"Honest Girl Scouts": I CAN'T EVEN

[DarkAnts]

I dont see the point in telling children about your political choices. I dont support the boy scouts of america because of their ban on homosexuality. I dont tell the boys this when they come to my door to sell popcorn. I politely say no thanks and leave it at that.

[lipstickgoalie]

I am happy to see so many Girl Scouts and Leaders here on FJ! Silver Award Winner here, sister to 2 Gold Award winners and an Eagle Scout and daughter of a Thanks Badge and Thanks Badge 2 winner. My troop folded before I could earn my Gold Award. I would go back and do it in a heartbeat.

[yetanothermeg]

Silver Award winner also! I had a crazy guy go off on me when I was around 12 years old and selling cookies with my troop. He started screaming that we were harassing him and he was going to get the manager of the store to escort us off the property. A couple of the girls were upset, but I had crazy-dar pretty early and didn't let him bring me down.

[wildcatgrrl]

I was never a Girl Scout, but my daughter needed a troop, so I volunteered to lead last year. I love my girls and moms and have made some great friends. My BFF is also my co-leader, because she couldn't find a troop for her girls and didn't have time to lead. :)

[Koala]

We do My Faith, My Promise once a year which connects the Girl Scout Promise to the bible.

Girl Scouts can do anything they want, but I wish they didn't have to have a yearly Bible link up. Unfortunately it makes many children feel just uncomfortable enough not to join.

I have 2 kids that would love to join Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, but we don't do either because they drag religion into it (and Boy Scouts is a known homophobic organization).

[hahe77]

Girl Scouts can do anything they want, but I wish they didn't have to have a yearly Bible link up. Unfortunately it makes many children feel just uncomfortable enough not to join.

I have 2 kids that would love to join Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, but we don't do either because they drag religion into it (and Boy Scouts is a known homophobic organization).

When my area does My Faith, My Promise, it's an event outside of normal meetings. Most troops pray before snack. When I became a leader, I choose not to have the girls pray. When my troop does something with other troops and are told to bow their heads to pray, many look very uncomfortable.

[DarkAnts]

Girl Scouts can do anything they want, but I wish they didn't have to have a yearly Bible link up. Unfortunately it makes many children feel just uncomfortable enough not to join.

I have 2 kids that would love to join Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, but we don't do either because they drag religion into it (and Boy Scouts is a known homophobic organization).

My troop choose not to include prayer or have any sort of religious link up. We even took "to serve god" out of the girl scout promise because one of the members was atheist. There is no requirement for a faith based troop. You just have to talk to the troops in your area and find one that fits your families needs.

[Nothing2CHere]

The Mormon church incorporated the Boy Scouts into their boys' church program and yet some of those same churches refuse to let Girl Scout troops meet there. What's good for the boys is not good for the girls. I think the Planned Parenthood link just reinforces this "liberal" stereotype. Instead of complaining that they don't want girls to be focused on careers, conservative focus on abortion. However, abortion is never about abortion in this country. It's codeword among conservatives for all the social values gone wrong with this country. Abortion is equal to turning girls away from families, turning into their career focused lesbians, away from church and home. The Girl Scouts are just victims of this mentality.

Hopefully this isn't too much off-topic, but I think it ties in, and I do refer to my Mommy Group as my "adult girl scout" group. The mommy group I belong to is a chapter of a national organization, and I attended a chapter meeting last night. The 10 or so of us there did an activity about our past, present and future selves. Now, of the attendees, everyone except for me is a stay-at-home mother, but it was interesting to learn that every.single.one of us had a college degree, and some of them were in math, chemistry, there were two not-currently-practicing lawyers there. These women had fulfilling careers before becoming moms, and made the choice that they wanted to stay at home once they started having children. Some of them do work-from-home things, and one was talking about jumping back into the work force soon, and some realized that they don't miss the corporate world as much as they thought they would.

I guess I bring this up because, hey Mormons, women can be BOTH career-focused AND family-focused. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation.

[snarkbillie]

When my area does My Faith, My Promise, it's an event outside of normal meetings. Most troops pray before snack. When I became a leader, I choose not to have the girls pray. When my troop does something with other troops and are told to bow their heads to pray, many look very uncomfortable.

I don't think our troop does My Faith, My Promise. If we do, I haven't heard about it.

[lilah]

I was a girl scout in elementary school and I loved doing it. I have fond memories of earning badges, going to camp and selling 200 boxes of cookies one yaer (my parents had a big fancy cocktail party during cookie season so I was working the room like a charm. this was back when you could go door to door in your neighborhood)

I will always have fond memories of girl scouts and have always bought cookies ever year just for the nostalgia but finding out that they support so many social justice causes that I believe in like comprehensive sex education, LGBT rights (including transgender children on to troops, and allowing LGBT members to be scouts and troop leaders) and other issues makes me want to fist pump the sky.

I seem to remember sunshinemary of the defunct "Women and the Dragon" blog mentioning her daughters were in some girl scout knockoff at their church, the American Heritage girls or some crap.

I really don't know why HonestGirlScouts main action is to get its members to become girl scouts and then not sell cookies. They still have to pay dues and other things. Why not just boycott the organization/

[flyaway]

I've never heard about Girl Scouts having any kind of religious link, and I was a Girl Scout through 10th grade and a Girl Scout camp counselor during college. How common is this? I have a daughter and am looking forward to her doing Girl Scouts when she's big enough.

Edit: I found this:

[link=]http://www.girlscouts.org/program/basics/faith/[/link]

[AtroposHeart]

Why do these people link abortion to gay rights?

Seriously, isn't that kinda....opposite.

Oh, well better not expect logic from fundies

[wildcatgrrl]

Our troop did My Promise, My Faith last year and may do it again this year. However, ALL of our girls were some form of Christian last year, so it was fine. This year, we still have an all-Christian troop but I'm not sure if I want to do it again or not...primarily because my family doesn't attend church. The more faith-specific awards, like the Methodist- and Catholic-based ones, I let my moms know about opportunities to earn them outside meetings if any that I knew of came up. But we didn't work on the specific ones on meeting time.