As hundreds of Boy Scouts were enjoying summer camp at
Camp Balboa in San Diego last week, the ACLU was handed a U.S. District
Court ruling condemning the Scouts for occupying the camp on leased public
land. Soon, the Scouts could be kicked out of their historic 16-acre camp
and council headquarters building.
With “overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence,” Judge Napoleon
Jones found that the Boy Scouts are a religious organization and they
were given preferential treatment when the City of San Diego first agreed
to let the Boy Scouts utilize public land in Balboa Park nearly nine decades
ago. In 2000, a lesbian couple and an agnostic couple joined with the
ACLU to file the lawsuit against the City of San Diego. They claimed to
feel excluded by the Boy Scouts’ religious policies in particular.
”Belief in God is and always has been central to BSA’s principles and
purposes,” Judge Jones added. ”Adult leaders are expected to reinforce
in Scouts the values of duty to God and reverence.”
If there is “overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence” for the
presence of God in the life of a Boy Scout, there is evidence of a similar
nature for God’s role in the public square on Main Street USA. Religious
mottoes and preambles and texts were not an afterthought to the people
who wrote them. “In God We Trust.” “Endowed by their Creator.”
“One Nation Under God.” The ACLU is working to get rid of those
things too.
The Boy Scouts were a part of Balboa Park way back before the ACLU had
even been hatched from the Communist Party.
After the 1915 San Diego World’s Fair in Balboa Park, the Santa Fe
Railroad donated its Pueblo Indian Village to local Boy Scouts with approval
by the city council. Back then For 25 years, the Scouts used the Indian
Village as a headquarters and recreation site free of charge. During World
War Two, the military took possession of Balboa Park and the Boy Scouts
launched their volunteer campaigns to help the war effort from a makeshift
headquarters in a local theater.
At the end of the war, the San Diego City Council passed a resolution
authorizing the Boy Scouts to take charge of several acres of land in
Balboa Park. Through fundraising and volunteer work, a state-of-the-art
swimming pool and 600-seat outdoor amphitheater were constructed. In 1949,
the Boy Scouts Desert Pacific Council headquarters building was completed.
In 1957, parts of Balboa Park remained undeveloped, so the city council
agreed to transfer additional property to the Boy Scouts for maintenance
and operations. A fifty-year lease was signed with a rental fee of one
dollar per year. With nearly 16 acres of leased land, the Boy Scouts soon
launched Camp Balboa.
Today, Camp Balboa accommodates up to 300 campers at a time, and it offers
a variety of year-round programs. Each year, 12,000 Boy Scouts take part
in day camps, weekend camps, and merit badge classes. According to David
Hodges, field director for the Desert Pacific Boy Scout Council, “The
park is used by everybody. We run this portion of the park. We reserve
it for outside groups and anybody’s welcome to use it. We do all the upkeep
of the property here, and we lease it from the city. All the maintenance,
all the expenses, the landscaping, everything we take care of.”
Groups other than the Boy Scouts utilize Camp Balboa and Balboa Park.
Last week for example, the two-day San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
Pride Festival was held at Balboa Park. The Boy Scouts have spent millions
of dollars developing and maintaining Balboa Park over the years, without
burden to the city and its taxpayers.
Even if San Diego had given preferential treatment to the Boy Scouts,
what harm does that do to society? Once upon a time, working with the
Boy Scouts in city hall was a common courtesy. As of July 31, 2003, such
treatment is viewed by judges like Napoleon Jones as though the city had
given special privileges to the KKK or the Taliban.
The Boy Scouts have contributed to our communities and improved our way
of life. It is ironic that the ACLU is questioning the Scouts for practicing
character and moral virtue on public lands, while the ACLU is occupying
public courthouses around America, pulling down every vestige of decency
in sight.
There is “overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence” that the
ACLU is destroying America, one Boy Scout camp at a time.