As the culture at-large is immersed in gender confusion, a battle between the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts over “recruitment confusion” is gaining ground in the courts.
In the latest court filing on Christmas Eve at the Manhattan federal court, the Girl Scouts described the opposition’s new recruitment program as “highly damaging”, causing an “explosion of confusion” among parents who have mistakenly signed their daughters up for Boy Scouts, thinking it was Girl Scouts.
In a statement released Saturday, the Boy Scouts responded that the Girl Scouts accusation is “not only inaccurate – with no legally admissible instance of this offered to date in the case – but it is also dismissive of the decisions of more than 120,000 girls and young women who have joined Cub Scouts or Scouts BSA”.
In October 2017, the Boy Scouts’ board of directors voted unanimously to open the club to all children – including so-called transgendered children. In 2018, the century old organization began removing the word “boy” from their recruitment materials. In November of that same year, the Girl Scouts filed a suit contending trademark infringement, arguing that the re-brand would be “uniquely damaging” to Girl Scouts operations. In the latest filing of last week, the Girl Scouts have asserted that Scouts BSA recruitment practices are causing confusion among parents who have intentions of sending their daughters to Girl Scouts. Last month, lawyers acting on behalf of Scouts BSA asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit.
Following the Boy Scouts shift to allow girls in October 2017, a fierce backlash was triggered by the Girl Scouts online with accusations of a “covert campaign” by the Boy Scouts to recruit girls into an organization with a “well-documented” declining membership.
Sexual abuse scandals played a large role in Boy Scouts membership going from 5.5 million in 1987 to just over 2 million today.
A British military man named Robert Baden-Powell started the the scouting movement in 1908. Shortly thereafter, he and his sister Agnes began Girl Guides (called Girl Scouts in the United States and several East Asian countries). The Baden-Powells believed in two simple truths. The first was that there are psychological and moral advantages of practicing outdoor activities that were sharpened and enhanced by cultivating an attitude of reverence and helpfulness. The second truth was that there are fundamental differences between boys and girls and that, in many circumstances, they profit by single-sex associations that nurture and cater to those differences.
The Boy Scouts/Scouts BSA Oath reads: “On my honor, I will do my best/ To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;/ To help other people at all times;/ To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.”
The part about God belies one underlying restriction that still remains in the Boy Scouts/Scouts BSA: non-believers are excluded from both membership and leadership. As the number of non-believers grows steadily in the United States, one has to wonder how much longer that stipulation will last.