The city of Berkeley can charge marina fees to youth sailors connected with the Boy Scouts of America in response to the Scouts' discriminatory policies, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The court unanimously rejected claims by the Berkeley Sea Scouts that the city violated the group's free speech and freedom of association rights by charging it berthing fees, which nonprofit groups that comply with a 1997 nondiscrimination law do not pay.

The city revoked the group's subsidies in 1998 because the Boy Scouts bar atheist and gay members. It's one of several cases in which federal, state and local governments have distanced themselves from the Scouts.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Boy Scouts' membership policies are legal, but the state high court ruled that governments remain able to deny benefits to organizations that discriminate.

"What the California Supreme Court said was that private clubs can discriminate, but the taxpayers don't have to fund that discrimination," Berkeley City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque said.

Scouts spokesman Bob Bork called the ruling "another in a continuing legal backlash against the Boy Scouts for asserting and winning its constitutional rights in the United States Supreme Court."

The Sea Scouts are a branch of the Boy Scouts that teaches sailing, carpentry and plumbing. City officials had told the group that it could retain its berthing subsidy if it broke ties with the Boy Scouts or disavowed the policy against gays and atheists, but the Sea Scouts refused.

The Sea Scouts pay $500 a month to berth one boat at the Berkeley Marina; the group removed two other boats because it could not afford the rent. The group has about 40 members, down from as many as 100 before the subsidy was removed.

Never fear, blonde one, there's plenty of support still out there...

When I land a job, which won't be too long from now, I plan to support the BSA financially and professionally (as a metal craft merit badge/CPR instructor/anything else they can use) faithfully.

I've had it with the intrusions attempted by this ultra-liberal generation.

When I land a job, which won't be too long from now, I plan to support the BSA financially and professionally (as a metal craft merit badge/CPR instructor/anything else they can use) faithfully.

Our culture is being eroded

btw.. i have nothing against folks who are religious... just those people who use it to discriminate.

btw.. i have nothing against folks who are religious... just those people who use it to discriminate.

not sure how me bouldering at the gunks is white trash but :shrug:

it just really irks me how much PTC trashes gays and lesbians.. if he were coming out here and firing out racial slurs and saying we should go back to slavery more people would see the problem with it. I don't see a difference. How about if he was saying that all Jews should be wiped from the earth? How about aparheid.. that was fun times wasnt it? i'm sure PTC had no problems with oppressing a whole race in S. africa

So.. twisting bible verses to discriminate and take away rights of men and women
vs
Islamic extremists twisting the Koran to justify making war with people they dont like.

if you condone one then you can't fault it when it doesn't work out in your favor

it just really irks me how much PTC trashes gays and lesbians....

It seems like most religions preach hate, so why bother with them?

please name these religions and the specific "hate" they preach.

Deuteronomy 2: 33-36 the Lord our God delivered him into our hands; we killed him with his sons and all his people. We captured all his cities at that time and put to death everyone in the cities, men, women, and dependants; we left no survivor. We took the cattle as booty and plundered the cities we captured.

Deuteronomy 7: 1-2 When the lord your God brings you into the land which you are entering to occupy and drives out many nations before you- Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you- when the Lord your God delivers them into your power and you defeat them, you must put them to death. You must not make a treaty with them or spare them.

Deuteronomy 13: 1-5 When a prophet or dreamer appears among you and offers you a sign or a portent and calls on you to follow other gods... That prophet or dreamer shall be put to death

Deuteronomy 17: 12-13 Anyone who presumes to reject the decision either of the priest who ministers there to the Lord your God, or of the judge, shall die; thus you will rid Israel of wickedness.

THanks, styndall, i heart you!

My favorite bits of violence, murder, rape, hate, and slavery come from the Deuteronomy. I'm sure you'll agree.


And this just with a quick look.

You ever consider that mebbe he's just baiting people and getting a rise outta them?

(Not that I'm sticking up for anyone, nor do I condone any specific behavior, nor should you consider this to be a contract, either expressed or implied.... blah, blah, blah, lawyer speak disclaimer...)

Likewise, many mainstream denominations recommend the "Left Behind" books for their followers, and those, besides being atrocious prose distinctly unworthy of their status as best sellers, are a sort of hateful pornography of self-righteousness, glorying in the death and destruction of millions, so long as those millions are the wrong kinds of people (athiests, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, people who maintain their lawns outside of the specification of their homeowners associations, etc). Yet there is no outrage about this in mainstream Christianity. These people are selling you smug self-righteousness, morally-acceptabe hate, and the religious joy of genocide, and somehow the Christian mainstream eats it with a spoon and begs for more.