Running out of excuses to buy Girl Scout cookies

Cathy Cleaver Ruse advises us to just say no to Girl Scout Cookies. There's even more reason to do so now than there was when I said the same thing back in 2009.

So what are the Girl Scouts of America up to now? I mean besides last year's GS of Colorado's declaration on what constitutes a "girl": “If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.” And besides the GSA's promotion of Media Matters as a reliable source of information. And besides the Girl Scouts' intolerance of pro-life views.

It's the unsavory background of GSA's Joshua Ackley. I've added the links to Ruse's Washington Times story:

Ten years ago, Girl Scouts media relations officer Joshua Ackley was frontman for the “homopunk” band the Dead Betties. In publicity shots, he’s dressed in women’s clothing, and in music videos, he appears to be naked and feigning masturbation. The video for “Hellevator” portrays a woman being strangled in an elevator shaft while Mr. Ackley flashes a menacing grin.

Today he issues press releases, posts news and views on the Girl Scouts’ blog, and tries to mollify moms who are concerned about Girl Scout ties with Planned Parenthood. In fact, it was Mr. Ackley who facilitated the Girl Scouts’ “no adults allowed” workshop at the United Nations - the workshop in which the Planned Parenthood sex brochure “Healthy, Happy, and Hot” was offered [pdf here], although part of Mr. Ackley’s job is to deny it.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if someone like Mr. Ackley was behind the Girl Scouts’ recent scandal: a guidebook that tells girls to check with the leftist, George Soros-funded Media Matters before believing what they read in the news.

As boys send in their orders for Brownie beanies and tights, the Girl Scouts have declared 2012 to be “The Year of the Girl,” announcing that they will be “working to break down societal barriers that prevent girls from leading in their own lives.” What barriers? What does “leading in their own lives” even mean? Forgive me for thinking it has something to do with sex or abortion.

Surprise, surprise: Feminist Amanda Marcotte has a conniption over the "Christian right's" oppressive agenda to raise girls as girls and boys as boys. Stacy McCain:

The genuinely troubling thing about this is not merely that, to the liberal intelligentsia, transgendered 7-year-olds are entirely acceptable and praiseworthy, a phenomenon about which no one dare raise a skeptical eyebrow, lest they be accused of “hate.” No, what is truly disturbing is the intelligentsia’s belief that there is something wrong with parents who think that Girl Scouts should be for, y’know, girls.

Attitudes that are altogether common and understandable — such as parents’ desire to provide their children a normal, wholesome childhood environment — are re-imagined by the liberal intelligentsia as hateful bigotry, which must be explained by reference to some sort of reactionary political impulse. And thus the majority of Americans are cast as hopelessly prejudiced, prone to manipulation by shadowy right-wingers, and therefore in need of enlightenment by their moral and intellectual superiors because … Progress!

I took a peek at Marcotte's piece and didn't know whether to laugh or cry at her description of the poor little boy; it's an attempt to validate his confusion as innate and inevitable: "a 7-year-old who was born with male genitalia but has identified as female since age 2."

There are alternatives to the Girls Scouts. But an even better choice, in my mind, is to spend some time with your kids in your own kitchen, baking up some cookies. Thin Mint substitutes here (not exactly the same but delicious), Samoas here (via PJM).

Thanks to AS for sending me the WT story.

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