All of this outrage that religious organizations and Catholic churches are banning Girl Scouts from participating in their meetings is completely misplaced. If you don’t want the church to mess with your life, you should respect the church’s right to do the same. If religious people don’t want anybody inside their house of worship for whatever reason, that’s their right.
Separation between church and state goes both ways, people. As barbaric as you might find anybody’s beliefs, they are free to practice them inside their religious facilities. And you can always start your own prayer group and keep Girl Scout haters out of it.
Clarissa's Blog 
That’s why I never understood things like the hullabaloo when the Southern Baptist Conference told its members that husbands should be the head of the household and wives should take their husband’s lead. There were all sorts of protests, by people who were in no way affiliated with the Baptist church and never would be! It was an internal decision having to do with their members. It had nothing to do with Catholics or Jews or Buddhists or atheists or gays or anyone who was not a member of the Baptist church. And no one in this country is compelled to belong to a church — if you were a Baptist and didn’t like that ruling, just leave the church! Yes, leaving a social group is always a wrench, but life isn’t meant to be a smooth path through a Disney dreamland.
Likewise the fuss every time the Catholic church says something against birth control. Don’t be a Catholic if you don’t believe in their rules. (And that goes for Catholics too — don’t tell people who aren’t members of your organization to follow your rules. Like you said, it goes both ways.)
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“It was an internal decision having to do with their members. It had nothing to do with Catholics or Jews or Buddhists or atheists or gays or anyone who was not a member of the Baptist church.”
– Exactly.
“Don’t be a Catholic if you don’t believe in their rules. (And that goes for Catholics too — don’t tell people who aren’t members of your organization to follow your rules.”
– Again, exactly.
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Most Catholics just ignore the rules anyway. 🙂
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The problem I personally have with it isn’t that they’re banning it, that’s their prerogative to do so: I’m just once again chagrined that they think GSA allowing girls in who are trans is enough of an offence to consider them to be an undesirable organization to support.
I wasn’t expecting anything better from the Church, of course, but being reminded that organizations which do hold a lot of power over the way local communities function consider people like my girlfriend to be a danger to children and want to segregate them from the rest of the public isn’t very cheering.
Also, GSA is often the only chance girls in smaller rural communities get to participate in group activities and fun trips, and I’d hate for that to translate to the GSA being unwelcome in communities where churches call a lot of the shots, and deprive kids of the chance to join if they were interested.
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“I’m just once again chagrined that they think GSA allowing girls in who are trans is enough of an offence to consider them to be an undesirable organization to support.”
– This is barbaric. But they have the right to their barbarity. I wish that people in church and outside became more open-minded but if they wish to be idiots (inside their own house of prayer), then they should be left in peace to be idiots.
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They do have a right to their barbarity. They do NOT have a right to foist it upon everyone else. And they certainly don’t have a right to foist it upon local and federal governmental policies and policymakers, both of which they are currently trying to do in their crusade against GSA.
Ironically, my grandmother was one of the first Girl Scout Leaders in the US, and she was also a devout Catholic woman to the day she passed away.
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My post was written in response to emails I’ve been getting from a progressive website that very specifically criticized the church for banning the GS from the church grounds.
Maybe if I finally get home today, I’ll quote the text of those emails.
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I do think as a society we have a responsibility to look at the barbarities that religions foist on to their members. Perhaps in this case it is reasonable to let it pass but at other times we really must say something.
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Their members are free agents who choose their own lives. They are not being chained to the pews.
Religious fanatics want to stick probes into women’s vaginas because they don’t believe that women are capable of making their own rational choices. Let’s not imitate these fanatics in adopting such a condescending and paternalistic view of religious people.
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Freedom of religion is great. It should mean freedom from taking government handouts and tax breaks as well.
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The separation of church and state is one of the guiding ideas of the US Constitution. Religious institutions are exempt from taxes based on that.
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Sophistry.
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How is the tax exempt status of churches sophistry, Hattie??
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Well for me personally, I am deeply troubled by the trend this suggests. On the one hand, the Catholic Church is one of the major churches in the US (and the world); and, on the other hand, Girl Scouts is so wholesome and so very “establishment.” So it’s not like some fringe church is rejecting a group of radical feminists. It’s a major church with a great deal of clout rejecting a mainstream group (and, from what I understand,continuing to support the Boy Scouts.) So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I am worried what this means in terms of gender and sexual politics when a major Church brands a group that encourages cookie-selling, arts and crafts and camping, as radical or extreme. I agree that it’s the Catholic Church’s right and that the Church shouldn’t be forced to recognize the Girl Scouts or anything. Still, I find the entire thing disturbing. And I think Americans, especially members of the Catholic Church, are well within their rights to critique the church here.
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