<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/g-ratphotos/OUCHcharley/Flickr">OUCHcharley</a>/Flickr
It’s time for the annual Girl Scout cookie freak out! This year, it’s not due to the palm oil used to produce the treats, nor the group’s policy on transgender members: This time, Girl Scouts are supposedly too pro-abortion.
As Think Progress reports, in December, Girl Scouts tweeted a link to a Huffington Post story extolling Texas State Senator Wendy Davis (of anti-abortion bill filibuster fame) as a candidate for “Woman of the Year.”
Is there anyone you’d add to this list? Incredible Ladies Who Should Be Women Of The Year For 2013 http://t.co/r6MAzSH0ZK via @HuffPostWomen
— Girl Scouts (@girlscouts) December 18, 2013
And in a Facebook post, the organization linked to a Washington Post list of “Seven American Women Who Made a Difference in 2013,” including US Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. These links were enough to spur John Pisciotta, who runs Pro-Life Waco, to launch a national boycott. “The Girl Scouts were once a truly amazing organization, but it has been taken over by idealogues of the left, and regular folk just won’t stand for it,” Pisciotta told Breitbart News. Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly also took up the cause with a full-on panel on the offending tweet.
Ultimately, though, the campaign is about more than a couple of social-media postings: On its website, the “CookieCott 2014” campaign argues that the boycott is a protest of the Girl Scouts’ “deep and lasting entanglement with abortion providers and abortion rights organizations.” This includes, it claims, promoting role models like Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Hillary Clinton, Amnesty International, ACLU, and the National Organization for Women, and supporting “youth reproductive/abortion and sexual rights” via its membership in the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.
The bullying seems to have worked: In a blog post Wednesday, Girl Scouts offered “our sincerest apologies,” noting, “To be clear, Girl Scouts has not endorsed any person or organization.” Is that sort of meekness consistent with the organization’s quest to “build girls of courage, confidence, and character”? Ponder that while you try to resist those Samoas.
