The Village of Castleton in New York charters a Boy Scout troop and has been told that this opens them to a lawsuit because they shouldn't be sponsoring a group that discriminates on the basis of religion or sexuality. Government is supposed to encourage equality, after all, but the politicians are adamant that they will continue to send messages of exclusion, prejudice, and bigotry.
The Independent reports:
While scouts have a court-upheld right to set their own membership requirements, the ACLU took issue with public agencies or schools chartering a group with religious requirements, said Ed Yohnka, director of communications for the ACLU's Illinois chapter... The oath discriminates against children who don't want to swear to it, whose religious faith does not allow them to swear public religious oaths, and who are not raised with a religious background, said Mr. Yohnka. "You're essentially conditioning participation in a government-sponsored program on whether a child will swear an oath of allegiance to God," Mr. Yohnka said.
Changing from a public to a private sponsor rarely, if ever, affects how Boy Scout troops operate. They typically keep meeting in the same places and have the same leaders. The real change is that the state no longer sends the message that it approves of such organizations' bigotry and discrimination.
It must be remembered, then, that supporters of public charters are defending exactly this and nothing else. They want the government to take their side on the question of whether gays and atheists should be considered equal citizens and the public sponsorship of the Boy Scouts as a symbolic way of doing that.
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It looks like the city decided to obey the constitution, because Troop 53 is now chartered by the Castleton Kiwanis Club.