"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:OEc0b.184590$uu5.34852@sccrnsc04...
Would you feel the same way if the BSA had a no blacks or no Jews
policy
rather
than a no gays policy?

Well, Margy, if you are you asking if I would be upset that the Scouts
were
banned from the schools for hypothetically banning Jewish and black
members,
the answer is no. In your example, the Scouts (or any other group)
would
quite deservedly have earned the wrath of the School Board and the Civil
Rights community by arbitrarily banning members based on skin color or
religion.

How about the collegiate groups for blacks, women, Hispanics...? They're
heroes.

Do they exclude members based on race, gender, etc.? And use public-school
facilities to meet?

Look, putting aside the legal question for a moment, there's nothing morally
unreasonable about a group of people organizing around a shared interest or
activity. But it doesn't work to declare every prejudice the group has as a
morally legitimate shared interest; for example, it would be immoral for
your local golf organization to declare that its shared interest is in
playing golf among white people, so that nonwhites can be excluded. In
reality, its shared activity is just playing golf, and the exclusion of
nonwhites would be a shameful prejudice (though legally permitted--as it
should be--if the group is private).

In the same way, if the central activity of the Boy Scouts were to get
together and worship deities, then their exclusion of atheists would be
morally unobjectionable. Or if the Scouts' central activity were to conduct
heterosexual orgies, then their exclusion of gay people would be morally
unobjectionable. But if instead their central activities are things like
tying knots and lighting campfires, and learning about civics and
leadership, then to exclude gays and atheists on the grounds that they're
inherently bad role models (which is the Scouts' official reason for the
exclusion--see their web site) is just as shamefully prejudiced as it would
be for the Scouts to exclude blacks and Jews on the grounds that *they* are
inherently bad role models.

--Gary