10/9 Scouting for All Rally in San Diego

From: "Mike H." <mikewestcoast at yahoo.com>


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Howard Menzer
Eagle Scout and Southwestern Regional Director for
Scouting for All
(858) 268-2853

Eagle Scouts and Community Leaders to Speak at San
Diego Scouting for All Rally

SAN DIEGO, CA - Sept. 19, 2005 - Scouting for All
(SFA) will hold its sixth annual rally to protest the
Boy Scouts of America's (BSA) membership policies,
which exclude gay and atheist youth and adult leaders.
The rally will take place in front of the Boy Scouts’
Balboa Park headquarters at 1207 Upas Street on
Sunday, Oct. 9, at 11 a.m.

After a kickoff performance by the San Diego Women's
Chorus, local Eagle Scouts and San Diego community
leaders will share their views on the BSA’s current
policies of exclusion. Howard Menzer, Eagle Scout and
southwestern regional director for Scouting for All
will emcee the event. The speaker lineup includes:

• Ernie McCray, retired school principal
• Pat Washington, PhD, scholar-activist
• Mick Rabin, school teacher, Eagle Scout
• Brenda Watson, transgender Eagle Scout
• Jennifer Schumaker, lesbian “soccer mom” and
journalist
• Bob Leyh, Eagle Scout
• Rev. Keith Ramsey, minister
• Benny Cartwright, SDSU LGBT resource center director
• Allen Acevedo, high school student, president of his
school’s Gay Straight Alliance

"While the BSA should represent the very best in us as
a nation, it now represents the very worst in us as a
society—discrimination, and bigotry,” says Scott
Cozza, co-founder of SFA. “The BSA hurts straight, gay
and atheist kids through its harmful message of
exclusion."
The City of San Diego has a standing 1990 ordinance
that forbids the City to do business with
organizations that discriminate. In April 2004, U.S.
District Judge Napoleon Jones Jr. ruled against the
Boy Scouts on all issues in the city lease case
(Barnes-Wallace v. Boy Scouts), including the BSA camp
in Balboa Park and the BSA Fiesta Island facility in
Pacific Beach. Yet, as of today, the Boy Scouts still
use both facilities and have not vacated either
property.

The rally, which typically attracts more than 200
protestors, will continue every year until the BSA
changes its membership policies to include gays and
atheists. For more information, visit
http://www.sdscoutingforall.org/ralyanc.html, or contact
Menzer at 858-268-2853 or howmen [at] sbcglobal.net.

###

About Scouting for All
Founded in 1997, Scouting for All is a nonprofit
501(c)(3) organization that advocates the restoration
of the traditionally unbiased values of Scouting as
expressed and embodied in the Scout Oath and the Scout
Law. The group seeks to influence the Boy Scouts of
America to serve and include as participating members
all youth and adult leaders, regardless of their
spiritual belief, gender or sexual orientation. To
learn more, please visit http://www.sdscoutingforall.org.