Homosexuals activists oppose Scout lease

An Orange County, Calif., homosexual group is planning to oppose a 30-year lease extension request made by a local Boy Scouts chapter that would allow the Scouts to continue to use a marine education and recreation facility they have leased free of charge since the 1930s.

Members of the Orange County Federation of Lesbian, Gay and AIDS Support Organizations, along with the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center of Orange County, have been alerted to the proposed lease extension by a Los Angeles-area attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, according to documentation obtained by WorldNetDaily.

The document said the Orange County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to decide whether to approve the new 30-year lease extension Sept. 19. The request is being made by the Orange County Council of Boy Scouts of America for the renovation and expansion of the Scout Sea Base in lower Newport Bay.

A spokesman for the Board of Supervisors confirmed the Boy Scouts' request.

The spokesman, however, said the lease extension proposal -- listed as "Item 13" on the board's meeting agenda -- had been pushed back a week from Sept. 19 to Sept. 26.

Repeated phone calls to various supervisors' offices, as well as calls to Orange County's public facilities department to explain why the agenda was changed, went unanswered. Also, a spokesman for the Boy Scouts Sea Base told WorldNetDaily he was unaware of the planned protest or the changes to the board's agenda.

According to the document, the lease extension issue was listed on the board's "consent calendar" -- meaning that the supervisors did not anticipate any problems in approving the Boy Scouts' request.

However, the board may no longer have that sentiment, as the one-week delay in hearing or approving the proposal may suggest.

At issue is the rent-free status of the lease and the homosexual activist groups' opposition to letting the Boy Scouts continue to lease the sea base free of charge while being permitted to exclude homosexual members from its ranks.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, as a private organization, the BSA had a right to exclude openly homosexual scoutmasters and members from joining the organization.

"The decision [to grant the 30-year lease extension] raises issues about whether or not a group that discriminates against people based on their sexual orientation should continue to receive 'freebies,'" said the alert document obtained by WorldNetDaily. The alert also provides the Board of Supervisors' meeting time, date, location and the names of the supervisors, along with a contact phone number.

The current lease on the sea base expires in 2009 but, in order to fully benefit from proposed $3.5 million renovation improvements, the local Scout group has requested an additional three decades of lease time.

The facility offers a range of boating activities for youth groups, including kayaking and canoeing. Also based there is the tall ship Argus, a genuine oceangoing replica of a centuries-old sailing ship originally built in 1905.

With the exception of the Argus, all programs at the sea base are open to other organized youth groups in Orange County.

Since the Supreme Court's decision, a number of U.S. corporations and homosexual activist groups have targeted the Boy Scouts. Some corporations have decided to withhold funding from the youth group while activists have gone as far as attempting to convince Congress to revoke the Boy Scouts' charter.

A vote on the floor of the House earlier this week to revoke that charter failed overwhelmingly.

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