Posted on 07/07/2004 5:25:21 AM PDT by Nasty McPhilthy
"Be Prepared" is a motto I know well. It is the Girl Scout motto and for eight years I was a Girl Scout -- from 1993 to 2001. During this period, I learned many things, including first aid, the discipline to plan and implement long-term projects and, of course, cookie marketing.
However, at the national level, that motto means something quite different from what it meant to me and the other girls in my troop. For us it meant be prepared for whatever life had to offer. For the national organization -- Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) -- it seems to mean be prepared to become political activists, be prepared for premarital sex, be prepared to promote a highly selective multiculturalism.
I remained in the organization long enough to earn the Silver and Gold Award -- Girl Scouting's highest honor and the equivalent of the Boy Scouts' Eagle Scout award. And I will always look back on those years with fondness. Having more recently discovered what GSUSA is doing, I am particularly grateful to my troop leaders for not using their positions to impose their political and social values on a group of girls who wanted nothing more than to make friends, learn new skills and have a good time.
Needless to say, as a Girl Scout I had very little contact with GSUSA. I have since learned that the national organization receives its marching orders from such liberal pressure groups as Planned Parenthood and that it is preparing girls for a life of sexual self-indulgence and liberal activism.
Organizations such as Planned Parenthood provide Scout workshops and programs to teach girls about birth control, which, by the way, GSUSA officially supports. GSUSA Chief Executive Officer Kathy Cloninger told NBC News, "We have relationships ... with Planned Parenthood organizations across the country, to bring information-based sex-education programs to girls."
In Waco, Texas, the Bluebonnet Council allowed Planned Parenthood to use the national Girl Scout logo on posters advertising an annual "sex-education seminar" for fifth to ninth graders and gave a "woman of distinction award" to the executive director of Planned Parenthood of Central Texas.
The Nevada Frontier Council's Website advertised a "feminist conference" starring Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt and a workshop on "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered issues."
The Girl Scout leadership manual recommends visits to Planned Parenthood abortion clinics for Brownie troops. The Brownies program is for girls 6 to 8 years old.
Planned Parenthood's sex-education programs tend to be highly explicit and go beyond merely explaining the mechanics of pills and other devices. They encourage girls to believe they have a right to engage in premarital sex if they so choose -- a teaching that contradicts the advice of responsible parents.
GSUSA also prides itself on promoting a particular brand of "diversity." When I was a Girl Scout in Colorado and California, our troops welcomed girls of all ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds. This openness was implicit in everything we believed and did. No one had to make an issue of it.
Today the organization trumpets its commitment to a different kind of diversity, an obsession with the recruitment of certain ethic and religious groups and the open de-emphasis of others. Hence this section from the GSUSA Webpage entitled "Girl Scout Beliefs and Values":
"Even if your troop is all of one faith, the Girl Scout meeting is not an appropriate place for prayers and hymns. Girl Scouts is not a religious organization.
"Help girls to be sensitive to all spiritual beliefs when picking readings for ceremonies, or songs for around mealtime. The songs and readings chosen can celebrate similarities as well as differences in beliefs. Avoid references to 'God' as being a specific deity."
This policy means no celebration of Christmas or other religious holidays. No grace before meals or snacks. GSUSA has joined the growing leftist movement to drive Christianity underground. Some troop leaders have even been asked to resign because they are personally "too religious." On the other hand, GSUSA boasts of troops that are composed entirely of certain other-than-Christian religious groups or minorities.
In effect, the organization is segregating and showcasing these groups. For example, the GSUSA Website advertises its Fourth Annual National Latina Conference, which features sessions such as "Today's Teen: Growing Up Female and Latina."
I learned the value of a mixed or "integrated" troop when I became friends with a girl who was a practicing Hindu. From her, I learned about her dietary rules and about her religious and family traditions. No troop leader promoted this interaction. It came naturally because of our inherent curiosity as children. Ethnically pure and religion-specific troops will deny girls the kind of enriching experience I enjoyed.
Why would GSUSA want to focus on race and religion for recruitment and programming? Probably to mobilize these minorities to promote certain social and political causes. Such an approach violates the spirit of the Girl Scout law, which says:
"I will do my best to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what I say and do, and to respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place, and be a sister to every Girl Scout."
I hope that Girl Scout councils will encourage all girls -- not just certain groups and religions -- to join the organization and form new troops that will engage girls of all backgrounds in healthy pursuits and nonideological projects.
Joy Downey, a summer intern at the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, will be a senior next year at American University in Washington. She was a Girl Scout from fifth to 12th grade. United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International, a sister news organization of Insight..
Congrats to your daughter! That was a big project!
I'm sure plenty of the cookie money goes to National Council, but there's no getting around that. National can sponsor all these programs that they want, but if the girls aren't interested, they won't go anywhere. Our girls are not forced to take part in any programs like that in order to advance, and believe me, if anyone made any moves in that direction, they'd have the force of PLENTY of women come down on their heads!
And Congrats to you as an Eagle and Siver Star future Gold Star Mom.
If your son is under 18 he may want to check out the Hornaday Conservation Award requirements. BTW, Girl Scouts can earn it too.
Our Eagle will be 25 in October. He's in Paris this month doing some International Law Studies with some of his Cornell Law School classmates.
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