Philly Boots Scouts Over Gays

Philadelphia will evict the Boy Scouts from a municipal building known as the group’s birthplace, citing its exclusion of gay members, the New York Times reports. The city requires renters to put nondiscriminatory language into leases; the BSA has fought the stipulation at the building where it's held the $1-a-year lease since 1928. A deadline passed this week; eviction is set for June 1.

A 2000 Supreme Court decision affirmed the Boy Scouts' right as a private group to reject homosexual members, but Philly won’t make its citizens subsidize it. The city council pegs the yearly rent for the iconic Center City building at $200,000; the Scouts say a summer camp for 800 needy children would be the casualty if they chose to pay the hike. (More Boy Scouts of America stories.)