Pam's Pics/Flickr
Remember a couple of weeks ago when we talked about the right's increasing animosity towards the Girl Scouts? As this story out of Indiana helps demonstrate, it's apparently getting worse.
A Fort Wayne lawmaker has refused to sign on to a resolution celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts, calling the group a "radicalized organization" that supports abortion and promotes the homosexual lifestyle.
Rep. Bob Morris, R-Fort Wayne, sent a letter to his fellow House Republicans on Saturday explaining why he would be the only member in the House not to endorse the nonbinding resolution.
He said he did some web-based research and found allegations that the Girl Scouts are a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood, allows transgender females to join and encourages sex.
Morris also said the fact that First Lady Michelle Obama is honorary president "should give each of us reason to pause before our individual and collective endorsement of the organization."
Morris, a state representative, added that he believes the Girl Scouts have been "subverted in the name of liberal progressive politics and the destruction of traditional American family values."
He wasn't kidding.
When Fort Wayne's Journal Gazette talked to Ashley Sharp, assistant director of marketing for the Girl Scouts of Northern Indiana-Michiana, she didn't seem especially fazed by the Republican's criticisms. "It really hasn't affected us," Sharp said. "Our membership is still strong and our cookie sales are up from last year."
That said, the larger trend suggests this is quickly becoming the latest front in the right's culture war.
As we talked about earlier in the month, conservatives' antipathy towards the Girl Scouts used to be limited to the fringes. In 1994, for example, James Dobson's Focus on the Family published a memorable attack on the Girl Scouts, insisting the group "lost their way" after the Scouts made a religious oath optional for membership. (For the religious right, faith shouldn't be voluntary; it should be mandated on children by authority figures demanding vows of allegiance.)
But while much of the American mainstream likely considers Girl Scouts as American as moms, baseball, and apple pie, the organized freak-out appears to be expanding.
In today's prayer alert, the Family Research Council boasted that as a result of their pressure campaign against the Girl Scouts "their cookie sales are suffering." The FRC has long attacked the Girl Scouts over discredited allegations that the Girl Scouts work with Planned Parenthood to promote "casual sex" and train girls about living with HIV. [...]
Although "none of the money" from Girl Scout cookie sales "is given to any other group," that hasn't stopped FRC from asking for prayers against the Girl Scouts. The prayer alert says the "Scouts had better confess their errors" and stop "collaborating with Planned Parenthood," and even cites a passage from Matthew 27 on the suicide of Judas Iscariot to imply that the Girl Scouts are taking blood money.
The Family Research Council isn't alone. As recently as December, Fox News went after the group quite a bit, and CNN contributor Dana Loesch not only lamented the "moral decline" of the Girl Scouts, she also suggested conservatives should stop buying their cookies as a form of political protest.
Comedy Central recently responded with the appropriate derision: "Don't be fooled by those cute little outfits or merit badges. The Girl Scouts aren't just selling you a pack of cookies -- they're selling you a pack of lies, with a light coating of toasted coconut communism. Why do the Girl Scouts teach survival skills? It's clearly an attempt to build some kind of liberal tween militia. Volunteering and 'helping' others? Just another strategy to mobilize the working poor and other key Democratic voting blocs."
This was, in case it's not obvious, sarcasm.
(Image: Pam's Pics/Flickr)
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Rep. Morris is a despicable toad. FANSWAT!
My god...attacking the Girl Scouts! That is like attacking Mom, apple pie and baseball...
Do we need any more proof that these paternalistic, theocratic homophobes are also fascists?
It's not ABOUT the KIDS, dang it!! It's about "our" family values! =(
Just one reason I stayed in the closet so I could stay involved in my daughters' personal development activities.
It is well-established that right-wingers have lost all reasonable perspective. They see the Girl Scouts as left-leaning because they themselves are so far off to the right that they cannot tell the difference between left-leaning, middle-of-the-road, and right-leaning. It all looks left to them.
The real problem here is that the right-wingers were able to insinuate themselves into the Boy Scout, getting BSA to actively discriminate against specific religions that the right-wingers hate, for example, and they are upset that they weren't able to corrupt the Girl Scouts in the same way.
the problem with how that all played out is the numerous allegations and, subsequent, lawsuits for sexual abuse WITHIN the Boy Scout ranks. So what does THAT say about the right-wingers???
Given the abject hypocrisy of the right-wing crazies, I can't shake this picture of this insane Republican Representative, Bob Morris walking up to a Girl Scout, looking around surreptitiously, and asking, "Want a cookie, little girl?"
Each and every day is just another chapter in the Republican book, "Oh Yes, We Can Get Crazier".
The whole Republican party has gone insane with some kind of political rabies since Pres. Obama was elected.
I like that, Crackhead...political rabies...a very good characterization.
Here is a link to his website: www in.gov/h84/ Take a look. You do not need to read a thing. Nuff 'sed.
I really can't take it anymore . A few years back they would have wrapped these people in a straightjacket and carted them off to the local mental health facility as paranoid schizophrenics.
Unhinged is the new norm.
There's no money for social programs like mental health institutions in those red states, now they just put them into government office for safe keeping apparently.
If these are just the vocal crazies, imagine what the quiet ones are thinking about...
It's a crazy world we live in, sick-n-effin-tired! And it does looks like the inmates are running they asylum as NeedMoreCoffee has observed. Apparently 200-plus years is when national Alzeheimer's disease sets in.
They come off as really bad movie parodies of Joe McCarthy these days. If only that were an exaggeration. Me, I'm waiting for something like 8 boxes of GS Cookies to arrive this year. More than I've ever bought.
K.G., you & NeedMoreCoffee hit the nail on the head. I was just thinking that now I know where all the crazy people went after Reagan spearheaded turning them out of mental hospitals: now they're in the state legislatures (and a few in Congress as well). (No offense to the mentally ill intended.)
"...have been "subverted in the name of liberal progressive politics and the destruction of traditional American family values."
When is the media going to begin calling out the label "conservatives" in the same negative light as the conservative's use against the term "liberals"? It is now the conservatives who are now subverting and destroying the 21st century American family values.
"It is now the conservatives who are now subverting and destroying the 21st century American family values."
Ever since the "Civil Rights Act" passed back in 1964, the conservatives have been destroying "family values"!! Just look at the candidates running, from Romney to Paul and everyone in between - none truly uphold "family values" - and frankly that word is a euphemism for "white"....If "family values" were truly being upheld - Newt wouldn't dare show his fat face, millions of American children wouldn't be hungry, the banksters would be in jail, and the Oligarchy wouldn't have a choke-hold on "our government"!!!!
This goes back further than the Civil Rights Act. It started with the SCOTUS and the decision about prayer in public schools. That decision riled up the religious conservatives who perceived the decision as an attack on Christianity. These claims about attacks on religion have steadily increased and now are mainstream views.
Mike -- You need to go further back than the Civil Rights Act...
Remember that "Tail Gunner Joe" McCarthy was a domestic terrorist in the classic sense of the word. He was obsessed which *anyone* who refused to conform to his narrow-minded and fanatical position on conformity, and hauled them in front of his hearings, as well as the House Un-American Committee.
It became known as McCarthyism, and it's tendrils are still being felt today.
Girl Scouts are a "radicalized organization" the way American Christianity isn't?
So I am confused at how the Girl Scouts are accomplishing these anti-family goals? Is it due to the fact that they are selling a product that makes you fat so that you can't run away from their ideology when an eight year old is talking to you (do 8 year old children even have ideology)? Is it that they are teaching teamwork and life skills to ALL girls, not just the conservative thinking ones? Is it that they aren't trying to separate out the conservative Christians from the rest that is so wrong? Seriously, this is grasping at straws, but in today's Republican world, nothing surprises me any more.
The girls are future contraceptive users.
It's not like there is a condom in every cookie.
Men's Health didn't vote Fort Wayne "The Dumbest City In America" for nothing, you know. This week, my beloved Summit City coughed up a dude who didn't know that Girl Scouts are much too young for any type of sex, much less sexual reassignment surgery. He apparently believed this because... (Drum roll, please) he "Saw it on the internet."
I'm starting to feel like that FDA guy on The Onion.
You have got to be freakin' kidding.
The Republicans are desperate to find an issue - ANY issue - that they can beat Obama with. As someone very accurately tweeted on The Ed Show last night, "they can't beat the 'real' Obama so they have to create an imaginary Obama." They can't win on economic issues anymore, they can't win on foreign policy, and they can't really win on social issues either, so they need a culture war. Of course, that energizes the Democratic base at least as much as the Republican base - so Obama wins anyway. Maybe they should just face the fact that Obama is actually a good President, and take their ball home.
And, of course, they seem to think it's best to try to beat Michelle Obama, not the President... (and that still would not be a winning proposal, IMHO).
Considering her popularity it's less of a winning proposal than going after the President. If they want to go after her, I say bring it ON!
They are going after her for several reasons. 1) She's black. 2) She's VERY Intelligent 3) She's articulate and 4) She's beautiful.
All things they hate in Americans.
the most scariest thing is an intelligent, articulate, beautiful, black woman.
i like scary :)
i reeeeeaaaaally like scary :)
I anxiously await the right wing going Galt on the Girls Scouts and letting the market decide by setting up their own competing girls organization.
They already have one. It's called "Awanas".
I think a lot of the GOP's main goals are against women completely! Birth Control, Pre-natal testing, Planned Parenthood, and now the Girl Scouts. OMG what the heck is in their Kool-Aid now. How any woman in her right mind could vote us back to the 1850 by endorsing one of these bigots is beyond me. It is time to stand up and vote all who think this way out of office asap. Rick Santorum scares the hell out of me.
BTW is that you in the picture Rachal?
It is if they have forgotten that women can vote.
They haven't forgotten that women can vote. The penultimate goal is to that the right to vote away from anyone who is not a straight, white, christian, male. The ultimate goal, is of course to eliminate voting entirely in favor of some form of heritable oligarchy.
Uh-oh... methinks repealing the 19th Amendment will be on the Rightward-Ho! bucket list... They've already threatened repealing the 14th and 17th Amendments of that constitution they hold so dear that they have to take an axe to it... Actually I think they'd repeal everything but #2.
Also, if you teach the women who vote to think that these ideas are right, many of them will go for it. It's not right, it's not good, but families can teach their kids whatever they want, and if it seems normal coming from mom and DAD, then it must be right.
Rachel, sorry
Chris Helms said: Girl Scouts are much too young for any type of sex,
Girl Scouts can be up to 17 years old, which may be under statutory age, but biologically they are quite old enough as we know from teen pregnancy rates. And I do hope the GSA does teach them about safe and responsible sex.
It seems to me that teaching about safe and responsible sex is the parent's job. The GSA is teaching (gasp!) leadership skills.
You honestly think they are promoting sex??? Wake up... this attack and stating SEX is one way to get a dyed in a wool God fearing individual to go against an organization that help young girls develop self-esteem, build their community through service to others, and all the other wonderful things I was taught 50 years ago and Sex was NOT one of them. Nor my daughter when she was in Scouts from age 6-15. WAKE UP.. Stop believing everything u hear or read on TV, Newspaper and internet use some common sense.
to re-emphasise
Exactly!!
The Girl Scouts teach girls about self-respect, honor and having and maintaining good friendships and relationships with people, among other things. "Sex" nor "Sex education" is part of Girl Scouting in any way, but good relationship skills and good feelings of self-worth DO help girls make good choices in life, and I'm proud to be a part of such a great organization!
GSA does not teach sex education - they leave that to parents. They teach leadership, honor, volunteerism, global thinking, & self-esteem. They welcome any girl who wants to be a GS, and don't tolerate bullying or discrimination. I think you'll find the teen pregnancy rate among high school Girl Scouts to minimal or non-existent. You will also find that most girls who stay in GS through high school go to college - often with scholarships.
Every first lady is made honorary president of the Girl Scouts. Was it a subversive organization when Nancy Reagan, Pat Nixon, Barbara or Laura Bush were honorary presidents? Of course not. Just another instance of politics seeping in where it doesn't belong. I was a girl scout for years and learned many helpful things- including leadership, confidence and cooperation.
How *dare* they do so! Don't you know the *only* skills you should learn is subservience to men, cooking and cleaning skills and that's all?
Book lernin's no good on a girl, they's too dumb to be taught all that stuff!
You know, I try to stay positive and laugh off ridiculous attacks by the right wing crazies (while wondering HOW THE F* these people get elected!!!) but this mofo should get out of the gene pool. First they attack women and now they are going after children. And this teaches us 'family values' how? It really is a good thing I don't live in Virginia or Indiana...what a buffoon.
As a the proud co-leader of a troop of extremely cool little Girl Scouts I can verify that Girl Scouts is not about subverting American Family Values. Nor is it about cookies, for that matter.
Shame on you, Morris. Are you still pouting because the ladies have never seemed to like you very much? Hmm....could one of several good reasons be that you've always been a cowardly bully? And now you pick on vulnerable, impressionable children instead of someone your own size. That's lower than low, but I've come to expect that from nearly all publicly officious jerks who sport an "r" identifier. Like you.
And yet, I hear nothing from the right about the BOY Scouts, and how they apparently try to sweep sexual molestation of their members under the rug, ala the Catholic Church. I guess the right doesn't mind child molesters. Just another chapter in the right's war on women....
Apparently sweeping things under the rug is approved "family values."
The Boy Scouts caved in to the right wing on the God and gay issues. Also, they still do not allow girls. I don't think the boy or girl scouts are influential anywhere near the 1960's.
At the same time, boy scouts enjoy benefits that girls cannot attain in any way, or that gay boys cannot attain in any way. Eagle scouts get bumped up in the military, I forget exactly how, but I had an Eagle scout boyfriend that was joining the military, and got a little bump because of that. The same thing happens with employers looking at potential employees. There is really nothing like it in girl scouts, and while military favors eagle scouts, boy scouts can still discriminate. That's family values too alright.
actually girls are allowed in boy scouts - Explorers. I was one when I was 15 to 17 years old. You can be a girl in boy scouts just not a gay boy.
well, i guess that's good to know. the favoritism that boy scouts gets from governmental orgnaizations has long bothered me while they are a discriminatory private organiaztion.
They are still a discriminatory private organization. They limit girls to specific activities and withhold from them access to the most distinguished accomplishments (sound familiar). And the BSA Religious Emblems Programs discriminate on the basis of religion.
Girl Scouts who earn their Gold Award have the same benefits as an Eagle Scout and can enlist in the military at the same higher rank, E2. Scouts is not the only route to entering the military at a higher rank. Gold Award earners are much more competitive for college scholarships. The Gold Award is an individual project that must make a lasting impact in a community outside of Girl Scouts, take over 80 hours to complete, and use leadership.
Really...? Radicalizing and sexualizing girls...? "Promoting" abortion an homosexuality...? The Girl Scouts...? Ya gotta wonder where the heads of these people are. I shudder to think.
up their own asses!
I hope the Girl Scouts stand up to this nonsense. The far right has already brainwashed the Boy Scouts, if you don't believe me trying being Jewish and joining the Boy Scouts. Not happening as far as they're concerned. Try being gay and joining the Boy Scouts, not happening either.
When I lived in a small, poor arctic community, young Inuit boys joined the Air Cadets in droves and ignored the Boy Scouts. The reason? Boy Scouts made the kids buy their uniforms; Air Cadets supplied theirs free.
Other than some military drill on the part of the Cadets (and FREE flight lessons!), the programs were virtually identical.
A person begins to wonder about the minds of those who see sex in everything.
The two daughters of Rep. Morris are Girl Scouts, so he is a hypocrite. Apparently, they are the right kind of Scouts.
Now this is interesting.
They're no longer in the GSUSA according to the story. He put them instead in a nice anti-choice cult so they can be carefully taught to hate and become perfect little goosesteppers like him...
Girl Scouts allow transgender, gay and non-Christian membership?? @!$%#, good ol Boy Scouts have it so transgender and gay folk can't be part of teh organization!!! (Which is why my daughter is allowed to be a Girl Scout, but my son is NOT allowed to be a Boy Scout. Just got done handing out a few dozen boxes of 'freedom' cookies!!)
I had a Muslim girl in my GS troop. She was welcomed like every other girl. Girl Scouts is a non-discriminatory organization. They are sisters with Girl Guides - the GS equivalent/spin-off around the world.
Praying against the Girl Scouts is black magic. These people are spreading evil and insanity.
And yet, we hear nothing from the right wing-nuts concerning the Boy Scouts and their little habit of sweeping molestation of their members under the rug, ala the Catholic Church. Apparently, rampant child molestation is OK by them as long as it's between males. Just another chapter in the right's ongoing War on Women!
Morris also said the fact that First Lady Michelle Obama is honorary president "should give each of us reason to pause before our individual and collective endorsement of the organization."
I am so tired of the constant disrespect for both the president and the first lady.
Yes, thank you.
Me Too!
Rep Morris stated that he found his information about the problems with the Girl Scouts on the internet. So I did a search and sure enough I found websites that say all kinds of terrible things about the Girl Scouts. Of course everything on the Internet is true, right? lol
I love the nuts, makes me feel sane.