Scouts' Dishonor

City Council is poised to evict the Boy Scouts.

by J.F. Pirro

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Published: Jan 10, 2007

discrimination

Stop discriminating or start paying. That's the message City Council will soon send the Boy Scouts of America's Cradle of Liberty Council. Frustrated by the local troop's inability to distance itself from the national organization's no-gays-allowed policy, a resolution awaiting introduction would terminate a long-standing rent-free lease agreement at the Bruce S. Marks Scout Resource Center.

If the measure is approved, the Scouts will need a new home — unless they begin paying fair-market rent at 22nd and Winter streets or stop excluding openly gay youth members and adult leaders. The resolution, which was provided to City Paper, was written and circulated internally before the holidays, but there's no timeline for introduction.

City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr., himself openly gay, says the Scouts' nationally mandated and U.S. Supreme Court-backed exclusionary policy and practice violates the non-discrimination provisions in the Home Rule Charter and Fair Practices Ordinance. As such, the city cannot continue to subsidize a discriminatory organization. In 2003, Cradle of Liberty thought it averted such problems by drafting a policy against exclusion. That was shot down by the national organization, and was rewritten in 2004, publicly opposing "prejudice, intolerance and unlawful discrimination in any form." The lawyer for the local Scouts says she thought that rewording was sufficient for the city and national headquarters, while the city says that the wording doesn't go far enough.

"I've been asking for a written clarification and readjustment [of that provision] for two years. It would end this matter," says Diaz. "But our issue isn't necessarily with words, it's with whether or not these people will comply with our expectations as landlords."

Sandra A. Girifalco, a partner at Stradley Ronon, the law firm representing the Scouts, says those are the "exact words" the city told her client to use in the revision. She says she's aware of the resolution but hasn't seen it, another example of the city's "distasteful" actions in this ongoing ordeal.

"In 2004, we had an agreement,then the city reneged," she says. "We were asked to develop a [non-discrimination] policy. We were given the language to adopt. We did, and we thought it was settled. No, we didn't 'think' it was settled. We did settle it."

That is, until local activist groups "brought it back to life."

"No one is rushing to throw them out of the building," says Stacey Sobel, executive director of Equality Advocates Pennsylvania. "We're concerned with the message it sends if taxpayer dollars are supporting discrimination."

The Scouts/City partnership dates to 1928 when Council approved the construction of a rent-free building for the Scouts to maintain and use "in perpetuity." As required by that ordinance, Diaz says he provided "notice of ejectment" in a July 20, 2006 letter to William T. Dwyer III, president and CEO of the Cradle of Liberty Council. Four days later, the Fairmount Park Commission approved the action. Now, only City Council's vote remains. From there, the Scouts would have a year to surrender the building and half-acre property.

Still, Girifalco maintains a government cannot take action against its citizens, particularly a youth organization, for exercising its constitutional rights. If there's an eviction, the city could lose as much as $62 million in federal HUD funds from the Support Our Scouts Act of 2005.

The city first filed suit in 2003 against the local Scouts, who then wrote their own more tolerant anti-discrimination policy. The policy was quickly rescinded, however, when Dwyer was soundly reprimanded for overriding national policy. That year, Dwyer also dismissed 18-year-old Greg Lattera, a Life Scout and summer-camp counselor not because he was openly gay, but for "inappropriate behavior." (Lattera, he says, "put on a uniform and trotted himself around to all the media venues" to further an agenda.)

BSA, a Dallas, Texas-based organization, maintains its policy is based on a guarded oath to devote allegiance to God and to keep oneself "morally straight." The Cradle of Liberty Council, the nation's third-largest, serves 87,000 children in the region.

"We've been whacked by the right wingers, then by the left wingers and then cut down by the people in the middle for taking a stand," says Dwyer, a 36-year scouting veteran. Asked whether there are any current Cradle of Liberty Council members who are known gays, Dwyer, who says he isn't personally homophobic, responded, "Sure. Yes, but now I'm sure this will bring on more torture we don't need."

(j_pirro@citypaper.net)

 

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