Berkeley makes its own laws in order to castigate those it disagrees with
From WorldNetDaily...
The Sea Scouts are a public service organization serving area youth by teaching them sailing skills, as well as carpentry and plumbing. Their parent organization, the BSA, has a prohibition on homosexuals and atheists in positions of leadership....
The city [of Berkeley, Calif.,] provides free berthing privileges to other nonprofit groups at a city marina, but withdrew that privilege from the Scouts, so it now costs them about $6,000 a year for services other non-profits get without charge....
It was the Supreme Court's "Boy Scouts of America v. Dale" in which the high court recognized the Scout's policy as an exercise of expressive association protected by the First Amendment.
However, the city of Berkeley said it would not be bound by that, and it would require that the Sea Scouts "repudiate" the association with BSA. When the Sea Scouts failed to meet that demand, the city decided it wouldn't treat the Scouts as it does other groups.
If there was any, this would be a clear case where the defendant (the lunkheads in Berkeley) would need to pay the legal costs of the plaintiff. Which makes me wonder if that would be prohibited under the new law being proposed to curb the ACLU's penchant for using the courts to extort money form groups who will not follow its anti-Christian agenda. There's an obvious precedent that Berkeley is ignoring simply so they can harass a group they disagree with.
That's the problem when a group of lawyers without an semblance of morals (the ACLU) decide to abuse the law for their own benefit. Trying to create laws to prevent them from continuing the abuse can become a land mine for other people who have a legitimate need for the very avenues the ACLU exploits. I'm not arguing against the effort to prevent the ACLU from its practice of extortion—it needs to be stopped—but pointing out how really difficult the solution will eventually be.
Posted by Danny Carlton at October 9, 2006 6:47 AM