Category Archives: Policy and Culture

March 12, 2013 · 6:33 pm

‘Transgendered’ Kids in School: The Big Lie

“Tommy,” my childhood playmate, thought he was Superman.

He wore a cape, fought imaginary bad guys, and insisted on being called Superman.  His mom and dad played along—until the day “Superman” decided he could fly and jumped off the garage roof. Fortunately, he only broke his arm, not his neck, and his parents went back to calling him Tommy.

Tommy was limited, you might say, by a very concrete, physical reality: he was a boy, not Superman. No matter how hard he imagined, how strongly he believed, and how soaring his lift-off, he would plummet straight down to the ground. He could not fly.

Initially, his parents indulged his childish, wishful thinking. But Tommy’s painful collision with reality jarred them back into their authoritative role as parents. Tommy needed their guidance.  He needed them to explain the truth inscribed in his body: the ‘real Tommy’ wasn’t Superman—he was a boy. And God made him for something far better than being “Superman.” His happiness, not to mention his safety, depended on accepting and embracing that reality.

Fast forward to Massachusetts, 2013.

Just as Tommy needed his parents to ground him in reality, the children of Massachusetts need the adults in their lives to do the same.

But the Massachusetts Board of Education has done the opposite. It recently established a harmful protocol for Massachusetts’ public schools, under the benign title, “Creating a Safe and Supportive School Environment.” The document offers “guidance” for elementary and secondary schools as they implement new state laws prohibiting gender identity discrimination.

Specifically, schools must remove all “obstacles” which prevent ‘transgender or gender non-conforming students’ from enjoying “equal educational opportunities.” (Massachusetts law defines a ‘transgender’ student as one “whose gender identity or gender expression is different from that traditionally associated with the assigned sex at birth.”)

Much of the outcry centers on three points:

  • Transgender children must be allowed to use restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex, if they so choose.
  • Transgender children may use any name or pronoun, regardless of its biological mismatch (e.g., a boy who identifies as a transgendered girl may insist on being called “she”).
  • Schools must “eliminate” gendered dress codes and classroom management strategies that divide children by gender.

The Board’s policy manufactures ‘solutions’ to an imaginary problem. It cites the “reality” that children with gender identity issues are enrolled in Massachusetts’ schools, but offers no evidence that any of them actually have been excluded from “educational opportunities,” such as chemistry, math, or English classes, because of their gender identity.

But facts don’t matter to the Massachusetts propagandists. Their real goal has little to do with educational access and everything to do with indoctrinating teachers and children in radical gender theory.

The Massachusetts policy systematically foists a perverse orthodoxy on every public school teacher and child. It promotes the core belief—the big lie—that there is no such thing as human nature or natural distinctions of male and female. Instead, the Board of Education embraces the queer gospel that each person is a god unto him or herself, creating a gender identity based on feelings, or one’s “internalized sense” of self, regardless of biology.

“Male and female He created them?”  Not in Massachusetts.

The Board of Education insists that schools proactively “create a culture” that would make gender-nonconforming and transgender kids “feel safe, supported, and fully included.” But the new transgender-safe culture is insidious. It must be created even if the school currently has no transgender or gender-nonconforming children. Why? Liberals presume that unknown numbers of transgender children are suffering alone and in secret, and that they will only ‘come out’ if the coast is clear.

So everyone must play the transgender game. The indoctrination (“education and training”) will be part of every school’s “anti-bullying curriculum, student leadership trainings, and staff professional development.”

Worse, the Massachusetts Board of Education clearly expects all students and teachers to go along with the big lie:

  • Students who object to the intrusion on their privacy (from an opposite sex, ‘transgender’ child in restrooms or changing facilities) will be told, effectively, ‘Too bad. Get over it.’
  • Students who refuse to go along with the fiction and refer to the transgender child by his or her gender “assigned at birth” instead of the preferred pronoun, will subject to “discipline.” Teachers must “model” the required speech and attitude.
  • Schools will train students and teachers in Orwellian doublespeak: gender is “assigned” at birth (as if ‘male’ and ‘female’ were arbitrary classifications, as random as being assigned to the blue team or red team in gym class) and transgender students may elect “gender-confirming surgeries” (as if double mastectomies, genital removal, and other gender-mutilating surgeries ‘confirmed’ anything).
  • Children will bear the new burden of discovering their gender identity, but will be taught that their bodies offer nary a clue. They will be taught that the transgender identity, perceived as young as “age four,” is “innate” and “largely inflexible.” (The Board ignores decades of research to the contrary. Dr. Kenneth Zucker, head of the Gender Identity Service at Toronto’s Center for Addiction and Mental Health contends that, “The majority of children followed longitudinally appear to lose the diagnosis of GID [gender identity disorder] [by] late adolescence or young adulthood, and appear to have …a gender identity that matches their natal sex.”)

In Massachusetts, a transgender-supportive culture means that school officials will insist that normal children squelch instinctive reactions that something is wrong when a dress-wearing boy calls himself a girl. Children will be taught that religious truths about sexuality are bigoted relics of a less-enlightened time. They will learn that their bodily reality is nothing more than an arbitrary “assignment” at birth—there is no “human nature,” only personal choices and self-definition along a shifting spectrum of human sexuality. Finally, they will be taught not to judge: Who is to say that one’s chosen gender identity is any less normal, natural, or good than another?

Remember my friend Tommy? He needed the truth. He needed to embrace his bodily reality instead of wishing for something different.

The children of Massachusetts need the same. The ‘Big Lie’ can never substitute for the truth.

 

 

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March 2, 2013 · 2:58 pm

Girl Scouts Still Humming The Pro-Abortion Chorus

The Girl Scouts’ Law insists that Girl Scouts be “responsible for what I say and do.” When it comes to abortion, however, the Girl Scouts USA “says” the magic words that keep pro-life members in the fold (i.e. that Girl Scouts “does not take a position” on sexuality, birth control, or abortion).

What they “do” behind the scenes is another story.

GSUSA’s hefty brand power—and funding—continue to fuel the pro-abortion advocacy of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (“WAGGGS”). And the Girl Scouts have refused once again to take responsibility for that.

I recently exchanged emails with two Girl Scouts USA spokespersons, Joshua Ackley and Michelle Tompkins, asking them to clarify the Girl Scouts’ “no position” stance in light of WAGGGS’ leadership on the pro-abortion Bali Global Youth Forum Declaration (December, 2012). Their responses highlight GSUSA’s corporate unwillingness to take any actions to distance themselves from WAGGGS’ global advocacy for youth “sexual rights” and abortion—even though WAGGGS claims to speak for all its members, including GSUSA.

First, realize how radical the Bali Youth Declaration really is: it asserts “sexual rights” for youth (including 10 year-olds) on nearly every page and demands, over a dozen times, youth access to “abortion” or “reproductive rights” and services. It marginalizes families—decrying parental consent and “age of consent” restrictions in sexual and reproductive matters—and casts religious objections to LBGT lifestyles as “religious intolerance.” Not surprisingly, the pro-abortion chorus embraces the Declaration.

There’s more to know about the Bali Declaration, but what’s most relevant here are the architects behind its design.

The Declaration reflects the handiwork of the Global Youth Forum’s International Steering Committee, a group stacked with abortion providers and abortion-advocacy groups, such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the Youth Coalition.

Who else’s fingerprints are all over the Declaration?  WAGGGS.

WAGGGS was heavily invested in formulating the Declaration. Its leaders, including WAGGGS’ Senior Advocacy Coordinator, not only served on the Forum’s Steering Committee, but also worked for six months on the Taskforces that shaped the conference agenda, the resulting Declaration, and follow-up activities.  At the Bali summit, WAGGGS representatives facilitated breakout sessions and presented youth “recommendations” to the plenary sessions. Now WAGGGS promotes the Declaration and advocates for its implementation.

So that leaves the Girl Scouts with a problem.

In light of their officially neutral position on abortion, it should have been a no-brainer for the Girl Scouts to repudiate the radical, pro-abortion Bali Declaration. Or at least to clarify that WAGGGS’ does not speak for GSUSA when it advocates on sexual and reproductive matters, including the Bali Declaration.

GSUSA refused to do either.

GSUSA informed me that, “GSUSA does not have an official position on the Bali Global Youth Forum Declaration,” and demurred further comment because “the lengthy declaration deals with very complex issues… [and] deserves a thorough review.”

There’s nothing “complex” about the Declaration’s aggressive push for abortion and youth sexual rights.

GSUSA reiterated that it “does not take a position on abortion” and asserted generally that, “all [WAGGGS] members reserve the right to have their own positions on certain topics.” But when I requested documentation that WAGGGS members “reserve the right” to differ on advocacy positions, GSUSA produced an off-point WAGGGS memorandum discussing programming decisions, not advocacy.

The WAGGGS memo states, “Member organizations engage with WAGGGS’ programmes in a number of ways, from helping develop and piloting them, to integrating them into their national programmes, to not using them at all.  As a membership organization, it is entirely at the members’ discretion what programmes they use and how they are implemented.” This “discretion” clearly applies to program implementation not WAGGGS advocacy. WAGGGS’ advocacy positions are adopted and implemented on behalf of the entire organization. (See below.)

(Incidentally, the WAGGGS document supplied by GSUSA also falsely claims that, “There are many issues WAGGGS does not have a position on, including abortion; nor does WAGGGS have a partnership with Planned Parenthood International.” For GSUSA to put forth this document while discussing WAGGGS’ and IPPF collaboration in Bali and WAGGGS’ open support for abortion and youth sexual rights is laughable.)

A Damning Silence on Abortion

My email to GSUSA underscored WAGGGS’ strong support for the Bali Declaration—including its abortion advocacy—and asked, “If the Girl Scouts USA does not support the Youth Declaration, or portions of it (please specify), will the GSUSA publicly repudiate WAGGGS’ claim that it speaks for 10 million members, including Girl Scouts USA, in its advocacy for the Youth Declaration?”

GSUSA spokesperson Joshua Ackley replied, “Regarding how we use our voice, GSUSA will use its voice in a fashion that we believe constructively contributes to the conversation. We have in the past and we will continue to share our positions with our sister organizations in WAGGGS.”

In other words, “No.”  The Girl Scouts will not publicly disavow WAGGGS’ pro-abortion actions. Instead, it hums along with the pro-abortion chorus.

It’s not hard to see why.

The Girl Scouts USA and WAGGGS have a long history of interlocking financial ties, brand alignment, and collaborative activities. (And GSUSA’s leadership team syncs well, ideologically, with WAGGGS’ advocacy positions.) GSUSA wields outsize influence in WAGGGS because of its status as founding member, its membership (GSUSA’s 2.3 million girls members constitute nearly one-fourth of WAGGGS’ “10 million” members), and GSUSA’s contributions of money, resources, and talent.

The Deputy Chairman of WAGGGS, for example, is USA representative Sapreet Saluja, who rose to leadership through U.S. Girl Scout Councils. The Girl Scouts’ New York headquarters plays host when WAGGGS delegates advocate at the U.N. for abortion and sexual rights. And GSUSA money flows generously to WAGGGS: GSUSA pays over a million dollars annually to WAGGGS for its “membership quota” and leans on young girls, from Daisies to Ambassadors, to donate to WAGGGS through “World Thinking Day” fundraisers and Juliette Low Fund contributions, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars for WAGGGS’ coffers. Girl Scouts USA also supports WAGGGS through a private foundation GSUSA created expressly for WAGGGS, funding world centers that offer WAGGGS seminars and teach girls to ‘take action’ for adolescent sexual and reproductive rights.

Actions Speak Louder

No Girl Scout in America could miss the closeness of the relationship between GSUSA and WAGGGS. That close relationship, coupled with WAGGGS’ ardent advocacy for sexual and reproductive rights and the Girl Scouts’ refusal to disown WAGGGS’ handiwork (the Bali Declaration) raises some questions: does GSUSA do anything to prevent its brand power, funds, and resources from supporting WAGGGS’ global advocacy for sexual rights and abortion? Corporate responsibility demands as much. After all, GSUSA stakes its relationship with families and churches on the credibility of its promise to ‘take no position’ on sexuality and abortion.

The bottom line: Beyond its thin disclaimer (GSUSA “does not take a position”), GSUSA appears to do nothing to ensure that the funding, brand reputation, and practical support it provides to WAGGGS are not used to support WAGGGS’ pro-abortion and sexual rights advocacy.

GSUSA: The Silent Gorilla

WAGGGS routinely claims that its advocacy represents the voice of all its members—not a subset. For example, in July 2012, World Board Chair Nadine El Achy highlighted the advocacy of “WAGGGS delegates at [the U.N Conference] Rio+20” who “represented each one of our WAGGGS members: YOU - in this process.” (The WAGGGS delegates at Rio lobbied for “sexual and reproductive health rights.”)

According to its World Conference reports and World Board statements, WAGGGS embraced “a new image and new positioning” in 2008, embarking on a global advocacy “agenda.” WAGGGS’ advocacy positions are framed by its World Board, confirmed during worldwide Conferences (with GSUSA present and participating), and referenced in annual statements. They are promoted on behalf of the entire membership, not Balkanized subsets.

The Girl Scouts know this.

In its communications with me, GSUSA could not offer any instance when WAGGGS qualified its sexual and reproductive rights advocacy by stating that it only represents 7.7 million members (10 million general membership minus 2.3 million GSUSA girls) on issues related to sexuality and reproduction.

It has never happened. And it won’t, because GSUSA is the silent gorilla in the room when WAGGGS speaks at the UN or at global events. It’s a gorilla with financial heft (GSUSA’s budget is twenty times the size of WAGGGS’  budget) and chummy connections to the Obama administration, whose global agenda supports abortion and family planning worldwide.

If GSUSA really objected to being included under the WAGGGS’ advocacy umbrella, which promotes sexual and reproductive rights on behalf all  “10 million” members, GSUSA lawyers would lock down WAGGGS’ representations in a heartbeat, to protect the Girl Scouts’ costly re-branding efforts.

So I asked spokeswoman Michelle Tompkins if GSUSA had ever asked WAGGGS to ‘cease and desist’—to stop representing itself as the voice of its entire membership, including GSUSA, when WAGGGS advocates for sexual and reproductive rights. I also inquired whether GSUSA sought assurances from WAGGGS that “no funds which GSUSA provides to WAGGGS (whether as its membership quotas, World Thinking Day contributions, proceeds from merchandise sales, training and travel fees) shall be used to support WAGGGS advocacy on sexual and reproductive rights.” Finally, I asked whether GSUSA had taken its own steps “to ensure that GSUSA funds do not end up supporting WAGGGS’ advocacy” for abortion.

GSUSA bobbed and weaved. Spokeswoman Michelle Tompkins first replied, “This is going to take quite a while to review because it gets into the bylaws of WAGGGS and many other areas.” (Note: I checked. WAGGGS by-laws don’t apply.) I clarified that my question was factual: whether GSUSA has in fact made any requests or instituted any structural measures to ensure that GSUSA does not fund WAGGGS’ abortion advocacy.

GSUSA’s response: those questions are “under review.” And GSUSA is in no hurry, because, “we have quite few things on our plate right now and resources are limited.”

The reality is this: GSUSA has not once objected to WAGGGS’ global advocacy on sexual and reproductive issues, nor to WAGGGS’ claims to represent its entire membership, including GSUSA, on those issues. They refuse to disown even WAGGGS’ most radical pro-abortion efforts (e.g., the Bali Youth Declaration). And they continue to fund and support WAGGGS’ global megaphone, as it amplifies “progressive” messages promoting adolescent abortion and youth sexual rights.

They will do nothing to impede or even distance themselves from WAGGGS’ pro-abortion, pro-contraception, “sexual rights” advocacy.

Those GSUSA assurances that it “does not take a position” on abortion and birth control? Lip service.

I’m really not surprised that GSUSA won’t make a serious effort to ensure that its assets, reputation, and financial contributions are not used to support WAGGGS’ global advocacy on sex and reproduction.

But I am astounded that pro-life families—and sponsoring churches—are willing to go along with that.

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January 27, 2013 · 11:58 pm

Abortion Stories: A Priceless Cup of Coffee

“It’s freezing out. Why don’t you c’mon in for a cup of coffee while you wait?”

The tall woman waiting alone outside the Germantown abortion clinic shivered. She’d taken a taxi to the clinic, and arrived early, a good half-hour before it opened. Standing, pacing, stomping her feet to stay warm, the tall woman stole a glance across the parking lot, towards the voice. It was a “sidewalk counselor” from the pro-life pregnancy center across the way, and she was gesturing to a warmly lit, friendly office. The tall woman’s fingers were already stiff with cold, and she wrapped her coat tighter around her belly.

The cold won. “All right. Thanks.”

Moments later, she was inside the pro-life pregnancy center, warming her frozen fingers as she gripped a steaming cup of coffee.  Little by little her story came out.

She was three months pregnant and suddenly homeless. Her father was in jail and the baby’s father was unreliable. She was twenty-something, had one child already, and no job. Her own mother would tell her to get an abortion, if she knew, but her mother was knee-deep in troubles of her own.

Abortion seemed like her only option. The tall woman knew nothing about the clinic’s abortionist, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, nothing about his chilling defense of partial-birth abortion, and nothing about the women who had suffered serious complications, even death, from his abortion ‘care.’ Those issues meant little compared to her own overwhelming troubles.

But over coffee, and warmed by the volunteer’s compassion and energy, the tall woman changed her mind about the abortion. An hour and several phone calls later, she had a place to stay, a doctor’s appointment, and transportation.

In the following months, the volunteers became the tall woman’s support system, driving her to prenatal appointments and dropping everything to be there during childbirth. They helped her find a job and child-care and shared her worries and joys. These days, the tall woman stops by for coffee and conversation when she can, and even spent a morning doing sidewalk counseling outside the clinic. She empathized with the women who found themselves at the clinic’s door. Cradling her one-month old son, she became the voice across the parking lot, urging vulnerable women to choose life.

 “Choose Life.”  It’s been the pro-life movement’s cry for decades. And yet Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, has left a gruesome legacy after 40 years: 55 million tiny lives extinguished—poisoned, dismembered, stabbed, and suctioned into pieces.

But “life” will prevail.

In fact, the abortion landscape has changed markedly.

  • Courageous state legislators passed record numbers of new abortion restrictions in 2012.
  • Few doctors do abortions anymore, with only four U.S. doctors hard-hearted enough to perform barbaric third-trimester abortions.
  • Americans cannot deny the humanity of the unborn child as new ultrasound technology captures their breathtaking images in the womb.
  • Better pro-life media and investigative journalism have shaped public opinion favorably: Eighty percent of Americans believe third trimester abortions should be illegal, and 64% say the same about second trimester abortions.
  • Young people are driving the pro-life bus, confounding pro-choice elites. It’s hard to demonize a generation that’s passionate enough to travel hours by bus, sleep on church basement floors, and brave chilly weather to raise their voices against abortion at the March for Life. And this pro-life generation understands “the pain that abortion causes women,” and cares as much about women as their unborn babies.

But as important as those factors are, the pro-life position will prevail for a deeper reason.

At heart, the pro-life movement is about people, its message intensely personal: “You are loved. You have infinite dignity and value. And we will care for you.”

Resonating deeply in the human heart, this is the truth that vulnerable women need to hear, for themselves and their babies.

It’s a message best delivered person-to-person—and young people know this. Their generation, halved by abortion, shares its stories, feelings, and experiences of abortion in intensely personal language and images, in social forums from Twitter to Snap Chat to YouTube and Facebook. It’s powerful and effective.

So too is the work of pro-life pregnancy centers. Years ago, as a law student, I was part of the first team of counselors at the Women’s Care Center, a crisis pregnancy center in South Bend, Indiana. The Center opened in a tiny, donated house right next to the city’s only abortion clinic. Our small group of volunteers worked in a spirit of prayer, with a clear mission: to welcome each woman who walked through our doorway, offering care and support even if she chose an abortion next door.

From one tiny house, offering simple pregnancy tests, practical resources, and loving attention, the vision took wing. The Women’s Care Center now has 19 different locations in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin and serves nearly 22,000 women annually. Abortion rates in those communities have dropped and Women’s Care Center clients deliver healthier babies than their peers.

Today, U.S. pro-life pregnancy centers outnumber abortion clinics nearly three to one (twenty-two hundred pro-life centers compared to 724 abortion clinics). And because successful pro-life pregnancy centers threaten the abortion industry’s profits, abortion advocates have sued (unsuccessfully) to muzzle or close pro-life centers.

Remember the tall woman, and the cup of coffee that changed her life?

Abortion will end, because pro-life volunteers really care whether a pregnant woman stands cold and alone in front of a gritty abortion clinic. And they care enough to offer not only an easy-pour cup of coffee, but also hours of dedicated time and resources throughout her pregnancy and beyond.

Will you help pro-life centers reach women like “the tall woman”?

Please consider a donation, large or small.  Because somewhere, standing in the cold, is another young woman who needs a good cup of coffee…and your support to do the right thing.

 

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February 22, 2012 · 5:08 pm

A Catholic vote for Obama: Is it a sin? A sign of co-dependency?

If a Catholic you love insists that President Obama is still the best man for the job in 2012, then gather your right-thinking friends and family around them: it’s time for an intervention.

First, you might wonder, are there really any Catholics still in the Obama camp? Plenty, unfortunately.

A recent Gallup poll showed that Obama’s maneuvering on the HHS regulations hasn’t cost him much, if any, Catholic support. Even regular Church-goers (46% of them) continue to back the President, counting him more friend than foe.

Think of the kind-hearted, stubbornly optimistic Catholics you know who insist that President Obama is really a good guy–that we should give him another chance to get it right. You know, the middle-aged social worker who drives to Sunday Mass in a Toyota Prius sporting an Obama bumper sticker. Or the bird-watching professor who praises the compassionate features of Obamacare as he sips coffee in the lounge after daily Mass.

Obama-Catholics insist that, despite actions to the contrary, Obama deeply respects religious freedom and abhors abortion. (And besides, they murmur, who really cares what the Bishops think about birth control?) They still plan to vote for Obama, in spite of the lingering sting from his slap in the face to Catholics–and other believers–whose consciences resist being forced to pay for other people’s abortion-causing drugs. These Obama-Catholics have put all that behind them in light of Obama’s respectful “compromise.” (It’s worth noting, that President Obama’s grand speech declaring that insurance companies, not religious organizations, would be forced to pay for contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs, was just speechifying—a promise of fig leaves to come. No rules have actually been changed yet.)

Yes, our good, but misguided, friends are ripe for an intervention. They need help.

By the way, I sadly think it’s past the intervention point for the Doug Kmiecs or Sr. Carol Keehans of the world—their disappointment over the initial conscience-quashing HHS regulations proved but a momentary (strategic?) pause in their unrestrained adulation of Obama-the-good. A promised cosmetic change to the regulations and they both inhaled deeply—again—and floated back into the elevated status of Obama-believers, those who know better than the rest of us that the great Barack “understands the truth of a human person” and rules accordingly.

No, let’s tend to the average person of faith, naïve perhaps, but unwilling to desert the first African-American President, whom they see as an upright family man with a big vision and a very, very hard job.  It’s time to have a sit-down with these people, particularly Catholics, and help them admit they’ve reached rock bottom in this relationship with Obama. It’s time to let go.

How to help your friends see the light? Two excellent articles provide food for thought, from two different angles: sin and psychology.

In Carrie Severino’s light-hearted, but pointed, column over at the Daily Beast, she argues that Catholics who remain enamored of President Obama exhibit the classic signs of co-dependency in an abusive relationship.

And over at his new blog, Notre Dame Law Professor and constitutional law expert Charles E. Rice (my father) makes a compelling case that our Catholic Bishops, individually, as an expression of their personal conviction, ought to tell Catholics in the pew that to vote for Obama would be a sin—an act deeply offensive to God.

Provocative, no?

Read and tell me: What do you think?

 

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February 8, 2012 · 11:34 am

Abortion: A Private Matter Between a Woman and Her…Vending Machine?

At Shippensburg University, female students who hook-up for drunken sex on Saturday will find it easy to dispose of just-conceived babies on Monday or Tuesday. A quick trip to the vending machine is all it takes.

Easy. Kind of like buying a bag of Doritos.

Women who wake up in unfamiliar beds or sober up and wonder,  “What were you thinking, girl?” needn’t worry much. Stride across campus, past the dining hall (grab a doughnut for later), and into the University Health Center. Flash a student ID and head to the vending machine in the “self-help” area. There, next to the cough drops and Mucinex, in discreet, feminine packaging, is Plan B One Step. No questions asked. Feed the bills into the slot, grab and go. Empowered with “choices,” these women pop the package blister, swallow the pill, and breathe easy.

Problem solved. Glad that’s over.

Only it’s really not.

Billed as “emergency contraception,” according to the package insert, Plan B inhibits ovulation and thus prevents conception.  But it also alters the lining of the uterus, preventing a newly conceived child from implanting in its mother’s womb.  Without implantation, that tiny human being cannot draw nourishment and will die. (Occasionally, Plan B fails and the pregnancy continues.)

In most cases, however, Plan B ‘succeeds.’

But ‘success’ is not pretty. Our Shippensburg student will have a one-in-three chance of heavy bleeding. And 13% of women who take Plan B One Step end up curled up in bed with nausea, abdominal pain, and fatigue. Worse, nearly one in ten women who use emergency contraception (compared to 2% of pregnancies in the general population) develop severe abdominal pain and require emergency treatment for an ectopic pregnancy.

But no worries, this is a private decision between a woman and her vending machine.

(Maybe the Supreme Court should update that hallowed language about abortion being a private medical decision between a woman and her doctor, eh?)

Back in Shippensburg, it’s been a bad few days for the University’s PR team–one negative link on Drudge would keep anybody hopping—and they’re feeling a bit defensive. “We’re not the first” to make Plan B available on a college campus, they say.

But from a vending machine?

Has our culture so trivialized sex and baby-making that the ‘solution’ to an unintended pregnancy comes out of a vending machine? And the grown-ups in the room don’t even blink?

Shippensburg’s decision seems destined to create a campus norm of casual sex. But in its February 7th statement, the University asserted that it’s “not encouraging anyone to be sexually active. That is a decision each student makes on his or her own.”

But why offer students abortion-inducing drugs, right on campus? (Ironically, the University vending machines don’t carry condoms, the typical must-have accessory for promiscuous sex).

In a phone interview February 7th, Dr. Peter M. Gigliotti, Executive Director for University Communications & Marketing, said the university installed the vending machine “several years” ago after a student survey showed that 85% of students favored on-campus access to emergency contraception. He defended the decision, expressed surprise at the media coverage, and insisted that no one under the age of 17 has access to the vending machine. (By law, Plan B cannot be dispensed to anyone under 17 without a prescription.)

In Shippensburg’s public statement, Dr. Robert Serr, Vice-President for Student Affairs, also downplayed the disclosure and framed the issue as support for reproductive choice: “Reproductive services are a personal decision to be made by every man and woman. As such, the university is providing students with a medication that they can obtain legally elsewhere as part of their ability to make their own choices.”

Put differently, Shippensburg wonders, “What’s the big deal?”

That attitude is precisely the problem.

“Emergency contraception” dispensed from a vending machine is the perfect icon of our culture’s impersonal–and utilitarian–view of sex and reproduction.

The icon’s meaning:

  • Sex is no big deal. It’s entertainment. Condom malfunction? Fix the problem in less time than it takes to rent a Redbox movie.
  • Making—or destroying–a baby is no big deal either. Using ‘emergency contraception’ has the moral significance of taking a cough drop. (One button on the vending machine gets you Plan B, another gets you lemon-flavored cough drops.)
  • Convenience rules. Why bother with nine months of pregnancy—and 21 years of child-rearing–when freedom is just a vending machine away?
  • Like casual sex, abortion (even disguised as “emergency contraception”) turns a union of two into a solo event. No strings. Just another individual experience that requires “appropriate decisions.”
  • Repeat business is a given—the abortion industry depends on it. No one visits a vending machine just once.

To the women of Shippensburg University: wake up! What could be more lonely than heading across a cold Pennsylvania campus “the morning after,” alone, to rendezvous with a vending machine? It’s an automated ‘problem-solver,’ stoically dispensing drugs that not only kill your baby but also numb your heart.  All so you can go back and do it again.

That’s not ‘choice.’ It’s exploitation. And people who really care about you won’t exploit you.

Please, reach out.  Because you deserve better.

 

 

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February 3, 2012 · 10:32 am

The Catholic Church and the Girl Scouts: A Scandalous Mess

Sometimes even the Washington Post gets it right.

Last week the pastor of St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in Chantilly, Virginia, made national news. He banned the Girl Scouts from his parish because of the Girl Scouts’ connections to pro-abortion groups, including the international scouting group, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS).

A Washington Post writer, who called the parish decision “extreme,” rode to the Scouts’ defense, arguing that the “Girl Scouts say explicitly, repeatedly, at the neighborhood, regional and national level, that they have no stance on birth control or abortion.”

Now that’s not the part the Post got right. The Post columnist is dead wrong on the underlying facts because, while it’s true that the Scouts say they take no official position on birth control and abortion, it’s what they do that’s a problem.

Numerous sources—including former Girl Scouts, Scout leaders, and pro-life leaders—have documented hundreds of examples of the Girl Scouts promoting pro-abortion and LGBT resources, recommending sexually explicit books and movies, highlighting pro-abortion leaders and lesbians as role models, partnering with LGBT and pro-abortion activist groups, including Planned Parenthood, and referring girls to pro-abortion organizations to learn about “advocacy” (a pet word in the new Girl Scouts).

Consider: New York’s Real Life, Real Talk sex education program, “initiated by Planned Parenthood,” partners with the NYPENN Girl Scouts; The Girl Scouts’ curriculum (Journey books) promotes the Scouts’ “sisterhood” with pro-abortion WAGGGS (WAGGGS CEO Mary McPhail led the radical, pro-abortion European Women’s Lobby before joining WAGGGS, and a 2010 International Planned Parenthood Federation report (p. 13) credits Planned Parenthood’s “close relationship” with WAGGGS for Planned Parenthood’s success in promoting sex and abortion to youth); and in Chicago this July, GSUSA will co-host the Girls’ World Forum 2012 with WAGGGS, to “develop action steps” supporting the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDG #5 supports abortion and adolescent sex). See more here.

The Girl Scouts (GSUSA) has yet to refute even one piece of documented evidence. They can’t.

And the Scouts’ general denials highlight the contradiction between what they say and what they do. The bottom line: the Girl Scouts seem to have a truth-in-labeling problem. Parents—and sponsoring churches like St. Timothy–are right to protest the deception and pull their girls out of the organization.

So what, then, did the Washington Post columnist “get right”?

The Post columnist inadvertently shone the spotlight on why the Catholic Church has a Girl Scout problem: the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM).

According to the Post, “Another defender of the scouts is the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, a group that ought to have some credibility with Catholics. It’s an official church organization and has been actively investigating — and mostly refuting — the accusations for several years…The federation’s Web site devotes a page to knocking down rumors. Girl Scouts support Planned Parenthood? ‘Not true,’ the federation says.”

Thank you for shining that light on the NFCYM, Mr. Columnist.

But let’s get the facts straight. First, the NFCYM does not have a track record of “investigating” the Girl Scouts’ problematic ties and activities; it has a track record of whitewashing them. Second, resources promoted on the NFCYM’s website and in the NFCYM Executive Director’s book on Catholic youth advocacy suggest that the NFCYM has little “credibility” to speak to the Church on these issues.

First, the NFCYM track record. When parishes, dioceses, and parents want to know if the Girl Scouts support contraception, teen sex, or abortion (or partner with organizations that do), they ask the NFCYM, or its subsidiary, the National Catholic Committee on Girl Scouts and Camp Fire. Although the NFCYM has never conducted or commissioned a rigorous, independent investigation of the Scouts, it reflexively picks up its Girl Scout megaphone and shouts, “Not true!” It reports Girl Scouts’ denials as fact.

In its 2011 “Position Statement” on the Girl Scouts, the NFCYM declared itself “satisfied” with GSUSA denials. Further, the NFCYM decided that the Scouts’ “official statement clarifying their relationship with WAGGGS and Planned Parenthood…and emphasiz[ing] the primacy of parents’” authority on sexual topics sufficed to end the discussion. The NFCYM “investigated” no further than the words on the Girl Scouts’ printed page.

No sense checking the facts. (Scouts’ honor, right?)

Not one of the Google-topping websites created by former Girl Scouts, concerned parents, and troop leaders to document the Girl Scouts’ problems has received any inquiries or corrections from Bob McCarty, NFCYM’s Executive Director, or from the Scouts. Ever. Will McCarty specify which of their links, statements, or page scans are “not true?” Does anyone at NFCYM even realize how much evidence contradicts the Girl Scouts’ denials? Does NFCYM recognize the ideology driving the Scouts’ leadership?

The deep documentation on the whistleblowers’ websites is a damning indictment of the Girl Scouts. It’s also a damning indictment of the NFCYM—for its failure to investigate allegations about the Scouts.

Perhaps the NFCYM won’t address the facts because it thinks they don’t really matter. In my second interview with Bob McCarty (November 2011), I asked him about the Girl Scouts’ relationship with pro-abortion WAGGGS: the Girl Scouts fund WAGGGS (over a million dollars annually); the GSUSA website and materials routinely promote WAGGGS; Scouts typically wear a WAGGGS pin, signifying their sisterhood; and the Girl Scouts promote WAGGGS’ international “cabanas” and advocacy training programs as the ultimate destination for senior Girl Scouts. Bob was untroubled, dismissing those points because, “Catholic youth ministry is not in relationship with WAGGGS.”

It’s as if NFCYM’s priority is the paper trail that gets the Scouts off the hook and keeps the bishops out of their hair. One former Girl Scout mom wonders, “Why so little concern for the girls?” Girls who, for example, might innocently read the Girl Scout-recommended book, the Gate to Women’s Country, with its explicit descriptions of brutal sex and distorted relationships. Or who might be invited to attend a WAGGGS abortion-advocacy event as the culmination of their Girl Scout training.

In the Washington Post article, McCarty minimizes parents’ concerns about the relationships between the Girl Scouts and WAGGGS, Planned Parenthood, or other pro-abortion groups. “It’s the whole thing of guilt by association,” McCarty says. “Does one policy with which you can’t agree prevent you from being involved in broader coalitions?”

Yes, Bob, at times it should. I suggest that an organization’s pro-abortion stance is not just “one policy with which you can’t agree.”  Respect for life—from conception to natural death–is so fundamental to the Catholic view of the human person and to Catholic moral principles that an organization that advocates against that principle should be disqualified from sponsorship by a Catholic parish—and from running character-shaping activities for Catholic girls.

The NFCYM disagrees.  Which brings me to my second point: the NFCYM and its Executive Director, Bob McCarty, have little credibility to judge whether the Girl Scouts’ resources, relationships, and role-models offend Catholic standards. The NFCYM website and McCarty’s book contain similar problems.

McCarty’s book, Be a Champion of Youth: Standing With, By, and For Young People (co-authored with his wife, Maggie Wilson McCarty), draws on his NFCYM experience to promote “youth advocacy.” But Bob’s book relies on and recommends an organization that he says, “[P]rovides information on peer education, youth development, and youth-adult partnerships.  It also provides excellent resources for actively involving young people in their own learning.”

The organization: the pro-abortion Advocates for Youth, formerly known as the Center for Population Options.

In contrast to McCarty’s sanitized description, Advocates for Youth admits it “champions” the right of “young people [to] make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health…boldly advocating for a more positive and realistic approach to adolescent sexual health.”  Remember McCarty’s praise for the way Advocates for Youth “actively involve[s] young people in their own learning”? Their method: to train young people as peer educators, “helping” peers with concerns about “sexual orientation, gender identity, or sexual health,” and as “Youth Activists,” advocating for sex and abortion, unfettered by parents’ rules or religious beliefs.

Advocates for Youth, in case you don’t know, is the enemy. They actively oppose the Church on every sexual issue in the public arena, including abstinence education, same-sex relations, contraception, and abortion.

Let’s be clear:  I am not saying McCarty is personally pro-abortion. But he doesn’t seem to think an organization’s policy on sex and abortion matters much, as long as there’s something arguably good about them.

In this case, McCarty likes the Advocates for Youth model of youth advocacy. That’s a problem in itself. Both McCarty and Advocates for Youth ascribe to the “youth-adult partnership” model of youth advocacy that rejects the “myth of adult wisdom.” They don’t believe that “adults know what is best” or that young people need protecting. See McCarty, p. 33. That’s baloney. The ‘learn-by-doing’ model has built-in limitations, particularly in the sexual and moral arenas. And the benefit of “youth advocacy” depends entirely on the values being advocated.

Besides Advocates for Youth, McCarty’s book recommends other gems like the pro-abortion Children’s Defense Fund, UNICEF, and the Youth Activism Project (which trains youth as mini-community organizers, agitating for things like Gay and Lesbian Student Rights Laws, an example McCarty notes with approval in his book).

The NFCYM website is more of the same.  On the NFCYM’s “Healthy Adolescent Development” page, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry tops the list of “Key Resource Organizations.” The Academy promotes “comprehensive sexual education,” including school-based distribution of contraceptives, and opposes parental notification requirements in sexual and reproductive matters, including abortion. Further, the Academy supports same-sex marriage and adoption and affirms the adolescent’s ‘right’ to decide sexual orientation or gender identity without interference (like from parents). This is an organization parents should trust for guidance on “healthy adolescent development”?

The NFCYM website also recommends the Faith Trust Institute as a resource on preventing sexual abuse. The Faith Trust Institute is a Pope-bashing website run by a female, pro-abortion minister who signed a statement condemning the murder of late-term abortionist George Tiller, mourning the “untold number of women and families who have been deprived of his compassionate care.”

I could go on.

But here’s the point.  The Girl Scouts have a demonstrable credibility problem.  They have not been forthright with Catholics and other folks who support traditional sexual morality.

The Catholic Church needs to insist that if the Scouts want to recruit young Catholics, seek sponsorship from Catholic parishes, and sell cookies to parishioners, then the Scouts must make radical changes, including severing ties with WAGGGS and other pro-abortion, pro-teen sex, and LGBT activist groups. They must clean up offensive materials and quit elevating lesbians, gays, and pro-abortion activists as role models and convention speakers. Finally, they must champion a return to character, based on virtues and objective morality.

And the NFCYM? McCarty states that, “the only way you can advocate for the church’s position is to be engaged in the dialogue.” I submit that the NFCYM and Bob McCarty are the wrong folks to “dialogue” with the Girl Scouts on these issues.

Under McCarty’s leadership, the NFCYM’s premise seems to be that because Catholics are involved in the Girl Scouts already—as Scouts, leaders, and supporting parishes–the end goal is to stay in that relationship. So he elevates the cause of “dialogue” over fidelity to Catholic moral teaching.

But I think Denver Auxiliary Bishop James Conley gets it right. He writes, “Catholics involved in the Girl Scouting movement should make it clear to leadership that Scouting is only a means to an end—the proper formation of young character. It’s not an end in itself; and should Scouting ever fail in that proper formation, other groups can be found or formed to take its place.”

I think that time has come.

And I salute the Pastor of St. Timothy’s in Chantilly, Virginia, for his courage to do the right thing.

 

NOTE: Prior to the publication of this article, I contacted NFCYM head Bob McCarty numerous times by phone and email.  He elected not to respond in any substantive way.

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January 14, 2012 · 10:30 pm

Girl Scouts Leadership: Pro-Choice, Pro-Gay Ideologues–Worlds Apart from the Families They Serve (UPDATED)

Who’s calling the shots over at the Girl Scouts? And where’s the organization headed?

The questions matter for two reasons. First, it’s cookie season. Any day now some cute little girls wearing green sashes and bright smiles will knock on your door and sweetly seek support for their projects, badges, and activities. Do you write the check or not? (Forget your craving for Thin Mints. Think rationally!) Should you support the Girl Scouts?

Second, the Girl Scouts organization (GSUSA) is in trouble again. In recent weeks, they’ve drawn scrutiny for promoting biased resources (the left-wing Media Matters) and pressuring an employee to muzzle her pro-life views. The latest events top the pile of controversies that has outraged parents and spurred some Scouts to quit the organization.

What’s going on? Are these merely quality control issues–or do the problems reflect an ideological divide between the Girl Scout leadership and the families they serve?

In recent years, the Girl Scouts have tacked left, and criticism has mounted–over their programs and their partnerships with America’s leading abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. (As an aside, the Scouts mislead families and churches into believing that they have no relationship with Planned Parenthood at any level; they maintain that “Girl Scouts of the USA [i.e. the national office] does not have a relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood,” but say nothing about the many local Girl Scout councils that do partner with Planned Parenthood and its teen subsidiaries.

Concerned Scouts and their parents have publicized and documented the Girl Scouts’ liberal bent. And they’ve asked for changes.

The Girl Scouts consistently respond as if the reported problems are small brush fires that erupt sporadically because people are careless. And they project the impression that these brush fires would die out on their own, but for the hysterical bystanders—conservatives, of course—who shriek at the first wisp of smoke.

Offensive materials? Quality control issues, that’s all.

The official spokespersons’ carefully worded statements make small concessions, hoping to blow the smoke far enough away to divert attention from the incendiary truth: the leadership of today’s Girl Scouts is driven by a liberal ideology far out of step with the families and churches that support them.

Americans tilt right, increasingly so. For the third consecutive year, according to Gallup, conservative Americans (40%) outnumbered both moderates (35%) and liberals (21%). Interestingly, over the same three year period, the Girl Scouts lost half a million members and operated at a loss (In 2010, for example, GSUSA reported a $4.9 million loss.)

That’s a lotta people and a big chunk of change out the door.

You’d think the Girl Scouts leadership would consider a right turn or two, maybe even circle back around to their founding principles, like promoting “virtues” and “womanhood.”

But still the Scouts turn left. They can’t help themselves.

The Girl Scouts have filled their National Leadership Team and Board of Directors with unwavering ideologues whose careers, non-profit work, and philanthropic choices reflect a hefty commitment to liberal causes—same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian rights, abortion rights, comprehensive sex education, and ‘girl power’ feminism.

Their liberal ideology drives everything–from program materials to themes to partnerships–even their view of leadership.

It’s who they are. And it’s who the Girl Scouts organization has become.

A few examples tell the story.

A pro-abortion bias

The Girl Scouts imagines itself the “thought leader and voice for and of” American girls. But the only “voice” the Scouts hear is a liberal one. The Girl Scouts’ own research shows that the voice of American youth is strongly pro-life: just nine percent of 7th through 12th graders would advocate for abortion if a friend sought advice on an unexpected pregnancy. And only 25% believe it’s “all right” to have an abortion when a baby seriously disrupts life plans.

But the GSUSA refuses to allow pro-life advocacy to count towards badge work or program requirements, even within faith-based religious recognition programs. It’s “not an option,” they say. Yet their leadership program objectives consider advocacy for “reproductive health” in school or neighborhood as a sign that a Scout has mastered the desired advocacy skills.

In addition, the Girl Scouts’ curriculum (Your Voice, Your World: The Power of Advocacy) instructs girls to explore five pro-abortion advocacy organizations, including the Population Council, to see “where and how they are promoting change.” Pro-life advocacy groups? None.

The pro-abortion bias reflects the core convictions of the Girl Scouts’ National Leadership Team and Board of Directors. These individuals, who frame and implement the Girl Scouts’ mission, maintain tight connections with Planned Parenthood, other abortion advocates, and foundations that support them.

Consider:

  • GSUSA CEO Anna Maria Chavez collaborated* with Planned Parenthood as head of Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas;
  • GSUSA National President Connie Lindsey has donated to the pro-abortion, pro-LGBT Chicago Foundation for Women;
  • GSUSA Board Member Barbara Krumsiek is the Board Chair of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation which funds Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington;
  • GSUSA Board Member Monica Gil is a volunteer and former Board Member  (through 2011) of the Saban Free Clinic in L.A., which provides “free and easy” birth control, emergency contraception, and abortion referrals to teens over 12, without parental notice or consent;
  • GSUSA Board Member and Executive Secretary Debra Nakatomi is International Commissioner to the pro-abortion World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and promoted contraceptives to Asian teens through California’s Get Real program;
  • Laurie Westley, GSUSA Senior Vice President of Public Policy, Advocacy & the Research Institute, previously worked for the National Women’s Political Caucus, a group dedicated to electing pro-choice women.
  • Joan Wagnon, the GSUSA Treasurer, Board of Directors, accepted large campaign contributions from late-term abortionist George Tiller while she was Secretary of Kansas’ Department of Revenue and praised Tiller’s “social conscience and…big heart;”
  • Ellen S. Fox, GSUSA Board Member from 2008 through 2011, serves on the Investment Committee of the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s Board of Directors.

 The list goes on. (Click here.)

The new normal: homosexuality and sexual promiscuity

Pro-life views are not the only ones given short shrift by the Girl Scouts. Traditional sexual morality takes a hit, while lesbians enjoy good press in required Girl Scout materials. These books— the “Journeys” series—generally push global environmentalism from a feminist slant; certain books go further, normalizing homosexuality and degrading sexual behavior.

For example, the Journey book Your Voice Your World: The Power of Advocacy spotlights numerous lesbians and LGBT advocates as “Voices for Good”–role models for young Scouts.

And the 4th and 5th grade Journey book, Agent of Change, highlights author Marjane Satrapi, a young Iranian woman with “real moxie,” whose life–detailed in her comic book-style autobiography, Persepolis–will “inspire” Girl Scouts. But in Persepolis, Satrapi crudely discusses men’s genitalia (even with her own father), calls nuns prostitutes, gets explicit lessons about sex from a promiscuous friend, lives with eight homosexual men, and attempts suicide twice. Offensive illustrations and shocking sexual dialogue complete the picture. For ten-year olds?

It gets worse.

Another Journey book, GIRLtopia, encourages 9th and 10th graders “to imagine a perfect world—for girls.” It recommends the book, The Gate to Women’s Country, by Sheri Tepper (former Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood), as a utopian journey into “a future world where women spend their lives learning and discovering lost knowledge.” That’s a deceptive gloss on a book laced with obscenities, revolting dialogue, and lewd descriptions, and which presents men as violent barbarians. The book graphically describes women having sex with random warriors at a semi-annual Carnival, undergoing brutal, demeaning genital exams, and breeding out violence by compulsive sterilization and selective prostitution. The only good men are castrated men. This is Girl Scout utopia?

Juliette Low, the Girl Scouts’ founder, would be aghast.

Why would Girl Scout Execs and Board members approve this material?

Because they don’t find it shocking or radical at all.

It reflects their worldview—sexual promiscuity is a given and homosexuality is normal. And indeed, key players at the Girl Scouts have a history of advocating those very positions, particularly on homosexuality.

Timothy Higdon, for example, holds a pivotal position at GSUSA: as Chief of External Affairs, he oversees marketing, fundraising, advocacy, and research. Higdon’s official bio on the Girl Scout website touts his earlier work for the Army, a fundraising firm, and Amnesty International. It even mentions he’s an Eagle Scout. But it doesn’t mention that, spurred by his decision to come out as a gay man, he’s a “seasoned gay rights activist.” (For example, in 2002 he headed a Florida gay rights organization working closely with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.)

In 2011, Higdon welcomed another homosexual activist to the Girl Scout team: Deborah Taft, Senior VP of Fund Development, sits on the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Board of Governors. (HRC pushes same-sex marriage and is an adoption bully, pummeling religious adoption agencies that prefer married heterosexuals to homosexual pairs.)

Other LGBT activists fill prominent GSUSA positions or Board seats. Consider GSUSA Media Spokesperson Joshua Ackley. By day, he writes the Girl Scouts’ blog. By night, he frolics in unsavory places reminiscent of his homopunk career. He’s the former lead singer of the Dead Betties, a queer band whose music videos feature masturbation, prostitution, and sexualized violence against women. Ackley’s past activism suggests he’s not likely to flinch over a sexually inappropriate book or lesbian role models.  He’s not alone.

The LGBT advocates in the Girl Scouts’ inner circle help set the organization’s trajectory: GSUSA emphasizes diversity and tolerance, applauds adolescent acceptance of LGBT behavior, promotes lesbians as role models, and allies itself with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

Forget character.  Think advocacy.

I opened this article with two questions.  First, who’s calling the shots at the Girl Scouts? The answer: incorrigible liberals–unbending proponents of abortion, homosexuality, and teen contraception.

Second, where’s the organization headed? The Girl Scouts’ vaunted leadership programs have morphed into liberal training grounds. While the Scouts’ founding vision promoted “the virtues of womanhood;” today’s Scouts strive for advocacy-oriented objectives.

The new “Girl Scout Leadership Experience” is less about the person a girl becomes and more about “taking action” aligned with the liberal agenda. GSUSA trains girls to be “advocates,” mini community organizers who see themselves as “agents of change,” rather than young women of virtue who exercise leadership with an eye towards “personal honor…and the public good.” (Girl Scout Mission, 1917).

Indeed, it’s hard to find the language of virtue in the Scouts’ program materials. Patriotism? Self-sacrifice? Humility? Self-control? Nope. The new Girl Scouts focus on diversity, “environmental justice” (they’ve got a whole book on it), and liberal advocacy.

But don’t expect the Scouts to ‘fess up. Though they’ve gutted the meanings of “character” and “leadership,” they continue to snow member families and sponsoring organizations (like the Catholic Church) with their institutional history as a character-building, leadership organization.

Bishops, pastors, ministers, and parents, don’t be fooled. If the Girl Scouts’ leadership–toting the same pro-abortion, pro-gay, environmentalist, feminist baggage—showed up today as a new organization and sought your sponsorship to shape girls in their image, would you say yes? I doubt it.

So…should you support today’s Girl Scouts?

My answer: a resounding “No!”

What’s yours?

—-
NOTE: *The word “collaborated” replaces the verb “partnered” that appeared in an earlier version of this article. Although “partnered” has a range of meanings including an alliance or collaboration, the author has replaced it in order to preclude suggestion that a contractual, business partnership existed. The significance of the relationship remains, in the author’s view.

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November 20, 2011 · 10:56 pm

Catholic Youth Ministry under fire over Girl Scouts’ pro-abortion ties.

The Girl Scouts “100th Anniversary” Convention in Houston last weekend sparked a firestorm of protests from conservatives and pro-life advocates over the Girl Scouts’ speakers: an A-list of entertainers, journalists, and philanthropists that included many champions of pro-abortion and LGBT causes.

The speaker lineup was but a symptom of a deeper pathology, according to current and former Girl Scouts. Behind the badges, slogans, and cookies is a deadly reality: the Girl Scouts’ ongoing partnerships with U.S. and international advocates, like Planned Parenthood and affiliated organizations, which sell a distinctly un-holy vision of sexual empowerment secured by contraception and abortion.

Particularly troublesome is the Girl Scouts’ relationship with WAGGGS, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, an international agitator for abortion, contraceptives, sexual diversity, and “comprehensive” sexuality education. WAGGGS delegates, for example, helped draft the controversial 2010 World Youth Conference NGO document demanding global support for “abortion” and “LGBTTIQ issues.” (See the excellent links at 100questionsforthegirlscouts.org, girlscoutswhynot.com and honestgirlscouts.com.)

It’s a situation that’s unconscionable for Catholics. And a growing number have left the Girl Scouts, embracing a mission to tell other families what they’ve uncovered.

Christy Volanski, a former Scout leader, and her daughters Tess and Sydney are prime examples.  They left the Scouts in 2010 when they saw evidence—materials, resources, and partnerships–that their Girl Scout dues promoted an agenda of abortion, contraception, explicit sex education, and homosexuality.  Their website, speaknowgirlscouts.com, tells their story and offers details, screen shots, and web links that lay the facts bare. “We felt so hurt and betrayed when we found out about this agenda…There is no reason for other families to…be deceived,” says Christy.

So where’s the Catholic Church in all this?

Not where you’d expect.

It’s quite literally in the Girl Scouts’ camp. The National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM), the Church’s representative and “advocate” for Catholic Girl Scouts, occupied Booth 932 in the Girl Scout Exhibit Hall in Houston. The NFCYM, which connects some 700,000 Catholic Scout members with the Church and provides Catholic materials for the Girl Scouts’ religious recognition program, set up shop near the official Girl Scouts’ booth and the large WAGGGS exhibit—a great space to “meet and greet” as they promoted their religious recognition materials.

Nary a public word about the Girl Scouts’ links to groups promoting abortion, homosexuality, and sexual “rights” for teens. Or about the controversial speakers.

For parents like Christy Volanski, the NFCYM’s cozy relationship with the Girl Scouts creates a smokescreen that obscures a disturbing reality. The NFCYM website and FAQs, along with the NFCYM-GSUSA position papers, gloss over the Girl Scouts’ involvement with pro-abortion advocates, suggesting erroneously that parents need not worry. As a result, parents who do see problems with the Scouts find themselves stymied by pastors, bishops and laypeople who interpret NFCYM’s relationship with the Scouts as unqualified approval.

Rochelle Focaracci, a former Scout leader from Georgia and the co-founder of girlscoutswhynot.com, believes that the NFCYM posture simply “confuses the youth they are there to protect.” Her Florida-based co-founder and sister, Lisa Larsson, puts the problem simply: “We need NFCYM to speak out, to acknowledge that there is a problem with the Girl Scouts.”

They’re not holding their breath.

In spite of the documentation on websites like speaknowgirlscouts.com and 100questionsforthegirlscouts.org, the NFCYM and its Executive Director, Bob McCarty, have failed to acknowledge the extent of the Girl Scouts’ problems—and they’ve failed at least in part because the NFCYM’s fact-finding process is seriously flawed. Instead of insisting on rigorous, independent investigations of credible complaints, the NFCYM states in its position statement that questions will be resolved by “directly contacting GSUSA” for answers.

This first step, however, is typically the last, as the NFCYM seems willing to accept GSUSA answers as gospel truth without independent factual corroboration, parent interviews, or consultations with knowledgeable experts (including former Girl Scouts).

It makes no sense, says Rochelle, from girlscoutswhynot.com  “If we had to investigate a robbery, we would not ask the robber if he robbed the bank.”

McCarty’s July 2011 interview with Our Sunday Visitor added insult to injury for these Girl Scout activists. McCarty dismissed out of hand the possibility that the Girl Scouts might advocate or partner with pro-abortion groups. “Most of the concerns I hear from parents are about what they heard or saw written on blogs and websites engaging in misinformation. It’s never anything they saw themselves.”

Perhaps McCarty needs to look more closely.

For example, the NFCYM FAQs flatly state that it’s “not true” that national and local councils support Planned Parenthood. In an interview last week, McCarty referred often to the “position statement” in which GSUSA promised that no Girl Scout “monies” will flow to organizations like Planned Parenthood—as if written assurances settled the matter.

Even Girl Scout spokeswoman Michelle Tompkins (who deferred comments on these topics until later this week) has distinguished between partnerships by the national organization and those of local councils. “We have not and do not partner with Planned Parenthood on the national level,” she claimed. However, ”local councils are free to partner with whomever they choose…”

And they do. For example, a quick web search yielded 2011 evidence of a Girl Scouts of NY PENN partnership with a Planned Parenthood initiative (with links to explicit websites) for the Scouts’ body image project.

Susan Riedley, a current Girl Scout leader who created the site honestgirlscouts.com “challenges” McCarty to go directly to source materials—on her website and others–and “investigate the links for himself.” McCarty says he’s “clicked around” a few times to address concerns but feels that the grievance procedure established with the GSUSA bears better results.  He insists that, “We need to be in these conversations [with the Girl Scouts]…You can’t even raise the questions if you are not in relationship with them.”

True enough, but the follow-up question is, “Then what?”

The point of raising questions with the Girl Scouts isn’t to prompt technical compliance as they sanitize websites and books. Similarly, the narrow scope of the GSUSA-NFCYM position statement—whether the Girl Scouts directly fund or partner with Planned Parenthood, through dues versus cookie profits, locally or nationally, with parental permission or without, etc.–misses the point.  And it deftly redirects attention away from the enmeshed relationship between abortion-promoting-WAGGGS and the Girl Scouts USA.

In my view, McCarty’s failure to commission a thorough, independent review of the facts behind the Girl Scouts’ affiliations—while taking the Girl Scouts’ denials at face value–betrays the trust of Catholic youth and their parents.

While McCarty insists NFCYM must “stay in the conversation” with the GSUSA, concerned parents find themselves on the outside, rarely consulted and with little opportunity to present their evidence or see it taken seriously.  And, they wonder, when does the desire to “stay in the conversation” morph into playing the willing dupe, providing “Catholic” cover for the Girl Scouts’ complicity in feminist and liberal causes?

“Process” isn’t the only reason why NFCYM needs a push to address the seriousness of the Girl Scouts’ issues. McCarty also disagrees on the relative importance of certain Girl Scout affiliations, including the WAGGGS relationship. McCarty’s current focus is not on the WAGGGS relationship, but on getting buy-in from the Girl Scouts for an approval process for materials, plus an initiative to establish relationships between diocesan youth ministers and local council leaders.

Reasonable goals, certainly.  But they strike me as the scouting equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.

He doesn’t see it that way. McCarty believes that the WAGGGS influence is “fairly far removed from our kids” and “doesn’t filter down.” As for the millions of dollars that flow into WAGGGS coffers from GSUSA? McCarty likens the WAGGGS dues (a head count based on a country’s number of Girl Scouts) to the U.S. taxpayer’s support for the United Nations.

The analogy limps. Girl Scouts’ membership is voluntary. The Church doesn’t have to sponsor troops. (In fact, there’s even an excellent alternative that’s exploding in popularity—the values-rich, American Heritage Girls.) And the Church’s voluntary participation looks like an endorsement.

Jane Petry, a 67-year-old Girl Scout veteran, spent last weekend at the Houston convention distributing flyers highlighting the Planned Parenthood—GSUSA connection. To her, the money flow is a repugnant cooperation with moral evil. Volanski calls it “mind boggling” that, through GSUSA membership, “Catholic Girl Scouts are supporting this global agenda to bring sexual rights (including emergency contraception and abortion) to all young people.”

Volanski says WAGGGS’ influence does have “a real impact on the local Catholic girl in a local troop in many different ways,” from the WAGGGS pin girls wear to express global sisterhood, to the problematic Journeys project books that routinely plug WAGGGS, to WAGGGS-related fundraising activities, to international visits to WAGGGS chalets, to WAGGGS global advocacy.

Even so, McCarty doubts that the influence “is as pervasive as you think.” Besides, he maintains, “We can pretend that we can protect our kids from this stuff or we can prepare them…”

In spite of the disagreement between NFCYM and the Girl Scout activists over the significance of the Girl Scouts’ issues, McCarty did intimate that while he’s committed to dialogue, lack of “movement” by the Girl Scouts on these issues may trigger “decisions” in the future.

The Church has financial leverage, if it’s willing to use it. McCarty estimates 700,000 Catholics are members of the GSUSA. At $12 per year, Catholic support delivers roughly $8.4 million to the Girl Scouts, not including funds earned by Catholic Girl Scouts’ fundraising or cookie sales, or the millions of volunteer hours donated by Catholic adults.

How to move forward?

I strongly urge the NFCYM, or the USCCB in its oversight capacity, to create a focused working group with a mandate to assess the extent and impact of the Girl Scouts’ connection to WAGGGS’ and other groups.

That working group should include at least three leaders from the Girl Scouts watchdog websites.  They know the issues, have spent hundreds of hours on their own time tracking down facts, and have been overlooked by the NFCYM for too long. If the NFCYM can spend hours in conversation with the Girl Scouts, it needs to engage these committed Catholic parents as a resource to be taken seriously.

The project should have a short deadline, delivering a report in advance of Bob McCarty’s planned meeting Anna Maria Chavez, the new CEO of the Girl Scouts. (Reportedly Catholic, in 2009 Chavez spoke at a women’s event co-sponsored by the local Planned Parenthood.)

Finally, the end game must be clearly defined, more than vague “movement.” GSUSA has stonewalled its critics by splitting hairs, arguing narrow points, with semantics about official or unofficial relationships with Planned Parenthood, national versus local level, parental permission or not, whether monies flow from membership dues, cookie sales, or other funds, etc.

In my view, either GSUSA severs its ties to WAGGGS and creates an explicit policy forbidding partnerships, affiliations, and resources from Planned Parenthood-like organizations—or the Catholic Church should withdraw its sponsorship of all Girl Scouts troops (convert to American Heritage Girls) and recommend that individual Catholics withdraw from the Scouts as well.

It’s time. Catholic families deserve clarity, delivered with courage.

(c) 2011 Mary Rice Hasson

Mary Rice Hasson is a Visiting Fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C

(Permission granted for reprints and republication, with attribution.)

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October 6, 2011 · 4:35 pm

Reaching Teens: The Priest Who Roared

It’s hard to impress a sixteen-year-old boy.

And it’s even harder to impress a sixteen-year-old boy with a Sunday homily.

But on a recent Sunday, a priest at our parish (we’ll call him “Fr. Joe”) did just that.

“Hey, you know that visiting priest, mom?  He was on fire. It was like one of those old fire and brimstone deals. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Neither, apparently, had most of the other teens in the Church.  Or even most of the adults, most likely.

His topic?

Pop culture…and its brazen efforts to normalize sexual perversity. Not an easy topic on which to engage teenagers positively and persuasively.

Teens too easily put on mental headphones and tune out “predictable” grown ups. “Yeah, yeah.  Back in the day…lecture 192.” Besides haven’t adults always complained about rock-n-roll, teen culture, fashions, and the like? It’s just a generational thing.

But when a priest grabs their attention, keeps them listening—and gives them something meaty to take home and chew on–it’s worth noticing what works.

So what went right?

For starters, Fr. Joe got their attention. He didn’t glide gently into his topic. He fairly roared. He spoke passionately, compelling attention by the volume and certitude in his voice. His voice conveyed the unspoken message: ‘Listen up. This is important. The stakes are high: your soul and our culture hang in the balance.’

Father Joe wasn’t angry and out of control.  But he was vehement, concerned, and loud. Troubled about the likely future of our culture, he insisted that his listeners respond, in their own lives, to what he was saying.

Look at it this way:  kids understand passion. Celebrities, teachers, coaches, and websites encourage our teens to discover their passion and pursue it, to find what matters to them, and to be a voice for it. But if a priest or youth leader addresses sexual morality or serious cultural problems with the same bland tone of the weekly “doughnuts-and-coffee-in-the-parish-hall-after-all-Masses” announcement, few teens will listen.

And why should they?  The speaker’s tone of voice implicitly says, “I know you’re not listening but, bear with me, I’m required to say this.”

Hardly a way to inspire teens to risk their popularity, face humiliation, or endure rejection because they stand up for truth.

A priest who roars, on the other hand, gets their attention.  Don’t cringe. I’m not advocating a weekly rant or ear-splitting homilies.  But our teachers, pastors, and ministers need to command attention and one way to do that is to let loose with the change-up pitch.  Be unpredictable. A dropped voice, a whispering tone, or compelling rhetoric does the trick too.

What else worked about Fr. Joe’s homily?

He used specific words, pointed criticisms, and concrete analogies. Gay marriage?  It’s like Grape Nuts: neither grape nor nuts. Gay marriage isn’t “gay”—the homosexual lifestyle teems with unhappiness, depression, disease, and substance abuse. And it isn’t “marriage” either. Marriage has a centuries old meaning that cannot be changed by popular vote—it requires the faithful sexual intimacy of a man and woman, united permanently to parent the children born of their intimacy. Two women and a turkey baster (or two guys and a rented womb) can’t compare.

Dozens of times a day, the culture pulses seductive, destructive messages to our kids—through music, videos, websites, peer conversations, the media and our schools.  (Read Mary Beth Hicks’ excellent new book Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid, and you’ll see the problem.)

Teens need us to respect them enough to provide reasons why certain acts are immoral.  Forget the euphemisms. Give them the words to defend traditional morality and provide the examples that challenge the lies behind accepted cultural ‘wisdom.’ If we want our teens to rebuff the culture’s assault on morality, then we need to tackle the other side’s arguments head on. Where else will our teens hear the truth, if not from their families and the Church?

Kudos to Fr. Joe for tackling tough subjects, with passion, clarity, and certitude.

I hope there’s more where that came from—in your parish and mine–for the sake of all our kids.

© 2011 Mary Rice Hasson

 

Mary Rice Hasson, the mother of seven, is a Visiting Fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, D.C.

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September 5, 2011 · 3:02 pm

The Sad Dance of Chaz Bono

Picture this: a female-to-male transsexual proudly dances with a woman partner in front of millions of TV viewers, competing with straight couples for the applause, approval, and votes of viewers young and old.

The show’s producer lauds the transsexual’s “courage” and “remarkably strong character.”  The transsexual, who declares himself* a “straight man,” and his LBGT supporters launch a media blitz to silence critics of the show, branding them “haters” and “stupid bigots.” Why? Because they won’t support this “positive role model” whose appearance will help “save lives” of vulnerable, transgendered teenagers.

It’s reality.

And it’s airing on the ABC reality show Dancing with the Stars this fall. The show scored big publicity last week when it announced that Chaz Bono, the transgendered offspring of the famous Hollywood duo, Sonny and Cher, would join this season’s TV dance competition. The show also will feature an openly gay contestant, Carson Kressley.

Chaz, who began transitioning from female to male last year, looks male (thanks to hormones), dresses and calls himself male, and has undergone breast removal surgery.  While he would like to add male genitalia, he considers the reconstructive surgery too risky. Besides, he feels like a male already, even without the proper equipment.

What’s he doing on Dancing with the Stars (DWTS), a show which the producer maintains is a “family show?”

Chaz says “America really needs to see this…” because of the “completely inaccurate stereotypes and thoughts that people have” about transgendered folks.

His bottom line? (No pun intended.)

“I want people to know that transgender people are just like everyone else.”

And if parents or families oppose his performance, preferring not to expose their children to the transgendered lifestyle?

They’re “haters.”

Well then, either most parents in America are “haters” or Chaz Bono–and his Hollywood friends–have got it wrong.

America does not “need” to see transsexuals pretending that their sexuality is a normal as the married husband and wife next door.  And they definitely don’t want their children to see it either.

A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics found that only 20% of American parents believe that it’s appropriate for children younger than 13 to be exposed to dialogue about alternative lifestyles. (Even higher percentages of parents would shield their children from images of alternative lifestyles.) The research found that, among both church-going and non-church-going parents, 32% believe the minimum age for exposure to dialogue about alternative lifestyles is 13-16 and an additional 29% of parents would wait even longer–until at least age 17. Further, 19% of parents believe such content is inappropriate for all ages. [Full disclosure: I coauthored the Pediatrics article with Iowa State University media research expert, Doug Gentile, Ph.D., and others.]

Parents: don’t be intimidated. You are not alone. It’s not “hateful” to affirm traditional male-female sexuality as natural and preferable to homosexuality, bi-sexuality, transsexuality, and the rest of the sexual smorgasbord. And it’s a good–not hateful–instinct to want to protect your child’s innocence.

This stunt—shining the spotlight on Chaz Bono as the first transgendered dance contestant (so we can pretend his new self is “just like everybody else”)–is the latest round in the same old game: Hollywood liberals arrogantly shove sexually dysfunctional people at viewers, insist that the public accept and approve of all “sexual minorities,” and then slap the label “hater” on anyone who objects.

Maybe to Hollywood producers, sexually confused and sexually deviant people really are “just like” the rest of…Hollywood. According to actor Corey Feldman, it’s an open secret that Hollywood’s number one problem is pedophilia. And Hollywood seems fascinated by sexual disorder masquerading as normalcy. Small wonder that DWTS producer finds Chaz Bono’s story “compelling” and “profound.” The LGBT community responded with verbal love strokes, hailing Hollywood’s decision as “a tremendous step forward for the American public to recognize that transgender people are another wonderful part of the fabric of our culture.”

Right.  Only if “culture” means the LGBT culture, with all its “wonderful” features like dungeons and fetish shows (popular exhibits in the “Erotic City” area of the L.A. Pride event. Maybe they’re saving that for next season’s “family show”).

It makes you wonder: do Hollywood types even know any regular parents? Or do they just ignore them?

Yes, transgendered people are equal in dignity to every other person. And Chaz Bono, female, male, or somewhere in the mutilated middle, should be treated with kindness and compassion. But let’s face it—anyone who feels compelled to mutilate his or her sex organs, with chemicals or surgery, because he or she feels like the opposite sex, has got some serious problems.

Chaz Bono’s story is heartbreaking. But heartbreak doesn’t make a role model. Nor does it make transgender-ism a condition to be celebrated.

Dancing with the Stars won’t showcase the backstory behind Chaz Bono because it tells of the misery that results when a child is left to raise herself. And the confusion that results when reality is defined by feelings, unmoored from objective reality, moral truth, or even the truth of one’s own body.

One particularly telling sentence in his memoir suggests the destructive inversion at the roots of Chaz’ tangled history: “As any child of famous parents will tell you, parents come first.” (p. 11).

And so they did for poor Chaz.

Sonny and Cher divorced when Chaz was four. She was a cute little girl named “Chastity” back then. Her nanny, Linda, became the “one person who gave me…warmth, safety, and attention.” (p. 10) As a child, Chastity traveled with Cher, who let her hang out with the show’s drag queens in between and after performances. (Good parenting, eh?)

After the divorce, Sonny began calling Chastity “Fred,” and encouraged her to hang out with him like “father-and-son.” (p. 16). By age 13, Chastity identified as a lesbian. And at fourteen, she was coached by an older lesbian—her mother’s friend–on “how to make love to a woman.” (p. 47). Shaped by instability—temporary homes, disruptive school changes, and her mother’s revolving cast of lovers—Chastity became a dysfunctional adult. She suffered through bad relationships, drug addiction, depression, unemployment, and personal confusion. Therapy from lesbian and transgendered therapists—surprise, surprise–compounded her confusion. Last year she embraced a transgendered identity and became “Chaz.”

So this fall, Chaz will dance his sad dance in celebration of who he has become.

And when the approval, votes, and applause prove to be but a temporary balm on his tortured soul… then what?

For Chaz’ sake, I hope someone in Hollywood introduces him not to the next, ‘best’ surgeon or therapist, but to the only Someone who can offer true healing and peace.

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  • Note: I follow the journalistic convention of using the pronoun that corresponds, at each stage, to Chaz Bono’s self-identified gender identity.

© 2011  Mary Rice Hasson

 

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