Girl Scouts Boycotted

Anna Gregoline | March 5, 2004
Wow. People are pulling their children out of Girl Scouts because of the Girl Scouts "cozy relationship" with Planned Parenthood. Of course, I see no problem here, and think it's kind of hysterical, but that aside, I don't think I could part with Thin Mints. =)

Scott Hardie | March 5, 2004
Same here, sister. I wish they could be ordered online...

This seems like another case of adults playing politics with something innocent for kids. So the organization has ties to Planned Parenthood: Does that outweigh the good that it does for the girls of San Antonio? How about voicing their opposition to the organization and asking for change, instead of pulling their girls out of the program completely? This is silliness.

Anna Gregoline | March 5, 2004
Oooh! Online Girl Scout cookies sounds like the best idea ever! I would buy enough for the year...or maybe just a few weeks. =)

I was in Girl Scouts, and unless much has changed, we really just made pies and did crafts with popsicle sticks and had scavenger hunts. Oh, and worked for badges doing things like learning about pet care. Nothing at all sex education.

Also - Girl Scout meeting are usually run by mothers who have girls in the program, so I would think that they could find people who felt the same? I don't think there's any Girl Scout mandate where you have to follow the organizations policies or anything.

I guess they were due for a scandal though, after the gay Boy Scout leader thing. Surprisingly, I don't recall anyone saying anything about gay Girl Scout leaders in that time period, of which I would suppose there would have to be?

Jackie Mason | March 5, 2004
[hidden by request]

Anna Gregoline | March 5, 2004
Video of a live abortion?!? Oh man, I would freak out if someone showed my kid that.

I didn't see anything in the article saying that Girl Scouts were educating anyone on sexual education, Jackie, and as far as I know, the older Girl Scouts don't do any of this either. It's just that they're "friends" with Planned Parenthood.

The funniest thing in the article to me was this:

The Waco-area Girl Scout organization has been putting its name and logo on brochures for the Planned Parenthood sex-education programs but said it does not contribute any money and does not send girls to attend.

Some 400 to 700 fifth- through ninth-graders attend the half-day Nobody's Fool conference in Waco each July. The program never mentions abortion, according to Planned Parenthood. The youngsters receive a book with chapters on homosexuality and masturbation, as well as illustrations of couples having sex, people examining their naked bodies and a boy putting on a condom.

Some Girl Scout mothers called it soft-core porn.

"It embarrassed me to look at it with my husband," said parent Shannon Donaldson.


It embarassed you to look at illustrations of naked people with your HUSBAND? Man, some people are repressed.

Scott Hardie | March 5, 2004
I saw that comment too. It's an eyebrow-raiser.

This issue reminds me of the controversy over the Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs last fall. (Details here.) When I first read about the catalog, I was disgusted that sexually explicit material was being used to sell products to kids. The products were aimed at adults, but come on, obviously teenagers were quite capable of getting their hands on this thing. I'm of the opinion that any marketing towards minors is repulsive, but x-rated marketing is over the line. That is, until Dan Savage (he of Savage Love) defended the catalog, saying that it taught a generation of sexually awakening teenagers some decent values:

Let's pause here for a moment and mourn the passing of A&F Quarterly, that company's crass, manipulative, transparent and wildly successful effort to sell T-shirts and boxer shorts by draping them on or near impossibly good-looking young men and women posed in tableaux that suggested group sex, homosexual acts, sexual assault, female-on-male rape or all of the above. A&F Quarterly provided awesome masturbation material for a generation of young men and women; it inspired countless young heterosexual males to do their sit-ups and wear their boxer shorts around their necks, and taught them not to fear boy-boy-girl three-ways. Bowing to pressure from conservative Christians, feminists and other killjoys, A&F announced last week that it was discontinuing the catalog. RIP, A&F Q - you will be missed.

I have never read A&F Q in my life, but I did get my hands on a number of publications like that in my own teen years, and they taught me that sex was neither something to fear nor to take so seriously. Let's face the inevitable fact that our kids are going to learn about sex from somewhere, and not kill off the positive avenues for such education. (I must mention that I am not a parent.)

Kris Weberg | March 6, 2004
Given their intense distaste for nudity and sexually explicit sights, I often wonder how many of these parents managed to have children in the first place.