Girl Scouts On the Hot Seat

[shortridge]

Pere,

 

What rights are the bishops defending?

 

They're expressing their opinions. That's not defending a right.

 

They certainly have the right to say that good Catholics should not be Girl Scouts, if that's what they end up concluding. But under the Dale case won by the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts have the right of free association. They can partner with the Church of Satan if so inclones, and tell the bishops to take a hike without any bugspray.

 

SP,

Still waiting to learn how the Gay Left is using the gummint to force the BSA to do anything.

[moosetracker]

Anyone who is involved in a holy war, feels they are either defending their religious rights or fixing a moral wrong.. The religious group will always feel they have God on their side.

 

Rallying a religious group like it is your own personal troop is never a good thing.

[Beavah]

Yah, moosetracker, I'm just havin' a really hard time followin' your arguments.

 

Where is da notion of "Holy War" comin' from? Da notion of Holy War (jihad) is an Islamic notion, eh? How does that apply here? Historically I reckon it applies to the jihad/Crusade conflicts, though those were also economic, political, and cultural conflicts.

 

Rallying religious groups I reckon has been a lot better historically than rallyin' nationalist sentiment. Rallying Hindus with a religious non-violent message got yeh Gandhi. Rallying Christian churches got yeh an end to slavery and the successes of da civil rights era. Rallying religious groups got yeh most of the orphanages and charity medical care in da U.S. for most of its history.

 

Can yeh point to any time that rallying nationalist sentiment has ended well?

 

Religion has long been a check and counterbalance to the behaviors of individuals and government, eh? Absent religious objection, how do yeh fight the eugenics movements of the early 20th century? Da government endorsed 'em. The science of the day supported the work. The groups that stepped up were those that believed in somethin' better than individuals, or science, or government.

 

Remember "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights..." When yeh object to people who are claimin' they have God on their side to correct a wrong, yeh are throwing away Jefferson and the founders, yeh are abandoning Desmond Tutu and the anti-apartheid churches in Africa. In fact, yeh are givin' up on almost all da folks who throughout history have had the courage to stand up to governments and tyrants.

 

So let's not be too hard on religion, when its record from "rallying" people is actually quite a bit better than public/government/political groups "rallying" people. It takes only a moment's cursory examination to recognize that that sort of thing is da real source of wars, if we're bein' honest with da data.

 

Beavah

 

[shortridge]

That was supposed to say "if so inclined," not "inclones."

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Shortridge,

 

 

>

 

 

Of course gay rights groups were well along towards using "nondiscrimination" laws to force BSA to accept their values.

 

Only the intervention of the USSC prevented that.

 

The left continues to wage cultural political struggle against BSA and Scouting. Just as an example, local United Way campaigns often exclude Scouting from funding for political reasons.

[moosetracker]

My contention is with inciting a religious group to organize as a unified group.. Holy war is just the extreme of where it can lead.. I don't mind your personal religious views prompting you as an individual to join some group out of your religion that has some power to shift opinion.

 

My understanding of the battle to end slavery is very different from yours Beavah.. It was those fringe liberal groups (some being liberal churches) that pushed to end slavery, and the conservative religions that fought to keep slavery alive. Being loud and obnoxious with their views until others saw the reasoning of it.. People on the North & the South pulled out thier Bibles to prove their side was on the side of the rightous, but it was not a war between the the Protestant against the Catholic churchs.. Nor could you say the Protestant church was the sole church that pushed for it.. It was brother against brother in and out of the church. You know, it was pushed by public and government..

 

Also as for the Gay Rights fight, it is preached by both sides in the church regardless of if you are a church for Gay Rights or not.. There is also people outside of the church who are arguing on both sides of the fence.. People are fighting the issues within their own Church denomination (brother against brother).. It is also being fought politically Given a few decades, I have no doubt it those fighting against prejudice will win, but it is not really a unified Religious effort.. You know this will be eventually won by public and government groups push..

 

Female equality, fought and won by women not religion.

 

Churches promoted segregation of blacks and white.. Desegregation was not a unified church effort, but that of the public and government.

 

Eventually once there is enough push from liberals and radicals to make a strong case that a viewpoint is the right thing to do, religions will slowly get behind it.. But, it starts with public outcry, and most the time if it goes against the chuch's traditional views, the church's will not stand behind it, unless they are liberal in belief, or slowly the majority comes around to seeing that it is the right thing to do on a more personal & individual basis.

 

[perdidochas]

The groups that ended slavery were fringe liberal groups, however, they were religious ones. The civil rights movement was led by the black churches. Yes, some churches were segregationist. I wouldn't deny that. However, the civil rights movement was spearheaded by religious people. Does the name Reverend Martin Luther King, jr. ring a bell. To call those groups non-religious, IMHO, is foolish and is close to being an untruth. (oh, and Catholic churches were among the first churches in the South to be integrated. The American Catholic Bishops (same group that you excoriate about the Girl Scouts) issued a statement in 1958 that declared segregation to be a moral wrong and that segregation cannot be reconciled with Christian views.)

 

[moosetracker]

He was religious, but he did not just try to unify those in his faith. He unified anyone who would listen.. ie.. the public, and the government. Didn't matter if they were christen, jewish, atheist, black, white.. etc..

 

As I said working in a group outside of your faith to produce change is fine by me.

[perdidochas]

Whatever you want to make up is fine. You have a bone to pick with the Catholic church, and you view history through that filter.

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmmm...

 

That's quite da revisionist history there, eh?

 

Again, how often have people rallied da nationalist sentiments of the public and government and caused wars? If you're thinkin' that is somehow better than religious folks workin' together, I'm at a loss.

 

Catholic Spain was one of the first to ban slavery, in part due to Dominican (and later Jesuit) priests. Later on, da Catholic Church and its nasty pope and cardinals condemned slavery pretty decisively In Supremo Apostolatus, eh? It was da response by the "a la carte" Catholics and bishops that waffled on the issue here in da U.S. Would that they had been more faithful instead of choosin' to reject the guidance of their church, many people might have been saved. The evangelical churches and da Quakers nonetheless soldiered on. What yeh fail to grasp is that it was "the public and government" workin' to end slavery only because that public was unitin' behind their religious beliefs and they were committed to acting on those religious beliefs to change the government.

 

B

 

[Nike]

Does anyone know which specific priests/congregations have pushed this to the bishops? Which bishops really seem to be sinking thier teeth into it?

 

I wonder if someone is trying to prove his political worthiness within the church to those higher-up.

[Peregrinator]

shortridge,

 

What rights are the bishops defending?

 

Sorry I wasn't more clear. I was referring to the Obamacare mandates, not the Girl Scouts.

[shortridge]

Pere,

 

Ok, thanks!

 

SP,

 

That's the biggest load of hooey I've heard here yet.

 

"The left continues to wage cultural political struggle against BSA and Scouting. Just as an example, local United Way campaigns often exclude Scouting from funding for political reasons."

 

So the Right cannot possibly wage cultural political war against GSUSA and Scouting? I can't comprehend how in your world the people who complained about Planned Parenthood are just fighting for their values, while equality supporters are waging war.

 

Please do not wrap your discriminatory values in the banner of Scouting. That is not my interpretation of the Oath and Law.

[SeattlePioneer]

>

 

 

I didn't say that. I'm not aware of an organized political campaign against Girls Scouts.

 

The Catholic Church seems to have doubts about Girl Scouts. I have doubts about the Girl Scout program, which seems to discourage camping and which tends to be suspicious of having men working in the program, even fathers.

 

This thread is my contribution to the culture war against Girl Scouts, but that's just raising questions not an organized political attack on girl Scouts like those waged by the left against BSA.

 

And in any case, there is nothing wrong with having a "culture war" which is a political dispute about what values should rule in the public square.(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

[MomWhoCamps]

Someone asked earlier in the thread how/where this was playing out on the local level. Here's one example:

 

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Girl-Scout-Troops-Banned-from-Church-137815843.html