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Girl Scouts: The Girl Scouts of the USA’s LGBT-inclusive policies have drawn the ire of right-wing groups. “Girl Scouts of the USA and its local councils and troops value diversity and inclusiveness and do not discriminate or recruit on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, national origin, or physical or developmental disability,” reads a statement on the organization’s blog. To an ultraconservative group called Family Watch International, this amounts to “special rights based on sexual orientation or gender identity.” On its website, the group claims, “Girl Scouts of the USA is increasingly promoting LGBT issues to girls by featuring prominent LGBT rights activists as role models at Girl Scout events, in Girl Scout materials, and by referring girls to websites that aggressively promote special LGBT rights.” Among the “role models” right-wingers find objectionable: Houston mayor Annise Parker, an out lesbian, whose city hosted the Girl Scouts’ 2011 national convention. A Houston Chronicle editorial countered the conservative “grumblings” by saying, “It’s startling to realize that an event as wholesomely routine as the mayor’s welcoming a Girl Scout convention to town could ever count as an act of bravery. But it does – and it’s the kind of brave inclusiveness that the Girl Scouts have always stood for.”

http://www.advocate.com/youth/2012/12/19/3-big-differences-boy-scouts-versus-girl-scouts