The Girl Scouts' new curriculum is rife with eastern mysticism, New Ageism, feminism, moral relativism, and communist and lesbian role models.

Girl Scout cookies may still be sugar and spice, but the same can no longer be said of the organization itself. This is owing to a new curriculum adopted by the Scouts called “Journeys” — a fitting name, as it’s a real trip to the dark side. Chelsea Schilling at WorldNetDaily reports on this new curriculum, writing, “When many parents think of Girl Scouts, they imagine young girls in uniform selling Thin Mints and Tagalong cookies – not learning about stone labyrinths, world peace, global warming, yoga, avatars, smudging incense, Zen gardens and feminist, communist and lesbian role models.” Yet this is precisely what Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) is now pushing.

This New Agism on steroids is, not surprisingly, attended by a de-emphasizing of Christianity. As to this, Schilling quotes former 20-year GSUSA member Patti Garibay, who resigned from the organization for this very reason and explained, “. . . mandates were made against Christmas caroling, praying at meetings and singing hymns. I had a true moral dilemma and felt that I could not uphold the GSUSA's rules and remain a Christian never denying my Lord.”

Schilling also illustrates how GSUSA has transitioned from a demoting of Christianity to the exalting of paganism. For example, she writes of a “Journeys” book entitled "Amaze: The Twists and Turns of Getting Along," in which, “. . . girls from the sixth to the eighth grade will read a quote from Buddha and be encouraged to explore mazes and stone or dirt labyrinths – symbols rooted in pagan mythology and popular within the New Age movement as meditation tools.” Thus, it seems that in the GSUSA’s universe, all religions are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Without a doubt, the ostensibly tolerant “Journeys” certainly takes sides, and it’s never the right side. In the GSUSA text "Your Voice Your World: The Power of Advocacy," Garibay says that “Men are not seen favorably but, rather a force to diminish and avoid,” and women of faith are hardly mentioned. Yet an assortment of communists, lesbians and hard-core feminists (why do I feel like I’m repeating myself?), such as Simone de Beauvoir, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Betty Friedan and Martina Navratilova, are exalted. In other words, to paraphrase Pat Buchanan, the curriculum is reminiscent of the bar scene in Star Wars.  This isn’t surprising, though, as WorldNetDaily reports that “. . . roughly one in three of the Girls Scouts' paid professional staff is lesbian.”

Generally speaking, “Journeys” instills girls with a sense of grievance and is designed not to build character, but activists. Worse still is that all this strong ideology is served up with the self-delusion of moral relativism. And I call it self-delusion for good reason.   

In 1993, the GSUSA decided to make God optional in its program, but does it make protecting the environment and “female empowerment” optional? Leftists may roll their eyes here, but I’m not just being cheeky. The point is that every curriculum takes certain values for granted; every organization has certain explicit dogmas and many more implicit ones. As G.K. Chesterton said, “In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it.” And the problem with the modern man is not just that he so often has the wrong dogmas; it’s that he often doesn’t even know they are dogmas. This leads to immaturity in debate.

What I mean is, modern man is intensely aware of dogmas he doesn’t like just as an oyster cannot ignore the grain of sand in his midst. He then protests against making them the stuff of indoctrination, saying that not everyone agrees that God exists, or whatever the case may be, and that it’s wrong to “impose” values on others. But this settles nothing. It doesn’t yield value neutrality — which exists only in fantasyland — and cuts off at the knees the most important debate we ever could have: that about what our dogmas should be.

Thus, modern man still imposes dogmas, only, without the awareness that they actually are dogmas; he is blind to his own biases. Sure, the dogmas may be popular, such as the notion that we all have a duty to reduce carbon emissions. But eugenics and slavery have been popular in various times and places, too. The modern man may be sure his dogmas are correct, such as the idea that feminism is a good thing. But such assurance was shared by communists in 1917, Nazis in 1933 and the Taliban today. Everyone is sure of his dogmas; that’s why they’re called dogmas. But if we’re not even aware of our own biases, correct or incorrect, our lack of self-knowledge is striking indeed.

Lastly, even if we played the devout relativist, we’d still have dogma. For the statement “All values are relative” is a dogma. Moreover, even if we were to say that you could view matters as relative or absolute, as your fancy inclines, we would be operating based on the implicit dogma of “Whatever works for you.” And, in any case, the advocacy of relativism certainly involves the corollary that absolutist creeds, such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam, are not the Truth, as they claim.

Of course, you could just say with respect to values, “I don’t really know anything; in fact, I don’t even know that there is anything to know,” but then you don’t have a curriculum. You just have a lot of confused looks.

Really, the biggest problem with the GSUSA and most of the modern world is not that they may be wrong, for we all can descend into error. It is that they fail to honestly search for what is good, for Truth. And while it may be excusable to be wrong, far less so is the failure to search for what is right.

Selwyn Duke is a columnist and public speaker whose work has been published widely online and in print, on both the local and national levels. He has been featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show, at WorldNetDaily.com, in American Conservative magazine, is a contributor to AmericanThinker.com and appears regularly as a guest on the award-winning, nationally-syndicated Michael Savage Show. Visit his Website. 

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danwhitehead1 said:

	As always - - - - - - Mr. Duke hits the nail right on the head.
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June 02, 2009
Votes: +2

Lal Wynstrom said:

Seen in context We need to understand that this is the latest assault on our Judeo-Christian culture and its foundations of liberty. While this statement may seen trite to those who understand, its fundamental centrality, not only to the culture war which Pat Buchanan so boldly reminded us of some twenty or so years ago, but to the principle assault by those whose chief objective is to rend Western man away from his cornerstone of liberty and replace it with a false paradigm- which in the end is about enslaving him rather than liberating him- must be understood. It is a false concept of freedom based on licentiousness and moral relativism- acting through change agents- not responsibility, and it must be first recognized, as Mr. Duke so eloquently has above, and fought. I lament that the poor Girl Scouts have descended so far into this kind of degeneracy, which seems to have begun (as far as I can tell) in the early part of this decade, starting with the politically correct notion of accepting homosexuality (in this case lesbianism) as a viable alternative to the natural and God-breathed man-woman relationship. They've been on a downward slide ever since, this apparently being the latest. The Boy Scouts, by contrast, have stood firm, at least as far as I've kept up with them. And unless their foundations are buttressed, I can see a day when they too will undergo the same falling away from their heritage and principles as the Girl Scouts.

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June 03, 2009
Votes: +5

Bliss Tew said:

Indoctination in Youth movements a hallmark of the left How many recall the "Hitler Youth" and the the various communist youth organizations in nations that were used as tools of propaganda and endoctrination of youth in the dogmas of the party, either National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI) or the International Communist Party depending upon the time and place? Apparently the take over of the GSUSA by the radical feminists has transformed that once wholesome volunteer institution into an indoctrination factory to turn out young leftist-freminists.

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June 03, 2009
Votes: +6

Charles Butler said:

	... It is sad to see such a nice organization like the Girl Scouts be ruined by an element that is Anti-God, Anti-religion...well....anti-everything that has made this nation so great. I love their cookies though but I will never allow my future daughters join their group.
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June 05, 2009
Votes: +3