Philadelphia Stands Up to Discrimination, AFA Has a Hissy Fit

This is an excerpt from the latest American Family Association e-mail blast:

The city of Philadelphia has decided to punish the Boy Scouts of America because it will not allow homosexuals to serve as Scout Leaders. City officials said they will charge the Cradle of Liberty Scouts Council $200,000 a year to use the city-owned headquarters. The Council was paying $1 per year (since 1928). The city owns the land on which the Council's 1928 Beaux Arts building sits.

The city says it is charging the scouts $200,000 a year because the scouts discriminate against homosexuals. But the city finds nothing wrong with their discrimination against the scouts because of the scouts' belief.

First, kudos to the city of Philadelphia for not subsidizing discrimination. The Boy Scouts (of which I was a member many eons ago) or any private organization has no entitlement to a rent subsidy by a local government. I have no problem if a city decides to give one to an organization considered to benefit the community, which the Boy Scouts does in numerous ways, but a government should NOT subsidize discrimination, also something the Boy Scouts do. It bothers me that the city of Philadelphia let this go on as long as they did, but at least that mistake has been corrected.

The last line of the quote from the AFA just floors me. They twist this action of not funding discrimination by the city of Philadelphia into a form of discrimination itself. Sadly, this is just another example of the warped sense of reality leaders of the religious right have acquired. Also, this was not a snap decision as AFA's e-mail would imply. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, there have been discussions going on between the city and the Boy Scout chapter since May.

Taking a stand against an organization because they exclude a group of people from their activities is not discrimination--it's taking an admirable moral position and standing up for equality for ALL people. The Scouts have won their legal right to discriminate in a 2000 Supreme Court decision, but they do not have the right to have it supported by taxpayers.