Girl Scout Cookies Are Evil! (Right-Wing Pastor Warns)

It’s not exactly breaking news that right-wingers have it in for the Girl Scouts. They would like you to believe this is about some imagined alignment with Planned Parenthood whereby Girl Scouts now earn badges not for knot-tying or first aid, but in abortions and advanced abortions.

At any rate, pastor and right-wing activist Kevin Swanson will have you know they’re evil! And you should definitely not support that wickedness by buying Girl Scout cookies — unless you then take a big, fat black marker and cross out the name ‘Girl Scouts of America’ anywhere it appears on the box. Seriously, you guys:

Swanson: Please, I beg of you, do not buy Girl Scout cookies. Please, I beg of you, stop buying Girl Scout cookies. And if you do, take a big black magic marker and cross out all of the references to Girl Scouts of America on all of the signs and all of the boxes because we do not want to promote that organization.

But lest you think this is in any way really about the Girls Scouts’ well-known promotion of abortion*, think again.

Swanson: The individualism of feminism has been devastating to this country. I’d say you ought to say no the Girl Scout cookies too. I don’t want to support lesbianism, I don’t want to support Planned Parenthood and I don’t want to support abortion, and if that be the case I’m not buying Girl Scout cookies. Now I suppose if you take a big, fat, black magic marker and you say, ‘give me that box,’ and you start marking out all of the references to the Girl Scouts of America on all the boxes then maybe we’re not promoting that organization anymore and I’d be willing to buy it. Maybe it’s not food offered to idols anymore if I had the opportunity to scratch out references to the Girl Scouts of America on the boxes of the Girl Scout cookies offered to me at Safeway.

Buehner: Those are some pretty expensive cookies you’re eating though. At some point a Christian has to say, ‘the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,’ and where you spend your money does count.

Swanson: It does and I don’t want to promote a wicked organization that according to its own website doesn’t promote godly womanhood, it just doesn’t, I don’t see anything that promotes godly womanhood. The vision of the Girl Scouts of America is antithetical to a biblical vision for womanhood, it’s antithetical to it.

That bold text above? That’s what this is really all about. The right’s problem with Girl Scouts has always been and continues to be that the organization strives to help girls develop into confident, strong, independent young women. If Girl Scouts were teaching girls how to cook, clean, care for babies and respect her husband, Pastor Swanson wouldn’t have a problem. It’s just all that damned teaching girls to think for themselves. That’s evil.

* not an actual fact

** Full disclosure: Author is a Girl Scout Troop Leader, and therefore an evil radical feminist.

By: Sandi Behrns

Sandi Behrns is a noted policy nerd, new media & web developer, and consultant to progressive organizations and campaigns. She is a senior contributor to Liberaland, and the Executive Editor of Progressive Congress News.