In an April 14 ruling, U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones, Jr., found the Boy Scouts of America’s Fiesta Island lease to be “discriminatory” and unconstitutional. Jones’ ruling brings an end to the local trial involving the Boy Scouts, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and the City of San Diego.

In a ruling last summer, Jones decided in favor of the ACLU and its clients, an agnostic couple and a lesbian couple, who were suing the city over a subsidized lease to the Boy Scouts that allowed the private organization to rent land in Balboa Park for just $1. Jones then ruled that the lease was unconstitutional, and declared that the city’s action was an implicit endorsement of the Scouts’ “inherently religious programs and practices.”

At that time Jones said that he would await further arguments regarding a similar lease with the Scouts over land on Fiesta Island in Mission Bay. The Scouts have leased the half-acre Fiesta Island property since 1987 at no charge, and over the course of the past 17 years have spent $2 million to build an aquatics center as well as paying operating and maintenance costs.

In his decision, Jones said the city has shown preferential treatment to the Boy Scouts, “an admittedly religious, albeit nonsectarian, and discriminatory organization,” because it had negotiated exclusively with the Scouts for the lease of the aquatics center as well as the land in Balboa Park. He said the city had failed to inform the public that the property was available for lease and invite bids from others.

The ACLU has represented groups protesting the Boy Scouts’ subsidized deals locally, and in other similar cases nationally, on the grounds that the Boy Scouts are a private organization that openly discriminates against gays and lesbians, and atheists, among others.

“Today, our clients, and all people who care about equality, have been vindicated,” said ACLU volunteer attorney M.E. Stephens of the Stock Stephens law firm, in a news release. “After a lengthy process, the court has ruled that the City of San Diego cannot make our clients second-class citizens by providing public benefits to a discriminatory organization that excludes them. Now, all San Diegans can freely and equally enjoy all of San Diego’s beautiful public parks.”

Earlier this year, the city council voted to abandon the lease and settle with the ACLU over the lawsuit, but the Boy Scouts pressed on with the case, claiming a right to the land in both Balboa Park and on Fiesta Island. Now, the court’s decision has triggered a clause in the Scout’s Balboa Park lease with the City of San Diego that provides for the termination of the lease. Under the terms of the settlement with the ACLU and its clients, the city must now send the Scouts an official letter, notifying them of the termination of their lease.

Boy Scouts representatives have already gone on record saying that they will appeal the rulings on Fiesta Island and Balboa Park.

“We feel very confident that we will be vindicated on appeal,” Merrilee Boyack, a spokesperson for the Scouts, told the Associated Press. “We believe it’s obvious to everyone that the Boy Scouts are not a church or a religion.”

Last month, the local case against the Boy Scouts took on a national angle when the U.S. Justice Department tried to intercede in the case on behalf of the Scouts by filing a friend-of-the-court brief, but Jones dismissed the brief saying the Scouts were adequately represented in San Diego and do not require the government’s assistance. The Justice Department argued that in ruling against them, the Scouts’ First Amendment rights to freedom of religion, and their right to discriminate, were being denied.

Stephens responded to that argument in a phone interview with the Gay & Lesbian Times, saying, “We’ve been pointing out, and Judge Jones agreed, that while that may be true in a private setting, you don’t have the right to feed at the public trough to get a public subsidy to carry out your discrimination.”

When the Scouts do appeal the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court, this will most likely be the foundation for their case, and the effects could reach well beyond the Scouts issues.

“I think, at least from the Department of Justice and the President’s standpoint, I think they do have a political agenda that they are trying to insert themselves into the litigation,” Stephens said of the Justice Department’s attempt to enter the case. “I obviously couldn’t have the faintest idea what President Bush is thinking, but you know it seems to me that he is trying to press and protect his faith-based initiatives ideas.”