Anti-gay policy to cost Philly scouts $200,000

Refusing to disavow the Boy Scouts of America ban on gays will cost its local branch $200,000 a year if it wants to keep its headquarters in a building owned by the city. The Cradle of Liberty Council, the third-largest scouting group in the country has been battling with the city for more than three years over the anti-gay policy which violates Philadelphia's human rights ordinance. The group has made its headquarters on a half-acre owned by the city in the upscale Philadelphia Art Museum area since 1928, when the city council voted to allow the Scouts to use the property rent-free "in perpetuity." The Scouts pay for building upkeep. This week Fairmount Park Commission president Robert N.C. Nix said that the scouts have refused to compromise and the commission has informed the Cradle of Liberty Council it will have to pay full market value for use of the facility. If it is unwilling to pay, Nix said, the scouts would have to leave at the end of May. Scouting officials say they will ask the city solicitor for details on the appraisals that yielded the $200,000 figure, Jeff Jubelirer, a spokesperson for the Cradle of Liberty Council tells the Associated Press that the rent "would have to come from programs." "That's 30 new Cub Scout packs, or 800 needy kids going to our summer camp," Jubelirer said. "It's disappointing, and it's certainly a threat." The Cradle of Liberty Council has about 64,000 members in Philadelphia and parts of Delaware and Montgomery Counties. The Boy Scouts of America's policy on gay leaders was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2000. In 2003, the council in Philadelphia said it would adopt a nondiscrimination policy on gays. However, weeks later the group dismissed an 18-year-old Scout who publicly acknowledged he was gay. Since then the council has refused to reconsider the ban. City officials say it would be illegal to provide a taxpayer-owned property rent-free to a private organization that discriminates.