From: C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute)
Volume 13, Number 13
March 11, 2010
Girl Scouts Distribute Planned Parenthood Sex Guide at UN Meeting
By Terrence McKeegan, J.D.
(NEW YORK – C-FAM) The World Association of Girl Scouts and Girl Guides hosted a no-adults-welcome panel at the United Nations this week where Planned Parenthood was allowed to distribute a brochure entitled “Healthy, Happy and Hot.” The event was part of the annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which concludes this week.
The brochure, aimed at young people living with HIV, contains explicit and graphic details on sex, as well as the promotion of casual sex in many forms. The brochure claims, “Many people think sex is just about vaginal or anal intercourse… But, there are lots of different ways to have sex and lots of different types of sex. There is no right or wrong way to have sex. Just have fun, explore and be yourself!” The brochure goes on to encourage young people to “Improve your sex life by getting to know your own body. Play with yourself! Masturbation is a great way to find out more about your body and what you find sexually stimulating. Mix things up by using different kinds of touch from very soft to hard. Talk about or act out your fantasies. Talk dirty to them.”
Recall from an earlier post that PP uses the following definition of young people:
“IPPF uses the terms young people, youth and adolescents interchangeably to refer to people who are between 10 and 24 years.” – From the IPPF document Stand and Deliver.
So now it’s the Girl Scouts. The systematic corruption of youth. The Girl Scouts Betrayed by their own leadership.
Admittedly, there are serious problems in the Third World that need to be addressed. Children are fair game in many societies, and the UN feels compelled to act on these children’s behalf.
This isn’t the answer.
This document is vile. It goes so far as to suggest to young people that they do not have a moral obligation to disclose their HIV status to a potential partner, and calls for abolishing mandatory reporting laws extant in some countries.
Think about that for a moment.
The same organization that calls for safer sex, Planned Parenthood, is calling for teens to make a judgement call about who should be told their HIV status. Incredible. It does, however, have its own internal logic.
PP is all about divorcing sex from a loving commitment and from the possibility of procreation. In almost all of their publications aimed at young people they take great care to refer to sex as “sex play”. Well, if it’s only a game, if hedonism is the central organizing principle, then disclosure becomes a “choice”. Killing one’s partner with HIV and killing one’s baby are merely “choices” attached to “sex play”.
You play, you pay. Welcome to the new morality. Of course, PP takes great pains to bundle the new hedonism with legitimate concerns about social ostracization of those with HIV. A spoonful of sugar helps the hedonism go down.
But Planned Parenthood isn’t the sole demon here. This filth was welcomed by the Girl Scouts under the guise of ’empowerment’. “I’m in charge of my own orgasm,” isn’t empowering. It’s degrading. It’s great training for a failed marriage. Rather than exploring together in the early days of marriage, which teaches patience and respect, having a bride dictate the established protocol, or the husband doing the same, makes of the other more of a performer in a well-rehearsed play-rather than a cocreator of a mutual expression of love.
Not a few feel entirely degraded by being expected to replicate what their spouse has created through masturbation or sex with different partners. There’s nothing so degrading as being a stand-in for the last half-dozen guys or girls ahead of you in line.
Hiding HIV from sex partners that young girls shouldn’t have in the first place begs the question of how they got HIV. It’s also a despicable thing to do, the height of narcissism and hedonism.
We were all set to have our daughters join the Girl Scouts this coming September. Seeing the new-age campfire stories, Regina and I will pass. The corrupt leadership simply can’t be trusted.
This isn’t the first time that the Girl Scout leadership has been linked to Planned Parenthood. Apparently, PP supposedly sponsors a program for the teenage scouts that is “no parents allowed”. A lot of Catholic families who are involved in Girl Scouts have been watching their local chapters like hawks for signs of any of this.
Also the Scouts for years have been linked to the homosexual movement.
My brother who was a Scout leader in Eastern Canada left the Scout organization for that reason.
These organizations seem to have lost their mandate many years ago.
Post-abortion and pro-life bloggers, Annie and Emily covered this issue in depth a while back:
http://afterabortion.blogspot.com/2004/08/girl-scouts-planned-parenthood-and-sex.html
So, the developers of these seminars have come to the conclusion that adolescents need adults to let them know that they have sexual desires? Like, they might not have thought about it if someone older didn’t clue them in to how they should be feeling? That’s the first thing that strikes me as somehow perverted, in the most objective sense of the word.
I’m not opposed to sex education. I just think it should be tempered to providing some basic facts to help young people understand what is happening to them. Somewhere in there should be some presentation on responsibility, some recognition that yes, a lot of kids are going to fool around, some mention that there are prices to that, and seriously, don’t risk having a baby until you really want one and are ready for it — both of you.
Then, the “one size fits all” mentality always bothers me. Suppose, hypothetically, that there are SOME teens for whom this particular form of seminar is appropriate. That doesn’t mean EVERYONE should have it. There are some rather explicit sex education curriculums that actually cut down on teen pregnancy.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1886558,00.html
I can’t knock ANY curriculum that allows a young lady to be the first in her family to hit sixteen or eighteen without being either pregnant of the cause of a pregnancy. But I don’t read that that was about “play” either.
I don’t know about Canada, but in the U.S. the Boy Scouts were the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case which established that they did NOT have to accept a gay scoutmaster. That was one case where I admired Justice Scalia’s reasoning and deplored Justice Stevens’s. I don’t much care if the Boy Scout allow a gay scoutmaster or not, but I care a lot that it is their choice, not a matter for courts to issue orders about.
i would not let my daughter attend the GS, the same way that i did not let her attend public school. what a cesspool our culture has become!
We heard about the meeting while we were there this past week. We knew they had to be up to no good. I wouldn’t have ever let me child go to something that forbid adults there. Thanks for reporting this.
Not sure I see what the problem is. No abortion advocacy or anything AFAIK.
Must be something they lace inside their cookies. Never will I buy anymore of their cookies.
This is terrible. Are there alternative organizations to the girlscouts? A group that is more christian based. If anyone has any suggestions it would be great. I have a 2 year old daughter. When she is old enough I want to involve her in a group but will not be doing anything with the GS.
Hi Tree,
There is a wonderful alternative to the Girl Scouts and it is American Heritage Girls. it takes all of the good stuff that you remember from GS and puts it into a Christ centered program that serves girls 5-18. they have been around for 15 years and just signed a memorandum of understanding with BSA. The first girls organization to ever do this! BSA is still true to its roots, unlike the GSUSA. Check them out at http://www.ahgonline.org or visit their Facebook site. We are so glad we found them! (Founded by GSUSA leaders, BTW)
Below is the official GSUSA Response. It’s too bad that people don’t check up on the “facts” listed in a lot of these Blog sites.
The Girls Only Workshop that Girl Scouts of the USA recently co-sponsored at the United Nations was supervised by adults and included no distribution of any brochure or collateral of any kind. The only participants were adults from GSUSA, Girls Learn International and The Grail, as well as 30-35 teenage girls. No materials were handed out.
The Girls Only Workshop was jointly hosted by Girl Scouts of the USA, UNICEF’s Working Group on Girls, Girls Learn International and The Grail as part of the 54th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations. The workshop was a group conversation conducted to formulate a document that would express girls’ perspectives on global issues affecting girls.
The Girl Scout organization does not take a position on family planning. Our membership is a cross-section of America with regard to opinions on religious and social issues and practices. We believe these matters are best decided by girls and their families.
The Girl Scout organization has no affiliation with any political organization.
Girl Scouts of the USA has never had a relationship with Planned Parenthood
Catholic Leader,
GSUSA has put out a statement that is carefully nuanced in its language.
While it may (or may not) be true of the parent organization, many reports are extant of individual Councils, which are subsidiaries, welcoming PP and its message.
This press statement is extremely studied in its language. What does ‘relationship’ in the last line mean? It can mean anything from informal acquaintance to working partnership. Two groups ‘coincidentally’ attending the same workshop sponsored by a third party is a neat way of working together without having a ‘relationship’.
Read the link from Rachel C. above. I note that you neglected to address its substantive content.
Given the reports over the years, I am inclined to cast a suspicious eye on this statement. It is also notable for what it DOES NOT SAY.
It does not denounce the document reported to have been handed out or at least presented.
It does not decry PP’s pushing for sex ed ad contraceptives for children as young as 10 years old.
It does not put out a statement stating a position that GSUSA encourages its girls and young women to avoid sex until marriage, if for no other reason than 80% of all STD’s are in the very 10-24 year-old age bracket targeted by PP.
They actually gave you the insight needed with this line, which could have been written by PP:
“The Girl Scout organization does not take a position on family planning. Our membership is a cross-section of America with regard to opinions on religious and social issues and practices.”
I do check facts. I also know a smokescreen when I see one.
Finally, give me your thoughts on this:
http://prolifeactionoforegon.org/2010/03/11/can-planned-parenthood-sex-guide-earn-girl-scouts-a-talking-dirty-badge/
and this:
http://www.elabs3.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=1926477&mlid=224457&siteid=668476&uid=9679622cfb
Great post, Gerard…I will not be buying any more girl scout cookies, that’s for sure.
The Centers for Disease Control report that fully one quarter of our nation’s adolescents have contracted some form of an STD. There are those who would say this is precisely why we need more sex ed and the types of things PP and the Girl Scouts are promoting.
Others, myself included, contend that the hypersexualization of our society contributes to the scandalous statistic cited above. Where is the outrage?
Is there no outrage because our major media outlets, entertainment venues, and academia join with the likes of PP in perpetuating myths about human sexuality, that we are free to follow what feels good without consequence? Well, that certainly seems to be the sitution today. Meanwhile more and more of our kids are condemned to suffer their whole lives through in some instances due to those diseases even as PP and the Girl Scouts throw gasoline on the fire and no one is held responsible.
A brief response to Nulono:
I’m not certain your brief remark was intended as parody or sarcasm, but it sounds like it. People really do exist in three dimensions, not as two-dimensional stereotypes. Just because some people are passionately opposed to abortion does not mean it is the ONLY thing they care about. Likewise, just because I consider Roe v. Wade to be a proper framework for the limits of government intervention in pregnancy, doesn’t mean that I endorse everything Planned Parenthood does.
It may be true, as Catholic Leader points out, that the Girl Scouts have been unfairly or mendaciously ambushed. It may also be true, as Gerard asserts, that their statement is itself a masterpiece of understatement and selective emphasis. Either way, most of us can agree that hypersexualizing girls from the age of ten is more damaging than affirming to those girls. In so many ways, children need time to develop, rather than having adult perspectives and adult functions forced on them by eager adults. In a small way, that is true of helicopter parents trying to force their children into “advanced” programs and multiple activities for the status, rather than because the child finds it fun. In a more substantial way, it is certainly true of PP trying to unilaterally define very young ladies as “sexual beings.”
“People really do exist in three dimensions, not as two-dimensional stereotypes.”
except of course the unborn – who are not people at all to you SJ. 😦
I seldom use the phrase “the unborn,” because it reminds me of movies about “the undead.” It doesn’t feel right to define anyone or anything by what it is not, although is is sometimes a useful way to create an adjective. I avoid it in forming nouns.
You are correct, of course, that I do not recognize the first 23 weeks of pregnancy as constituting a person — that’s axiomatic, because if I did, I would naturally be fully committed to your point of view.
Did you miss that I was trying to tone down a sarcastic remark and open up that you might have something worth listening to, even if we don’t see eye to eye?
Was there a table at the back of the room containing other materials and brochures, as the CFA person reported, or was this fabricated? Could it have been from the noon activities orientation meeting on the Commission on the Status of Women, since those brochures were also available at another event that week? Could the adult attendees of this meeting have been negligent to protect the girls in attendance from being exposed to sexually explicit material that pertained to how to masturbate and play out fantasies with your lover? I don’t see how this in any way shape or form could have anything to do with HIV education or protecting or educating any young women – and certainly not teenage Girl Scouts.
I think that the people saying that the official GSUSA rebuttal is “vague” may be because it fails to denounce the content of the brochure and not apologize for the negligence of the adults who were there to not see and remove the brochures. If a child brought this brochure to school and showed it to peers, they would be expelled on the grounds of sexual harassment rules that have become very explicit. The adults at this UN GSUSA event, for not seeing and removing them, are guilty of the same: exposing children to unsolicited sexually explicit material.
Would they have noticed and removed a Playboy or Hustler magazine at a back table near the entrance?
Reading this brochure makes me shiver when thinking that teen girls may being exposed to the messages contained therein. Telling young women to be “Hot” is anathema to the Girl Scout’s role of teaching young women to be empowered citizens. We should be teaching them that they don’t have to buy into that Porn Culture mentality — that they have worth without having to prove their Hot-ness.
We, as adults and leaders, in order to protect young women from exploitation and violence against them, should be standing up against this world-wide culture where everything says that you are only valued — as a slave, trafficked, child marriage, ogled, raped, sexually used by men and society — if you are Hot and Sexy. This brochure is one more tool to exploit our young women, treating them as sex objects, with little or no regard for their bodies or their partners’ bodies.
Why has GSUSA and WAGGGS not denounced this brochure as an affront to and attack against the security of women everywhere? Regardless of whether this was distributed at the GSUSA event or not, it has not been denied that there were GS representatives at another function on Day 6 where these brochures also appeared. We send our girls to GS to teach them to stand firm against the lie that only Hot girls have worth. Please GSUSA stand with us parents and speak out against teaching our young women that to be Happy and Healthy, they ought to be Hot.