San Diego Ends Fight for Boy Scouts

The city of San Diego, California, has been locked in a legal battle with the ACLU over a generous lease which the Boy Scouts has with the city for the use of a park. The ACLU has been fighting to get the lease ended and, along with it, the preferential treatment being given to that organization. Now San Diego has agreed to abide by a federal judge's ruling that the lease is unconstitutional.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The council won't appeal a federal judge's ruling that the city's lease with the Boy Scouts for a prime spot in Balboa Park is unconstitutional. The city also will pay $790,000 to the ACLU for legal fees and $160,000 in court costs. ... "San Diego has finally taken itself out of the business of endorsing the exclusion of many of its residents from their own parks," ACLU legal director Jordan Budd said. "The end result is a victory for every San Diegan who cares about tolerance and equality."

This doesn't mean that the legal battle is over because the Boy Scouts has stated that they will fight on - and the federal government has indicated an interest in siding with them in this case. Whenever government bodies engage in preferential treatment for discriminatory and bigoted organizations, those bodies communicate to citizens that despite what the law says, not everyone is really considered equal and some are considered more important and more worthy of consideration than others. It is the job of the government to do the opposite - which is to say, it is the job of the government to promote equality, both in word and in deed, over discrimination.

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