sugar shock
by any means necessary
Amanda Marcotte at Slate
(not normally my primary sourcing because reasons):
For years now, hardcore Christian-right activists have had it out for the Girl Scouts. Yes, the Girl Scouts, which has been characterized by Christian-right groups and media sources as a radical feminist cult intent on kidnapping your daughters to make them lesbian abortion fanatics who probably don't even shave. I reported on the anger and hostility toward the Girl Scouts for Slate in 2011, and since then, it's only grown worse. In 2012, Family Research Council leader Tony Perkins suggested that liberals use Girl Scouts to indoctrinate kids because they're "not having kids so they want to make sure they can get our kids." Radio host Kevin Swanson denounced the Girl Scouts in 2013 for not providing a model of “godly womanhood” and equating support for the Girl Scouts with support for lesbianism, Planned Parenthood, and abortion.
Now anti-Girl Scout forces have really hit the big time, getting a chance to make their case on Fox News. Back in December, the Girl Scouts' Twitter account tweeted out a link to a HuffPo Live discussion about the influential women of 2013, asking, “Is there anyone you'd add to this list?” Upon discovering that Wendy Davis, object of much right-wing hate, was mentioned in passing in the discussion that followed (one that largely centered around championing the cause of Malala Yousafzai), Christian-right activists seized the day. Pro-lifers created a website demanding a boycott - sorry, a “CookieCott” - of Girl Scout cookies (“We boycott now because of Girl Scout praise for Wendy Davis and Kathleen Sebelius. And because of a deep and lasting entanglement with abortion providers and abortion rights organizations”), and Megyn Kelly hosted a discussion of the issue that demonstrated shockingly high levels of bad faith even by Fox News standards. Ellison Barber of the Washington Free Beacon argued, with a straight face, that linking to an article about many prominent women, one who happens to have famously stood up for abortion rights, constituted a violation of the Girl Scouts policy to supposedly take no position on “human sexuality, birth control and abortion.”
Here is the FAQ sheet Barber was likely referencing, and it's depressing to realize that many of the questions on it are attempts to address the fears of parents who have received breathless emails from paranoid Christian-right activists insinuating that Girl Scout meetings are abortion orgies.
I'd ask “Are these people for real?” except that I have lived in Texas since I was about four years old, and I'm not stupid, so I already know the answer.
If you have to, knock a Girl Scout over, sit on her chest and force her to take your money. I personally plan to hunt down every last box of Thin Mints that I can get my hands on in Travis County; I'm already two boxes in.
I will be a gay, mint-scented, fat-ass heathen for rational, independent thinking and Wendy Davis.