You may not have realized it when you were picking up some Girl Scout cookies from the innocent-looking youngsters who came to your door, but you were inadvertently contributing to a radical leftist agenda — or so you should believe if you listen to some religious right activists.
The AP had an it-would-be-funny-if-it-weren’t-so-sad article yesterday explaining that many families in Crawford, Texas, are accusing the Girl Scouts of maintaining close ties with liberals. As a result, these families are leading a boycott of the group and its popular, tasty treats.
Why are folks in this conservative Texas town where President Bush has his ranch so mad at the local Girl Scout organization?
Planned Parenthood and sex education.
A few weeks ago, the leader of the anti-abortion group Pro-Life Waco sent out e-mails and ran ads on a Christian radio station urging people to boycott Girl Scout cookies because of the “cozy relationship” between the local organization and Planned Parenthood.
Many parents were upset to learn that the organization had given a “woman of distinction award” last year to a Planned Parenthood executive. And they were disturbed to find out that the organization has been giving its endorsement for years to a Planned Parenthood sex-ed program in which girls and boys are given literature on homosexuality, masturbation and condoms.
Fortunately, not everyone in the area has lost their minds and the boycott appears to have backfired.
The two troops in Crawford, population 700, did not deliver the cookie orders that they had taken before the controversy erupted. But cookie sales then skyrocketed as many people bought cases just to show their support, said Becky Parker, a troop leader who is also the cookie distributor for a number of Waco-area troops.
“People thought the boycott was ridiculous,” Parker said.
What the AP didn’t mention is that the far right has had in it for the Girl Scouts for quite a while.
Leading the way has been Focus on the Family leader James Dobson, a leading religious right figure and radio talk-show host. In a now-infamous 1994 article (which is no longer online), Dobson’s magazine delivered a scathing attack on the Girl Scouts, insisting the group had “lost their way” after the Scouts made a religious oath optional for membership. (In Dobson’s world, faith shouldn’t be voluntary; it should be mandated on youngsters by authority figures demanding vows of allegiance.)
Dobson added that the Girl Scouts are “pushing a philosophy — a philosophy that includes humanism and radical feminism.”
More recently, in January 2001, Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote an item for National Review (which also ran in a Dobson publication) that offered the right another hatchet job on the Girl Scouts.
The article claimed, among other things, that that the Girl Scouts are under the sway of radical feminists and lesbians.
“There are currently 2.7 million Girl Scouts in the U.S.,” asserts the article. “That’s a lot of liberal feminists to look forward to.”
So there you have it. When far right activists aren’t standing in the courthouse door to keep gay couples out and the Ten Commandments in, they’re picking on children.