Boy Scouts vs. Philidelphia (Fixed)

[jackofallgeeks]

So, the Boy Scouts' stand on homosexuality is in
the news again today, with the City of Philidelphia saying they can
change their policy of excluding gays (and atheists, apparently), or they
can remove their organization from publicly-owned land (technically, they
could also pay $200k/year rent). Now, I don't really care to get into the
details of whether a private organization can set discriminatory standards
for membership, or whether the fact that the scouts built the building at
their own cost has any bearing on the fact that they don't own the plot of
land, or any of the other bits in this bin. But one thing that struck me is
that this conflict is being framed as a "free speach" issue, and I don't
think that's appropriate. This isn't about what the scouts are saying, it's
about who they let into their club, and those aren't the same thing. I
think more to the point is the question of whether this is a case of the
government coersing a private institution through financial pressure, and
think that's more problematic, too. The city does have rights to operate
it's property as it sees fit, but it's still troublesome to me when the
government swings it's influence around to force people to do things like
this.

Comments

iRamble

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

As a point of fact, I'm never comfortable with questionable tactics, even if the outcome is something I favor. The ends don't justify the means and just because dirty tricks play in our favor, the precedent it sets is unacceptible. Especially where the government is involved, since even if we trust those who wield power now we would be eroding our defenses to future authorities we don't trust. The government coersing private organizations and private citizens should not be tolerated, period.

Now, the whole homosexuality bit is quite a touchy subject here (I keep meaning to say something meaningful on that front, but wow is it a minefield!), but I agree with you here: banning gays from the scouts on the basis of pedophilia as a threat is just dumb. Now, it is a reasonable argument that only a gay man could pose any such threat to young boys (in this male-only context, of course), but gay != pedophile. Interestingly I've been meaning to post on the topic of pedophilia -- amusingly, I finished reading Lolita right as a bunch of news articles came out regarding pedophilia and the Internet and 'protecting the children.'

As a final point, I hate the argument of 'protecting the children.' It's an oft-abused argument used for a whole slew of things and while it seems noble and evokes an emotional erespose, I think it can be shown that most things done to save the children are either ineffective or actively harmful. But that's another argument for another time.

Re: iRamble

[readiness.livejournal.com]

Question:

How is "Now, it is a reasonable argument that only a gay man could pose any such threat to young boys (in this male-only context, of course)" reasonable at all?

Esp pointing to the above posters (correct) statement: "child molestation does not generally follow sexual orientation."

Re: iRamble

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm confused then. If it's been shown that straight men molest liuttle boys, then that's news to me. It doesn't seem to follow, is all. Regardless, it was a minor comment and doesn't affect my ends-don't-justify-the-means, government-shouldn't-coerce-private-citizens argument.