On Friday afternoon I walked to our local supermarket to pick up a couple pizzas for our evening meal. As I entered the store, a young girl scout asked me if I was interested in buying some cookies. I told her I would think about it and proceeded into the store. Examining my wallet I found a bit of cash and decided that I could support this girl in her cookie sales--not to mention that I can always be tempted by a tasty girl scout cookie!
Returning home I jokingly told my wife that I had been taken hostage by a band of girl scouts and had to purchase my freedom with a couple boxes of cookies. Because our budget is a bit tight, I thought she might object to the unnecessary expenditure and wanted to create a lighthearted atmosphere around my purchase. However I did not accurately anticipate her response. She didn't raise any concerns about the expenditure as such, but commented that in light of the current controversies surrounding the Girl Scouts, she would not have made this purchase.
I was quite ignorant about this controversy, so inquired a bit further of my wife, followed by a bit of internet research. What I've found is that some conservative families, particularly conservative Christians, now consider the Girl Scouts to have sold out to a radical feminist, lesbian agenda driven by the Planned Parenthood organization. Therefore to have anything to do with them, including purchasing cookies from your neighborhood girl scout, is strongly discouraged, even reprehensible. Oops. If only I'd known. My problem is, I don't know how much of the clamor in the blogosphere to believe. I've found links to various articles and blogs, but as often happens when conservatives get upset about something, rhetoric quickly heats up and individual incidents are interpreted as major trends. I honestly don't know what to believe, but I know clearly what the conservative evangelical Christian community wants me to believe. I'd be grateful to anyone who can help clarify what's happening with the Girl Scouts organization. Maybe it is no longer an organization I want to support, even in such a small way as buying a box of cookies. But I want to make a decision based on clear evidence and not superheated rhetoric.
In the meantime, I'm going to guiltlessly enjoy the two boxes I did buy. No sense letting a good cookie go to waste.
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