On Thu, 12 Aug 1999, Ian Goddard wrote:
> The New Jersey Supreme Court says the Boy Scouts must accept gays
> as leaders or else. [...] this theory is at odds with the free
> society.
>
> But liberty also means the right to exclude because property
> owners decide questions of access.
> All property is owned by someone. Either it is owned by
> private individuals or it is owned by the government.
> It makes sense that the owner is also in control.
What about an organization that is partly funded by subsidies, like the BSA? With, say, 5% of the population being gay and 30% of the income of the BSA coming from subsidies, that would make gay people 1.5% owner of the BSA -- something to think about.
> That is why libertarians must seek to do more than
> reverse the most recent attack on the Boy Scouts. They
> should seek to undo the long legal history of government
> intervention into private affairs that made the Boy
> Scout case inevitable.
Your above statement about libertarianism sounds a bit like the leftish dribble we all hear to often. Nice in principle but totally unrealistic and with very serious consequences.
Btw, here (the Netherlands) the scouts organization has the
promotion of tolerance pretty high on it's agenda. Being a
scouts leader myself I even try to make it clear to the kids
that tolerance of intolerance is also part of the picture,
but that's too difficult to grasp for most 11 year-olds :)
regards,
Rik
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