A federal judge, March 21, ruled that Philadelphia must pay $877,000 to the Boy Scouts of America’s Cradle of Liberty Council for its attempt to evict them from an historic building over the Scouts’ policy of discrimination against open homosexuals.
The Cradle of Liberty Council built the building on city-owned land at 22nd and Winter streets in 1929 at the city’s request,
The building, now called the Bruce S. Marks Scout Resource Center, is of the Beaux-Arts style and fits in well with the other notable structures on the nearby Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
It is the Council’s headquarters. The Council — as does many other socially beneficial non-profits — rents the land from the city for $1 per year.
In 2003, then Mayor John Street decided that BSA’s policy of prohibiting openly homosexual people from supervising boys in their early teens violated the city’s anti-discrimination law and ordered them to change it.
The Scouts wouldn’t and when the city realized the Supreme Court had upheld the organization’s right to discriminate on the matter, it took another tack — eviction.
In July 2006, Street ordered the Council to change its policy or leave within a year.
In May 2007, Philadelphia City Council in an unannounced action voted 16-1 to pass Darrell L. Clarke’s bill to terminate the 1928 lease — which had been granted “in perpetuity” — and raise the rent to $200,000 annually.
The Scouts offered to buy the land for $500,000 but the city turned them down cold.
The Scouts sued in 2008 claiming the city was violating its civil rights and in November 2009 U.S. District Court ordered it to stop the eviction attempts being made in the state common pleas court as the new mayor, Michael Nutter, was every bit as in bed with the homosexual activists as Street.
The federal case continued, however, and on June 15, 2010 it went to trial. On June 23, a jury of eight unanimously sided with the Scouts.
And yesterday, justice again prevailed as U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter ruled the city must pay the Scouts legal bills.