RUSE: Girl Scouts oppose ‘gender norms’

By Cathy Cleaver Ruse

Cathy Cleaver Ruse is senior fellow for legal studies at the Family Research Council.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

On “World Thinking Day,” Scouts will earn a badge for thinking about hunger or talking to a Peace Corps volunteer. They also will collect money and send it to the creator of World Thinking Day, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS).

A noted player on the international stage, WAGGGS is an ardent advocate for controversial social policies including abortion and sex rights for children. Girl Scouts USA is its single largest organizational funder. In fact, every American girl who joins a Girl Scout troop at her neighborhood church is made a de facto member of this radical group.

There is growing concern among former Scouts, Scout leaders and sponsors such as Catholic parishes that the Girl Scouts have gone off the rails a bit. The 2011 top-down edict requiring a Colorado troop to admit a cross-dressing 7-year-old boy is a good example. The WAGGGS alliance is another.

Last week, WAGGGS played a prominent role at the U.N.’s International Conference on Population and Development in Bali. Its delegates sat on the steering committee for the conference’s Global Youth Forum alongside the International Planned Parenthood Federation, a frequent ally.

In their official blog, the representatives of our Girl Scouts called for “comprehensive sexuality education and a gender-neutral curriculum in formal education” in order to “deconstruct the gender norms from an early age.” They declared that “gender stereotypes and gender expectations lead to gender-based violence.” If all of this leaves you flat, it is because you are not well-versed in the post-modern panoply of genders recognized by U.N. radicals — seven at last count.

The young delegates praised a panel of “inspiring people” who advocate for “sexual and reproductive health and rights.” That’s U.N.-speak for abortion.

One WAGGGS delegate, who described herself as “a member of the LGBTIQ [lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-intersex-questioning] community,” complained about the lack of “sexual and reproductive health [care] that is relevant to me. I have gone to many different doctors for routine checkups for them to give me advice about safe sex that is only relevant in a heterosexual context.”

Gender bending, abortion rights, homosexual sex advice — a far cry from camping, community service and selling cookies.

Concerned parents are looking into the WAGGGS-Girl Scouts alliance and asking questions. Girl Scout executives are issuing denials and spinning facts.

They admit that the organization makes an annual donation to WAGGGS of more than $1 million, but when parents complain, officials tell them the money does not come from troop dues or cookie sales. They say it comes from “investments” and have shown no interest in discontinuing the contributions.

Girl Scout officials tell concerned parents that their daughters are not really members of WAGGGS, but the annual donation from Girl Scouts USA to WAGGGS is a quota based on the number of registered Girl Scouts.

WAGGGS is the official umbrella organization for national Scouting organizations and counts Girl Scouts USA as its largest member organization. Girl Scout officials have never corrected the oft-cited claim that WAGGGS has 10 million members, a number made possible only by counting the 2.3 million little Yankees from Girl Scouts USA. (Of the 1.5 million adult members of WAGGGS, 890,000 are from Girl Scouts USA.)

In the end, the WAGGGS delegates in Bali got what they wanted. The list of demands in the Global Youth Forum’s final declaration includes:

Decriminalization of abortion and elimination of parental consent, waiting periods and age-of-consent requirements for underage abortions.

Governmental assurance that “LGBTIQ young people” have equal access to “sexual health services” and “sexuality education.”

Development of comprehensive sexuality education “in partnership with young people” that includes “information on sexual orientation and gender identities that is free of religious intolerance.”

Decriminalization of “sex work” and the elimination of “mandatory medical checks especially mandatory HIV” in the “fulfillment of the rights of all young people to decent employment.”

WAGGGS says its delegates “will now work with their member organizations” to advocate for these things “to become a reality.”

Girls Scouts USA celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, a good time to reflect on the past and look to the future. Sadly, the people in charge today are shaping the Girl Scouts to be an organization at odds with the values of many Girl Scouts’ families. Fortunately, with wholesome alternatives like American Heritage Girls, those families have other options.

They could think about that on World Thinking Day.

Cathy Cleaver Ruse is senior fellow for legal studies at the Family Research Council.