But now they're getting hammered by Christian groups! Who would have expected that? Christians are banning their young girls from joining GSA, and the ringleader of this is the Roman Catholic Church itself.
The reason should be obvious: GSA has ties to Planned Parenthood, which provides resources on sex education to teens around the world. Yes, it's true. Girl Scouts of America is educating teen girls about their bodies! Can you imagine?
I should at least give the Roman Catholic Church credit for consistency. Their stance on abortion is unbending, and Planned Parenthood does provide abortions. I may vehemently disagree with the Church's moral position on abortion, but I can't blame them for enforcing it.
But other Christian groups are really going nuts. They have all sorts of crazy> reasons for shunning GSA:
- They allow girls to say "Allah" or "my faith" instead of "God." (Apparently only the Christian god is allowed.)
- GSA advocates economic parity for working men and women. (Girls, it seems, should stay at home and raise babies.)
- GSA uses a book that advocates environmentalism and suggests that girls get involved in environmental issues. (The book uses the phrase "raise our voices," something that girls shouldn't do. And we all know global warming is a left-wing anti-Christian plot.)
- GSA teaches girls to think for themselves on moral issues. (You're supposed to just accept Christian morality without thinking, especially if you're a girl.)
- Billy Jean King: tennis champion and lesbian.
- Frances Perkins: U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945; helped write New Deal legislation including minimum-wage laws; "allegedly" had lesbian relationship.
- Rachel Carson: marine biologist and author of Silent Spring; one of the most influential books in the history of the environmental movement; largely responsible for the ban on DDT and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency; "reportedly" a lesbian.
- Martina Narvratilova: Tennis champion; 2000 recipient of National Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign; a lesbian.
- Bette Midler: singer and actress; advocate for gay-lesbian rights.
- Shirley Chisholm: U.S. Representative from 1969 to 1983; first major-party black candidate for President of the United States; advocate for homosexual rights.
So will I still be able to buy my favorite Girl Scout cookies? Between the atheists and agnostics on the left, and the Catholics and Baptists on the right, are there any girls left who can actually join the Girl Scouts and learn to be modern, empowered American citizens?
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Poor kids, caught up in adult insanity.
ReplyDeleteJust so you know, the Boy Scouts, while intolerant in other ways, share the GSA's religious semi-tolerance towards any theistic religion. They even have awards for many different faiths, including Buddhism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Awards/ReligiousAwards/chart.aspx
I am a Catholic Girl Scout leader. We have a troop at our church and our diocese maintains a Catholic Committee on Girl Scouting. We believe in God and we follow the girl scout promise and law. We do service projects for our church and our community. We attend mass together and we pray together as well. The Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council do not have any affiliation with Planned Parenthood. There is a letter on the St. Louis Diocese that talks about different rumors. It appears that the rumors are continuing as uninformed people will continue to spread.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to take the most extreme cases and pretend that they speak for the general population which speaks to a prejudice on the part of the writer. It's always a mistake to generalize based on one article or one rumor. I of course own my own prejudice against bad writers that spread unfounded rumors.
DeleteThank you for the good service that you are doing for young ladies in your Diocese.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI've done some searching and cannot come up with any releases by either the GSA or Catholic organizations to verify this.
Just an internet rumor? Or if not could you link to some documentation?
thanks,
Try their affliate link: http://www.praypub.org/partner_gsusa.htm
DeleteUh, except for the fact that Girl Scouts DOESN'T discriminate against any of those...or gays, either. If individual troops are doing so, they are violating national policy. I know this as an atheist who was a leader for more than 20 years.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's Girl Scouts of the USA, not Girl Scouts of America. Boy Scouts claimed the Scouts of America suffix some years ago as part of their trademark. Girl Scouts was forced to change their name.
As to educating girls about their bodies, yes, some troops do do that. However, leaders must send home information on anything like that and have signed dated permission slips before a girl can attend. So any family that doesn't want their daughter to attend can opt out easily. (Hell, we even have to have permission slips from parents to provide supplies and information if a girl should start her first period while on a camping trip.)
Who cares about this? If people that don't believe in abortion want to stop participating in Girl Scouts then who really gives a crap? It's interesting that we should teach about women's bodies and abortions to the same people that we are going to discuss lesbianism with. What happened to sleeping in your own tent after having s'mores at the fire? At what age should we make girls decide their life preference? When they are five years old and starting out in Daisies? "Welcome to scouting, kid! If you don't want the lesbian line, the abortion line is down the way. We'll learn to read next week."
ReplyDeleteHere is the link mary e mentioned: http://www.catholicscoutingstl.org/sites/catholicscoutingstl.org/files/Pastor%20Girl%20Scout%20rev.pdf
ReplyDeleteMuch of this from the catholic perspective was the sexual education materials which included talking to first-graders about masturbation. Disgusting. I think it has been removed from their curriculum at this point, but it was bizarre to say the least.
ReplyDelete