then they took the boy's body across state lines to Jayne's apartment in Manchester, New Hampshire. They molested the cadaver and stuffed it into a cement-filled Rubbermaid container. Finally, they crossed state lines again into Maine, whereupon they tossed Jeffrey Curley's remains into the Great Works River, from which it was recovered within days. Jaynes and Sicari were convicted of these crimes in 1998, for which they are serving life sentences.

So why blame NAMBLA? Is it any more responsible for this atrocity than is Vintage Books, the publisher of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita? Imagine that Jaynes and Sicari had read that 1955 novel about a middle-aged intellectual's affair with a 12-year-old girl. What if these two men found an equally young female who they abused and killed, just as they murdered Jeffrey Curley in real life? Putting aside the fact that Lolita is a work of fiction, would Vintage Books face civil justice?

Probably not, nor would NAMBLA if it limited its output to fictional depictions of "man-boy love." It is difficult to pin imaginary crimes on actual criminals who turn make-believe into mayhem.

Within the realm of nonfiction, as revolting as its ideas are, NAMBLA certainly has a First Amendment right to argue that America's laws should be changed to permit sexual relations between adult men and third-grade school boys. Most Americans would disagree vehemently, as well they should. That's called debate. It's the American way.

As ACLU of Massachusetts Legal Director John Reinstein sees it: "Regardless of whether people agree with or abhor NAMBLA's views, holding the organization responsible for crimes committed by others who read their materials would gravely endanger important First Amendment freedoms."

However, as Fox News' Bill O'Reilly noted, there is more at play here than pamphleteering. "According to lawyers familiar with [NAMBLA's] website," O'Reilly explained, "it actually posted techniques designed to lure boys into having sex with men and also supplied information on what an adult should do if caught."

NAMBLA is "not just publishing material that says it's OK to have sex with children and advocating changing the law," says Larry Frisoli, a Cambridge attorney who is arguing the Curleys case in federal court. NAMBLA, he says, "is actively training their members how to rape children and get away with it. They distribute child pornography and trade live children among NAMBLA members with the purpose of having sex with them."

Frisoli cites a NAMBLA publication he calls "The Rape and Escape Manual." Its actual title is "The Survival Manual: The Man's Guide to Staying Alive in Man-Boy Sexual Relationships."

"Its chapters explain how to build relationships with children," Frisoli tells me. "How to gain the confidence of children's parents. Where to go to have sex with children so as not to get caught...There is advice, if one gets caught, on when to leave America and how to rip off credit card companies to get cash to finance your flight. It's pretty detailed."

"In his diary, Jaynes said he had reservations about having sex with children until he discovered NAMBLA," Frisoli continues. "It's in his diary in 1996, around the time he joined NAMBLA, one year before the death of Jeffrey Curley."

The practical, step-by-step advice Jaynes followed goes far beyond appeals to sway public opinion in favor of pedophilia. Such language aids and abets felonious conduct. If such conspiracy results in homicide, it is reasonable for NAMBLA to face civil liability if not criminal prosecution.

Ohio's Court of Appeals found NAMBLA complicit in an earlier child-rape case. NAMBLA's literature, discovered in a defendant's possession, reflected "preparation and purpose," according to the Buckeye State's top bench.

The ACLU has offered material support to those who openly preach pedophilia and arguably encourage kidnapping, rape, and murder. Yet this legal group is energetically hostile to an organization that tries to turn boys into men, with sex alien to the process.

Since 1915, the Boy Scouts have managed land within San Diego's Balboa Park. It has built a swimming pool, a 600-seat amphitheater, and a camping facility that accommodates 300. Camp Balboa serves some 12,000 Boy Scouts annually through daylong events and weekend sleepovers. The Scouts' tie to this land is a 50-year lease offered by the San Diego City Council and signed in 1957. In exchange for their stewardship — including private investment for maintenance and development — the Scouts hand the city an annual lease payment of $1.00.

This arrangement is too much for the ACLU to swallow. It sued the City of San Diego to expel the Boy Scouts from Balboa Park. The ACLU contends that the Scouts are a religious organization and thus should be dislodged from the facility. Never mind that the Scouts did not bar other groups from using the park. In fact, according to Hans Zeiger, an 18-year-old Eagle Scout who has written about this controversy, Balboa Park hosted last summer's San Diego Gay Pride Festival.

Clinton-appointed U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones deemed the Boy Scouts a religious organization last July and declared that their involvement with Balboa Park violated the separation of church and state. The ACLU used this ruling to secure a settlement wherein the City of San Diego cancelled the Scouts' lease on the park, even though it did not expire until 2007 and, in fact, was extended in 2001 for 25 years. The ACLU also scored $950,000 in attorneys fees and court costs, thus fleecing taxpayers and deepening its pockets.

San Diego's Boy Scouts are appealing Judge Jones' ruling. A federal judge someday may decide whether or not the Scouts' good deeds will go unpunished.

The ACLU's supporters should contemplate where this organization has placed itself vis-à-vis NAMBLA and the Boy Scouts. The ACLU seemingly believes that everyone deserves a lawyer, no matter how odious his case. Perhaps, although it would be nice to see NAMBLA siphon its own bank account rather than the ACLU's to justify its evil ways. The ACLU decides for itself where to devote its finite resources. Hence, its leaders freely chose to stand with cheerleaders for pederasty while torpedoing those who mentor rather than rape little boys.

Today's ACLU makes one wish it would find some whales to save.

[lukpac]

http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200402270920.asp

"All I want is the truth, just give me some truth." - John Lennon

That's funny.

[Matt]

So the article is bogus?

[Rspaight]

Where the ACLU is politically must depend on what side of the fence you are on. They are against the death penalty, pro-homosexual, pro-socialism and haven't really done anything in the way of gun rights.

They are none of those things (except perhaps anti-death penalty, but only because they feel it violates the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause of the Constitution).

One of the biggest misunderstandings about the ACLU is that they support the people they defend. They do not. They are not Nazis, but they defend the right of the Nazis to speak. They are not Klan members, but they defend the rights of the Klan. They don't support NAMBLA's agenda, but they defend NAMBLA's rights. They don't oppose the Boy Scouts, they oppose the Boy Scouts' attempt to impose a religious requirement to join a taxpayer-funded organization. They don't hate religion, they just don't want the government to use tax money to promote religion, which is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause.

The truth of the matter is that every non-thinking person hates the ACLU because at one time or another the ACLU has defended the rights of someone that person doesn't like. What these people don't pause to understand is that if we don't defend the civil rights of the unpopular, then there's no precedent to defend you when you become unpopular.

The ACLU policy statement on gun control:

http://www.aclu.org/PolicePractices/Pol ... =9621&c=25

Finally, pro-socialism? In what way? I don't recall the ACLU ever advocating a particular economic agenda.

I did not know they were for small government.

Virtually every case they have ever fought concerned limiting the ability of the government to infringe on citizen's civil liberties. How is this not favoring small government?

Ryan

[lukpac]

I think it's really slanted. The "truth" can be spun a lot of different ways.

[Matt]

The truth of the matter is that every non-thinking person hates the ACLU because at one time or another the ACLU has defended the rights of someone that person doesn't like. What these people don't pause to understand is that if we don't defend the civil rights of the unpopular, then there's no precedent to defend you when you become unpopular.

Unpopular is very generous term to refer to "NAMBLA". I have no idea why ANYONE would want to defend their rights! Why take a special interest in them? If they can not afford lawyers then let public defenders represent them. Amazing how they are anti-death penalty yet defend the "rights" of murdering homosexual pedophiles.

A researched the ACLU on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACLU

The ACLU can generally be described as promoting a social (though not economic) libertarian program. Over the years, the ACLU has consistently fought in the court system for a liberal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution that allows for as much individual liberty as possible. Among other positions, the ACLU:

Supports the separation of church and state; under this mandate, the ACLU:
Opposes the government-sponsored display of religious symbols on public property;
Opposes official prayers, religious ceremonies, or "moments of silence" in public schools or schools funded with public money;
Supports the rights of public school students to pray on their own;
Supports full First Amendment rights of the press, including school newspapers;
Supports the legality of abortion on the basis of an implied right to privacy in the Fourth Amendment;
Supports full civil rights for homosexuals, including government benefits for homosexual couples equal to those provided for heterosexual ones;
Supports affirmative action;
Supports the rights of defendants and suspects against unconstitutional police practices;
Opposes the criminal prohibition of drugs, and supports the legalization of drugs such as heroin, cocaine and marijuana (ACLU's Drug Policy (http://www.aclu.org/DrugPolicy/DrugPoli ... 12401&c=19));
Opposes demonstration permits and other requirements for protests in public places
The ACLU has been noted for vigorously defending the right to express unpopular, controversial, and extremist opinions on both the left and right. Some have expressed the view that the ACLU sometimes plays a role comparable to that played by public defenders, helping to ensure that even unpopular defendants receive due process. Executive Director Anthony D. Romero, President Nadine Strossen, and Legal Director Steven Shapiro currently head the organization."

I would certainly say the ACLU is more liberal than conservative. As far as being socialist goes that was more of a slam on the founders of the ACLU (specifically Roger Baldwin), so that probably was not fair on my part to say that about the current organization as a whole.

On a side note, there is a link on the Wiki ACLU page above about ACLU member Alan Dershowitz. The link claims he may defend Saddam Hussein.

[Rspaight]

Unpopular is very generous term to refer to "NAMBLA". I have no idea why ANYONE would want to defend their rights! Why take a special interest in them? If they can not afford lawyers then let public defenders represent them. Amazing how they are anti-death penalty yet defend the "rights" of murdering homosexual pedophiles.

The ACLU's interest in this case is not to support NAMBLA's agenda, but to make sure a bad precedent isn't set. If a sloppy public defender allowed his (justified, IMO) hatred for NAMBLA overcome his ability to do his job, then a legal precedent could be set that would hold people liable for others' actions if the actor can claim they were "inspired" by the person's speech. In other words, a ruling against NAMBLA in this case might mean that Wes Craven could be held responsible for some doofus re-enacting "A Nightmare On Elm Street."

If NAMBLA indeed violated some law via the information they disseminated, then they should be punished. We have a justice system to determine that. As much as some seem to despise due process, that's the way it works in America. At least for the moment. Large sections of the public seem to want a police state, which appears to be the goal of the current leadership.

And the phrase "murdering homosexual pedophiles" is interesting. The purpose of the Constitution is to keep people whose personal biases overwhelm their sense of rationality from infringing on the rights of others. And thank God for that.

Ryan

[lukpac]

An interesting way of looking at things:

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/opinion/ ... ntid=18662

As a longtime member of the American Civil Liberties Union, I actually believe Belling should have the right to go on the air and unfairly demonize members of the ACLU, who should be supporting him right now. Of course, the point of view of the ACLU in support of basic American liberties also should be available on the radio, but that's another problem.