Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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"Fighting injustice, one victory at a time."
It wasn't a sure thing, after all. Preserving the victory took foresight, planning, strategy and effort. In the end, the Alton City Council voted to take away the $10,000 grant from the Boy Scouts, but it wasn't a done deal until all of the votes were counted.
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I first told you in the April 14th edition of LN&C about the plan of the City of Alton, Illinois, to give $10,000 to the Boy Scouts to run a youth education program that illegally would be open to only those Alton residents who are religious heterosexuals, despite the fact that the program would be subsidized by tax dollars. After receiving a complaint from RS Advocacy, Alton officials promptly promised to withdraw the offer, as reported in the May 7th edition of LN&C.
I've been around the civil rights game for decades, so I know that a promise by government doesn't mean anything until the votes are cast. The vote was scheduled to be cast last week on Monday, May 12th, at a budget meeting of the Alton Committee of the Whole, so I followed up to make sure that it actually happened.
The only thing that Ronald Reagan ever said that I agree with is, "Trust, but verify." On the morning of May 12th, I contacted the City Clerk in Alton to verify that the proposal to give BSA ten thousand tax dollars actually had been removed from the proposed budget. The Clerk informed me that, in fact, the proposal had not been removed from the proposed budget. The $10,000 for BSA was still in the proposed budget.
I then contacted the Budget Director to find out what the deal was. She told me that they, indeed, hadn't removed the ten thousand dollar line item, but that an amendment would be offered at the budget hearing, that evening, to revoke the $10,000 from the Boy Scouts and, instead, give it to Learning for Life.
I thanked her for the information and immediately headed down Interstate 55 from my office in the Chicago area to Alton, which is a little more than 300 miles away and just north of St. Louis, MO, to attend the Committee meeting. The City Council could easily decide, at the last minute, to ask if anyone in the audience objected to Scouting getting the ten thousand and, hearing no objection, decide to not offer the amendment and let Boy Scouts get the $10,000 after all.
Jim Senyszyn also went. He lives in Peoria, which is about 150 miles from Alton. Jim used to be the Illinois State Director of American Atheists, but gave up on them because all they do is party and protest. They rarely actually get involved in state/church separation battles. They merely complain about injustices without ever actually doing anything about them, other than issuing empty threats in news releases which are ignored by everybody. The news releases make them feel good, but the releases never actually effect change in public policy.
Jim and I made our presence known at the City Council meeting by introducing ourselves to the key players just before the meeting started. That way, they would know that we were present to object if the amendment were to not be offered. We would be holding them accountable for keeping the promises that they had made to me.
When Item Eleven, the Community Development Block Grant ("CDBG") allocations came up for a vote, one alderman offered two amendments. One of the amendments deleted the $10,000 line item for the Boy Scouts and added a line item giving the same amount of money to Learning for Life. The other amendment was in regards to a different matter.
Both amendments were voted on and approved. However, if Jim and I hadn't gone there, there's no way of knowing whether the BSA amendment would have actually been offered, so the trip was necessary and worth it. It got the results that we wanted.
After the amendments were agreed to, the CDBG allocations were approved, as amended.
We didn't object to Learning for Life getting the money for the following reasons:
1) L4L is non-discriminatory, even though it is a BSA operation. The way they make it non-discriminatory is by classifying those involved in L4L programs as "participants" who are not members of Boy Scouts of America. Therefore, there is no religious test for boys, no sexual orientation test for boys or adults, no Declaration of Religious Principles requirement for adult leaders, no Boy Scout Oath and no Boy Scout law. The Explorer program was made part of L4L in 1998 as a direct result of my lawsuit in 1997, so now Explorers is a part of non-discriminatory L4L.
2) By having atheists and gays in L4L programs such as Explorers, and by having them participate successfully in those programs, it proves that the Boy Scouts policy of No Atheists or Gays Allowed in their membership program is baseless, un-American, unethical, immoral bigotry. It also demonstrates that the time has come for all BSA programs to either move to "participant" status or to eliminate the bigoted discrimination against those who are not religious heterosexuals. Keep in mind that the programs haven't changed one iota. The only thing that's changed is the artificial status of those who are involved the programs. Before, they were Scouts. Now, they are participants. Same program. Just a different label.
Rob Sherman Advocacy was successful in closing the deal to exclude Boy Scouts from public funds that they were not eligible for on account of discrimination. RS Advocacy was successful because RS Advocacy got involved, had the knowledge to select the right strategy, successfully implemented the winning strategy and saw the process through to conclusion. These things cost money, such as the transportation costs, telephone costs and the cost of computers, so I hope you will reconsider and make this the time that you choose to help cover the financial costs associated with these types of efforts. To participate in helping to cover the cost of these types of endeavors, see the contact information, below.
The Alton Telegraph carried a story about the latest RS Advocacy victory in the May 13th edition of their newspaper. Click on the article for a larger, legible image that you'll be able to read.
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Rob Sherman P. O. Box
7410
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
A post office box is used
because
the street address uses a curb mail box,
which is not secure.
Telephone: (847) 870-0700
Fax: (847) 870-1156
E-mail: rob followed by the at symbol followed by robsherman dot com