Several years ago the Boy Scouts won a lawsuit by establishing that they are a private organization entitled to discriminate in their membership. The obvious fallout of such a win is that as a private, discriminatory organization they are no longer entitled to governmental perks like funding. The government can no more fund the Boy Scouts then they can a Church or a Klan.
However, the Boy Scouts, used to decades of government preference, don’t like their welfare checks being cut. They avoid becoming a responsible private organization and instead choose to lobby politicians to continue their welfare. Activist politicians in turn have little need for pesky things like American principles and waste no effort criticizing the patriots who want the Boy Scouts to live up to their claims as being a private organization. Today the Senate amended the Defense Department Appropriations bill to state that “Boy Scouts should be treated the same as other national youth organizations.”
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, a former Boy Scout who sponsored the Senate provision, said it is necessary to push back on a spate of lawsuits to limit Boy Scout activities on government property.
Unfortunately for power hungry Frist, congressional activists do not have the power to destroy the First Amendment in an appropriations bill. But Frist apparently doen’t care too much about the Boy Scouts or our troops since he is delaying the appropriations bill because the White House doesn’t like the provision that say that they can’t torture prisoners. (Hmm, I wonder why the AP didn’t feel fit to include that in their Boys Scout report.)
Heck, maybe Frist can combine his interests and require the military to train the Boy Scouts in torture techniques.
