Girls, Don’t Become Boy Scouts<br />While the Boy Scouts have an official policy against atheists and agnostics participating in scouting, the Girl Scouts make it clear<br />that girls may substitute any words they like for the part of the Girl Scout Pledge in which they promise “to serve God.”<br />The Girl Scouts have long focused on social justice, diversity and inclusion in their activities.<br />And as members of the World Association of Girl Guides<br />and Girl Scouts, a global body, they have provided financial support to organizations like Oxfam, Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders.<br />In May of this year, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas announced it was cutting ties with<br />the Girl Scouts, choosing instead to partner with American Heritage Girls, a right-leaning scouting group.<br />Unlike the Boy Scouts, in which individual troops are overwhelmingly affiliated with churches — a large share are tied to conservative<br />denominations; an estimated 20 percent of scouts are Mormon, for instance — the Girl Scouts are a secular organization.<br />Most crucially, it’s a direct attack on the Girl Scouts, a group<br />that shares some historical roots with the Boy Scouts but has grown into a very different organization, with very different values.
