Merit Badges in PC

The Girl Scouts of America have apparently decided that the God of the Bible has been hogging the spotlight for too long. For more than 80 years, the little girls in green have promised to serve God and country. The Girl Scout constitution states that the scouts are "united by a belief in God." But Scout delegates recently voted to make the reference to God optional. When girls recite the pledge, they are now allowed to verbally fill in the blank with Allah, Buddha, or simply a Higher Power. Scout delegates say the change is intended to make the Scouts more "inclusive." That's putting a nice spin on it, but if inclusiveness were the goal, they'd be inviting boys to join-which they're emphatically not planning to do. What's really happening is a hostile takeover of yet another organization with Judeo-Christian roots by newcomers pushing a politically correct agenda. Spokeswomen for the organization say that when founder Julia Gordon Low wrote the word "God" into the Girl Scout promise in 1912, she didn't specify the God of the Bible. But, of course, she didn't have to. In 1912 Americans overwhelmingly embraced the Christian faith. When they sent their daughters to scout meetings-often in church basements-they understood that the "God" their daughters were pledging to serve was the God of the Bible, just as they knew that the country they promised to serve was America, even though that wasn't spelled out either. What's happened is that over the years the Girl Scouts have been captured by the irreligious left-and the word "God" is just a symbol for an entire philosophical agenda. It seems the new leadership would like to sell a philosophy of multiculturalism along with traditional Girl Scout cookies-under the guise of "inclusiveness." But Christianity is by definition "exclusive"-not in the sense of excluding people but in the sense of making an exclusive truth claim. A religion that claims to be ultimate truth is simply not compatible with a multiculturalism that says that all beliefs are created equal. Compare the response of the Girl Scouts with the strong stance taken by the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts have fought courageously against lawsuits aimed at forcing them to accept girls, gays, and atheists-to sacrifice their commitment to God and to their distinctive tradition. But radicals in the Girl Scouts didn't bother with lawsuits. They simply joined up and effected change from the inside. For example, the Boy Scouts stood up strongly against pressure to hire homosexual scout leaders. But a Girl Scout spokeswoman told "BreakPoint" that the organization has essentially a "don't ask, don't tell" policy in hiring leaders. And some Girl Scout councils now hold human sexuality retreats, dubbed Sex Camps, where girls as young as 12 practice putting condoms on life-like male mannequins. Maybe we'll see merit badges for learning how to put on a diaphragm. Parents who remember scouting as an innocent interlude in their own childhoods may want to find out what their daughters are being taught. Are they still learning to serve God and country-or to serve the gods of a New Age liberalism?

11/10/93