Philly Jacks Up Scouts' Rent Over Gay Ban

The city of Philadelphia has decided that its local Boy Scouts chapter must pay fair-market rent of $200,000 a year for its city-owned headquarters because it refuses to permit gay Scouts.

City officials say they cannot legally rent taxpayer-owned property for a nominal sum to a private organization that discriminates. The city owns the land on which the 1928 Beaux Arts building sits.

The organization's Cradle of Liberty Council, which currently pays $1 a year in rent, must pay the increased amount to remain in its downtown building past May 31, Fairmount Park Commission president Robert N.C. Nix said Wednesday.

Scouting officials will ask the city solicitor for details on the appraisals that yielded the $200,000 figure, said Jeff Jubelirer, spokesman for the Cradle of Liberty Council.

The higher rent money "would have to come from programs. That's 30 new Cub Scout packs, or 800 needy kids going to our summer camp," Jubelirer said. "It's disappointing, and it's certainly a threat."

CBS3 in Philadelphia reported the final step by the City Council to have the Scouts' lease terminated came in June this year, when it passed a resolution - 16 votes to one - that the decades-old organization would either have to reverse its stance on gays, or face a rent hike.

City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. told CBS3 during the summer that the resolution was needed to end the Scouts' lease, which dated back to a 1928 ordinance granting them occupancy on the land in perpetuity.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that Scouts, as a private group, have a First Amendment right to bar gays from membership.