News

Jun 15, 2010

The Boy Scouts is on trial in Philadelphia -- at issue is whether the Scouts' policy on homosexuals allows them to remain in their longtime base of operations.

In a case that opened yesterday, the City of Brotherly Love is trying to evict the Boy Scouts from their building, constructed 80 years ago on city-owned property and provided rent free in perpetuity -- that is, forever. According to the city charter, one of the Scouts' national policies violates local rules.

"They said because of the Scouts' policy on not permitting open homosexuals as leaders or members, then they were discriminating -- and that was against the Philadelphia fair practices ordinance," explains Diane Gramley of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, who adds that the city also wants more than $300,000 in back rent as well as $200,000 a year to remain in the building.

Diane GramleyA U.S. Supreme Court decision a decade ago allows the Boy Scouts to exclude homosexuals because it is a private organization -- raising the question of how a local ordinance can supersede a decision by the nation's high court.

"I have asked that a lot of times here in Pennsylvania," Gramley shares, "because the Supreme Court also made a similar ruling dealing with sexually oriented businesses, and our state Supreme Court overruled the U.S. Supreme Court saying the Pennsylvania Constitution is older than the U.S. Constitution."

The pro-family leader contends the lawsuit against the Boy Scouts is driven by homosexual activists whose agenda of forcing acceptance of homosexuality is more important to them than the Scouts serving tens of thousands of area youth.