Gay ban may cost Philadelphia Boy Scouts

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- The rent the Boy Scouts pay for their Philadelphia headquarters may increase from $1 a year to $200,000 because of the group's ban on gays.

Officials say that the city cannot subsidize rent for groups that engage in discrimination, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. That would force the Cradle of Liberty Council of the Boy Scouts of America to pay market-rate rent for the space it occupies in a historic city-owned building.

Robert Nix, chairman of the Fairmount Park Commission, said that the Boy Scouts were told Thursday, after five months of negotiations, that the rent would go up.

"Once we know what the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts want to do, we'll probably want to weigh in with the city about how to proceed," Nix said at a commission meeting.

Jeff Jubelirer, a spokesman for the Cradle of Liberty Council, said that if the rent goes up the Boy Scouts will have to take the money from programs, with $200,000 the equivalent of "30 new Cub Scout packs, or 800 needy kids going to our summer camp." He said the Boy Scouts will ask for information on how the city arrived at $200,000 as the fair-market rent.