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NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 22, 2004
CONTACT: Diane Gramley 1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355

PHILADELPHIA SCOUT COUNCIL -- "COMPLY OR PACK UP"

(Philadelphia) -- The attacks on the third largest Scout Council in the nation continues as homosexual special rights groups try to force their will on 87,000 boys and their leaders. Today in a faxed statement to Philadelphia Mayor John Street, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a traditional values group asked the mayor to come to the defense of the local Boy Scout Council. The Cradle of Liberty Scout Council is on the verge of being forced from their headquarters. They have been permitted to use the half-acre property rent-free since 1928 when the City Council passed a resolution allowing such action.

The statement says in part: "The U.S. Supreme Court has found that as a private organization the Scouts have a right to prohibit open homosexuals from being leaders. Parents of Girl Scouts would not want a male Girl Scout leader! This is the same type situation -- forcing the Scouts to accept men who are sexually attracted to males is not in the best interest of the scouts or their safety."

The Scouts have been pressured to comply with the Philadelphia Fair Practices Ordinance which includes the words 'sexual orientation'. In 2002 the words 'gender identity' were also added. Mysteriously it was not discovered until July 2003 that the Cradle of Liberty's prohibition of open homosexuals as Scout leaders was in non-compliance with the Fair Practices Ordinance. For thirteen years after passage of the ordinance, the Boy Scouts operated in the City without anyone discovering their lack of compliance?

"Apparently this is all part of a strategy by homosexual special rights groups -- pressure Scout supporters such as Pew Charitable Trust and the United Way of Southeastern PA to remove funding and now 'discover' a way to force them from their headquarters," Diane Gramley president of the AFA of PA commented.

These organizations do not have the well-being of the Scouts in mind, but intend to use them as political pawns to further their agenda. Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things, said in an April 19, 2002 New York Times article,

"The overwhelming majority of the sexual abuse cases involve adult men having sex with teenage boys and young men, and by ordinary English usage we call that a homosexual relationship. So there's no blinking regarding that fact.”

"Homosexualities," a Simon and Schuster book by Alan Bell, reports that 25 percent of homosexual men admit to having had sex with boys who are 16 or under.

A survey of readers by "The Advocate," a homosexual newsmagazine, showed that of the 2,500 respondents, 21 percent admitted that an adult man committed a sexual act with them by the age they were 15.

Gramley continued, "It is our hope that the incoming City Solicitor Pedro Ramos will not be as easily persuaded that Philadelphia must force the Scouts from their headquarters of three-quarters of a century. The Scout Council's has the best interest and safety of these young men in mind. Their rights as a private organization should not be infringed and the safety of the Scouts must not be compromised."

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