(Washington) The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from a Berkeley, California Boy Scouts sailing group that lost free use of a public boat slip because of the Scouts' anti-gay policy.

The court decision allows a ruling by the California Supreme Court upholding Berkeley's decision to stand.

The justices ruled Berkeley could demand that a group receiving subsidies renounce a policy of "invidious discrimination."

"We agree with Berkeley and the court of appeal that a government entity may constitutionally require a recipient of funding or subsidy to provide written, unambiguous assurances of compliance with a generally applicable nondiscrimination policy," Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote for the court.

City officials told the Sea Scouts that the group could retain its berthing subsidy, valued at about $500 monthly per boat, if it broke ties with the Boy Scouts or disavowed the policy against gays and atheists.

Two years ago, the court similarly rejected a Boy Scouts appeal of a case from Connecticut, where officials dropped the group from a list of charities that receive donations from state employees through a payroll deduction plan.

And in Philadelphia, the city is threatening to evict a Boy Scout council from the group's publicly owned headquarters or make the group pay rent unless it changes its policy on gays.

On a separate matter, federal judges in two other court cases that are being appealed have ruled that government aid to the group is unconstitutional because the Boy Scouts of America requires members to swear an oath of duty to God.

Despite the string of legal setbacks, lawyers for the Scouts said they believe the Supreme Court ultimately will decide that governments are improperly denying benefits that they make available to similar organizations.

The Boy Scouts of America convened its national annual leadership meeting in Atlanta on Wednesday amid protests over the group's ban on gays and atheists and ongoing complaints about its local council's service to poor and disadvantaged youth.

A few banner- and placard-bearing critics marched outside the Hyatt Regency in downtown Atlanta, where 2,500 volunteer leaders, council chief executive officers, executive board members and other scouting officials are gathered for the three-day conference.

Activities include discussion of the organization's 2006-10 strategic plan, workshops and major speeches by Frank Page, head of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Thomas W. Dortch Jr., chairman emeritus of 100 Black Men of America, which works on quality-of-life issues, particularly with young African-Americans.

A victims' advocates group, Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), called on Monday for a zero-tolerance policy on sexual abuse within the Southern Baptist church.

Southern Baptist leaders have argued that, due to the lack of a rigid structure within the church, it is impossible to investigate molestation claims across the denomination.

SNAP has suggested the implementation of an independent review board to investigate reports of sexual abuse, but Southern Baptist Convention president Frank Page claims that the SBC does not have the legal authority to do this.

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Christa Brown, who maintains the website Voice to Stop Baptist Predators, feels that the SBC is refusing to see sexual and child abuse as a serious problem. She says on snapnetwork.org: "We are witnesses to truth, and the church needs to confront that truth."

SNAP also feels that the SBC "have shown themselves capable of all manner of cooperative endeavours when they choose", but are deliberately playing down the issue. In the past six months SNAP has received reports of about 40 cases of sexual abuse by Southern Baptist ministers.

Sexual abuse is believed to be rife among the Southern Baptist clergy; according to The Associated Baptist Press , a 2000 report in Texas revealed: "more than 24% of ministers said they had counselled at least one person who had sexual contact with a minister."

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SNAP suspects that many more are too traumatised by their experiences to come forward.

SNAP representative Miguel Prats, 54, was abused by a Catholic priest when he was 18, but did not report the incident until 2001.

Prats told EthicsDaily.com that, although he felt the Catholic church had dealt with sexual abuse poorly, he has received reports that the Southern Baptists have been doing even less to combat the problem.

(Philadelphia, PA)May 31, 2007 – Philadelphia City Council voted today to terminate the 1928 ordinance granting the Boy Scouts’ Cradle of Liberty Council rent-free use of a building in Philadelphia due to its practice of sexual orientation discrimination. The resolution gave the Boy Scouts the option of changing its practice of excluding gay scouts or leaders, or paying fair-market rent for the use of the building.

Philadelphia City Councilman Darrell Clarke introduced the resolution which passed with only one vote opposing the ordinance’s termination. The resolution was based upon the local Boy Scouts’ implementation of the national organizations’ discriminatory policy prohibiting gay people from participating in scouting.

The Cradle of Liberty Council adopted a nondiscrimination policy in 2003 but was ordered to revoke it by the National Council, which said local councils had no right to deviate from national rules that bar participation by anyone who is openly gay.

The Washington State supreme court has forced the Boy Scouts of America to turn over "ineligible volunteer" files that reveal a sexual abuse problem among Scout leaders that is far greater than the organization previously admitted.

Although justices ruled that the files themselves would not be made public, attorneys said the Boy Scouts "have ejected at least 5,100 adult leaders nationwide for sexual abuse allegations since 1946," according to the Seattle Times.

In the past 15 years, the organization has kicked out leaders for abuse allegations at a rate of one every other day.

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The records they obtained show that, as part of the "ineligible volunteer" files, the organization retained information on 1,000 "degenerates." The Stewarts' attorneys counted 732 "degenerate" files from 1946 to 1971 among the 45 boxes of files ordered disclosed by the BSA.

Lumped together as "degenerates" were both volunteers known to be gay and known to be pedophiles.

Jon Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal, told Gay.com that the Boy Scouts of America understood that those two groups had little, if anything, to do with each other.

"Even the organization's literature says it's a myth that gay men are more likely to engage in sexual abuse than straight men," Davidson said. "They never have asserted that (potential pedophilia) is a reason to exclude gay men from the Scouts. They simply insist that gay men don't make good role models."

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Despite the new safeguards, the secrecy in the 97-year-old organization closely mirrors the stonewalling of the Roman Catholic Church, according to David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

"In many institutions, especially those with rigid, clear lines of authority, there is a temptation to obsess over public image and perceived short-term damage from scandal and litigation rather than focusing on real long-term solutions, and the most glaring example of that is the Catholic Church," Clohessy told Gay.com.

The Washington State supreme court has forced the Boy Scouts of America to turn over "ineligible volunteer" files that reveal a sexual abuse problem among Scout leaders that is far greater than the organization previously admitted.

the secrecy in the 97-year-old organization closely mirrors the stonewalling of the Roman Catholic Church