Yummy Activism

My mom didn't approve of me being a Boy Scout. She said they were a military youth group. I believe the words "Hitler Youth" and "crypto-fascist" were deployed at various times as I slunk up to the Methodist church each week for meetings.

My Back Deck, Winter of 2011

Nowadays the courts have upheld the right of the US Boy Scouts to have policies that deny membership to atheists and agnostics, and that bar gay members or leaders. The courts have spoken, but when the Scouts are at their little fundraising tables in front of supermarkets in nice weather, I exercise my right to abstain from contributing, and to use my "outside voice" in sharing my views of hate-based military groups.


Mom would be proud.


Now the Girl Scouts have done something much more interesting. They have no such discriminatory policies. In fact, they recently upheld the right of a Girl Scout troop in Colorado to admit a transgender young person. The Christian right wing was already having a fit about Girl Scouts and abortion, so the open admission policy for transgendered people pushed them over the edge:

. . . the president of Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, told The Christian Post, "The Girl Scouts partner locally, nationally and internationally with Planned Parenthood, the largest abortionist in the world. They should stop this and the only way to stop them is by hitting them in the pocketbook."

The entire Christian Post piece is here:

http://www.christianpost.com/news/families-boycott-thin-mints-over-girl-scouts-ties-with-planned-parenthood-68381/

Colossus and Norby, 2011, Observing Snow

if you read the article, you're going to have to get past grinding your teeth over the Christian group's characterization of themselves as "pro-family." Like "pro-life," it's a despicable presumption. But the reward is to learn that their head guy is named Mr. Ruse.


Groups that support the human rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people are reacting to the hate-monger cookie boycott the only way they can - by eating cookies. So this year if you are approached by a Girl Scout selling cookies, buy a lot of them and tell the young woman why. Or find the cookies in your supermarket. As you sit watching TV, obliterating your diet resolutions while in high carb, high fat heaven, you can remind yourself that you're really only being a person of good conscience. Kind of, Occupy Junk Food.