The Girl Scout Cookie boycott took on national prominence this year, and it’s about time.
Since 2004, Pro-Life Waco has focused on a Girl Scout council that spends summers focusing on sex education. But as time passed, more and more diligent pro-life and pro-family activists came to understand the hypocrisy of a Girl Scout activity that panders, not to building character and teaching life skills, but to Planned Parenthood and its agenda.
Once American Life League made our involvement in the national effort known, we heard from many parents. The response was mixed.
To those who did not like our position, we sent a series of reports unrelated to the boycott so that they could see firsthand what the national headquarters and many of its councils are doing. I encouraged each person to read these articles and pray for discernment.
Many, however, were grateful for our stand. The single most compelling comment I received was posted to the American Life League Facebook page by a mother who is a Girl Scout leader, but who has refused to sell cookies or allow her troop to do so. She wrote that she did not want to send GSUSA any money, but continues as a leader in order to bring the Catholic faith to troop members, knowing that, if she gives up the troop, the girls in her care would lose a place where pro-life principles and the faith are reinforced. Understanding that she might get in trouble for refusing to sell cookies, this woman chose to stand up for her faith.
Her point is valid and one that demands my response. It is painfully obvious that this Girl Scout problem is actually a manifestation of the root cause of our cultural decline—the promotion of evil. I answered:
Your quandary set me to thinking about the difference between evangelizing young people in an effort to bring them closer to Christ and our repugnance at the evil created by alliances that by their very existence undermine the evangelizing that wonderful Catholics like you are doing—selfless and with nothing but love in your heart. I have studied enough moral theology to know that there are two principles involved with your particular troop that make it unique:
1) You bring the truth of Catholic teaching to girls who will not go out of their way to find it on their own.
2) You refuse to align yourself or the troop in your care with the cookie wars . . . thus making it clear that you will not use your valuable time, resources, or the obligation you have to your troop to do anything that smacks of evil.
You have chosen a difficult path and I believe that you should stay the course. You say that you may “get in trouble” for not selling the cookies. If that should occur, you would have to hold your ground and evangelize those who attempt to pressure you. To do that effectively will require your ardent prayer and willingness to sacrifice what it takes to stay away from the cookie wars.
You have my prayers and my willingness to advise you should things get out of hand with the powers that be within the GSUSA structure.
If we want to make a lasting impression on the leadership of GSUSA, there is more that should be done. The cookie wars will come and go, but our concerns will remain.
The vast majority of folks buy cookies; they have no clue that there is a boycott going on, or perhaps couldn’t care less. These are the people we need to educate and motivate into action.
Communicating with the board and executives of GSUSA must be done as well. Encouraging Girl Scout troop leaders to take a stand and refuse to sell cookies until GSUSA’s involvement with Planned Parenthood and other such entities ceases sends the right message.
Handing a troop leader or a parent this flyer explaining exactly why you refuse to buy cookies is a good start as well.
Let’s do all we can to restore principles to GSUSA.