The Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act was passed to prevent State and Federal agencies from reducing their support for the Boy Scouts of America (and other youth organizations). The bill was passed in the wake of a number of controversies involving the Boy Scouts of America, such as their exclusion of gays and atheists, and subsequent attempts to limit government support of the organization.
In particular, the bill states that no school receiving Department of Education funds:
shall deny equal access or a fair opportunity to meet to, or discriminate against, any group officially affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, or any other youth group listed in title 36 of the United States Code (as a patriotic society), that wishes to conduct a meeting within that designated open forum or limited public forum, including denying such access or opportunity or discriminating for reasons based on the membership or leadership criteria or oath of allegiance to God and country of the Boy Scouts of America or of the youth group listed in title 36 of the United States Code (as a patriotic society).
The bill was included in the No Child Left Behind Act, which was signed into law on January 8, 2002.
Famous quotes containing the words boy, scouts, america, equal, access and/or act:
“Every boy was supposed to come into the world equipped with a father whose prime function was to be our father and show us how to be men. He can escape us, but we can never escape him. Present or absent, dead or alive, real or imagined, our father is the main man in our masculinity.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“The medieval town, with frieze
Of boy scouts from Nagoya?”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“One can not be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America, like America, love America and then work.”
—Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986)
“It is funny that men who are supposed to be scientific cannot get themselves to realise the basic principle of physics, that action and reaction are equal and opposite, that when you persecute people you always rouse them to be strong and stronger.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)
“To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)