Christine M. Flowers: Finally, a victory in Philadelphia for the Boy Scouts

MAKE NO mistake. The Boy Scouts have won.

Oh, the city will make some noise about how it came to a mutually agreeable deal with the local Cradle of Liberty Council, allowing everyone to save face when, in truth, there's only one face - and it has egg all over it.

That would belong to Billy Penn, the big guy atop City Hall, the representative of our fine city and its litigious mayor and his municipal eagles (the legal ones, not the flock set to crush the Giants on Sunday).

According to a joint news release issued by City Solicitor Shelley Smith and Scouts attorney Sandra Girifalco, the regional council of the Boy Scouts has agreed to pay $500,000 for its headquarters on Logan Square, preventing the city from (1) evicting the group, or (2) forcing it to accept openly gay members, contravening its national charter.

In other words, the Fat Lady wearing the kerchief around her neck has sung.

I'M NOT EXACTLY sure how I feel about this, but I'm guessing it's a lot better than the people who were fueling this crusade against the Scouts.

People like the city lawyers and their aiders and abettors in private practice who steamrolled the eviction case through the state courts, ignoring both Supreme Court precedent and the Scouts' constitutional rights.

Sure, they tried to say that they weren't forcing the private group to violate its charter by accepting homosexuals. But that's exactly what they were doing in refusing to honor an agreement that was entered into eight decades ago before this city decided that the sexual orientation of some politically connected honchos mattered more than helping urban boys navigate dangerous waters of the inner city.

You have to believe that the mayor and his crusading crew aren't as content as they'd like us to believe. Their version of Kumbaya is probably being sung a bit off-key, since - if the city really had its way - the Boy Scouts would have had to repaint their headquarters in rainbow colors.

They also didn't want the higher rent they proposed, despite what some naive observers tried to argue. The City of Brotherly Bankruptcy could have done a lot better by going after tax delinquents, or perhaps trying to recoup the billion dollars in forfeited bonds from fugitives.

So the idea that the $200,000 yearly rental they were seeking from the Boy Scouts (as compared with the token $1 in the decades-old original deal) would make a significant difference is hogwash. (I have other words, but this is a family newspaper.)

The reason the city went after the Scouts was to make a statement. City Hall was using the courts to try to punish a group that had the audacity to demand respect for its constitutionally protected rights, while trying to make everyone believe its opponents were wearing the white hats.

Sorry, Mr. Mayor. It didn't work. The federal courts saw through the ploy, ruling in the Scouts' favor earlier this year.

And faced with a hefty tab for the legal fees the Scouts were forced to incur (almost a million dollars) the city finally cried uncle. (As in, cry "uncle" so you don't have to "ante" up.)

As I said, I'm not sure how to feel about this. Yes, I'm thrilled that the Scouts will now be able to go about their business of helping the kids of this city in peace. But I'm wondering why it had to get to this point. The city had entered into an agreement with the Boy Scouts back in 1920 whereby the Scouts would build, at their own expense, a headquarters on city ground. In exchange, the city would charge a nominal rent of a dollar a year for the "privilege" of letting the group work to support boys, some of whom might otherwise become lost to the streets.

If you ask me, Philadelphia should have paid the Scouts for the construction and upkeep of that magnificent building, as well as for the blood, sweat and tears expended on behalf of city youth.

But then the social revolutionaries came crusading in, trying to make a nondiscriminatory policy passed more than a half-century later retroactive, and putting the Scouts in a dilemma: violate its charter and lose national support (and its right to exist), or pay the $200,000 rental, which, for the Scouts, might as well have been $1 million.

So now everyone is holding hands and smiling, as if they'd just toasted marshmallows at a jamboree.

Well, I'm not buying it. The city couldn't bring the Scouts to heel. And the Scouts were tired of fighting. Because, you see, they'd already won.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer.

E-mail cflowers1961@yahoo.com.