Philly Rocks the Cradle of Liberty

Eight days shy of the eviction deadline imposed by the city of Philadelphia, the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scout Council is striking back. On Friday, Scout officials filed suit in federal court to end a longstanding struggle with the city over a building that the council built and has occupied since 1928 for $1 a year. In a public war over the Scouts’ membership policy which bars homosexuals from joining, Philadelphia’s leaders have threatened to pull the rug out from under the Cradle’s headquarters.

City officials say their demands are entirely justifiable under a 26-year-old city ordinance that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. As Philly’s mayor sees it, the Scouts have three choices. They can vacate the premises by May 31, open their doors to gay members and staff, or pay $200,000 in annual rent.

Cradle of Liberty elected the fourth option–suing for their right to privately assemble on public property as other organizations have done without reproach. The city’s demands would be somewhat understandable in a politically correct environment had it not welcomed other religious and civic groups to use Philly facilities at minimal charge. The Scouts will argue–and rightly so–that have been unfairly targeted for eviction.

Considering that the Cradle of Liberty spent $1.5 million renovating the space in the mid-’90s and pays about $60,000 a year in upkeep, it would be in the city’s best interest to maintain the tenancy. Philadelphia has also benefited from 80 years of the Scouts’ influence on young boys in a city where gangs and violence rates soar. It’s incredibly ironic that the city is begging for million of state dollars to combat urban problems, while at the same time trying to force out one of the greatest crime deterrents in all of Philadelphia–a character-building youth program that serves 70,000 boys.

The focus may rest squarely on the City of Brotherly Love now, but the case has national implications for religious freedom. If the city is successful in bringing the Scouts to their knees, other towns will be emboldened to do the same. But if the Cradle of Liberty prevails, fewer people will be willing to challenge the Scouts’ rights to adhere to a traditional moral code.

Senate Democrats Continue to Obstruct Appointments to the Federal Judiciary

The clock is ticking on the deal that Democrats and Republicans have struck over the President’s judicial nominees, which calls for three appeals courts nominees to be approved by Memorial Day.

For the past 16 months Senate Democrats have been on a course of approving a record-low number of nominees in the final two years of a President’s term. Now they appear to have maneuvered the White House into agreeing to a compromise where two of the three nominees in the deal would, in fact, be the Democrats’ own picks. One of them, Helene White, is Sen. Carl Levin’s (D-Mich.) “cousin-in-law,” whose nomination to the bench was blocked by Republicans more than a decade ago. Determined to move her forward, Levin blocked four nominees for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals until the President agreed to nominate White.

Now Sen. Levin wishes to count White toward the three-judge target by Memorial Day. Because the Sixth Circuit would still have a small Republican-nominated majority even with the addition of White and another nominee President Bush actually wants, Levin can posture, as he did to the New York Times yesterday, that it would “not be appropriate” to take the political balance of the Sixth Circuit into consideration. GOP senators on the Judiciary Committee respond that the Memorial Day compromise lets the obstructing Senate majority approve two Democratic choices and leave a long list of Presidential nominees waiting in a limbo that has lingered for years.

The whole process is a spectacle unworthy of the Senate. Judicial choices will always matter, but that they matter so much is a result of the fact that judges now routinely legislate from the bench. Our founders did not want a partisan judiciary. We have one, and it’s high time our timorous politicians emerge from behind the black robes of policy-making judges and reclaim their legislative authority, even if that means having to vote on tough issues they would rather kick over to the unelected branch.