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Indiana State Representative Bob Morris caught a lot of flak this past week after he decided not to endorse a resolution from the Indiana House honoring the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts.
His fellow Republicans immediately threw him under the bus. He was ridiculed on local radio stations and in the Indianapolis Star. The story quickly went viral. He was lampooned in the national press and even got slammed by Dave Letterman.
It's awfully easy to jump on the bandwagon and poke fun at a man who disses the Girl Scouts.
It takes a little bit of thought and effort to examine the facts and get some perspective on the reasons for his decision.
Like most Americans, I have always held the Girls Scouts in high esteem. I was a sucker for all those annual Girl Scout fundraisers. How could you turn down a sales pitch by one of those cute little cookie-pushers?
What could be more American, more wholesome, more unassailable than the Girl Scouts?
There are millions of American women who cherish fond memories of the scouting days of their youth; women who are proud of their association with the Girl Scouts, and rightly so.
So I decided to poke around and check out some of the anti-Girl Scout sites on the web. I regret to report that there seems to be a huge difference between the Girl Scouts of yesterday and the Girl Scouts of today.
Before you tolerant liberals start sending me nasty hate mail, please indulge me in two requests for objectivity and rationality.
1) Don't go off like the morons who have posted sarcastic comments about "commie pinko leftist" Girl Scouts selling cookies at the mall. My dispute is with the agenda of the national leadership, and certainly not with any of the local Girl Scouts who are being exploited.
2) Do a little research. The most persuasive site I visited is hosted by two teen-age girls who spent eight years together in the same local scout troop. They became uneasy with some of the aspects of their scouting experience, so they made the difficult decision to resign from the Girl Scouts.
They now host a website called Speak Now Girl Scouts that exposes the broad influence of left-wing advocacy groups, including Planned Parenthood and NARAL, with today's national Girl Scout leadership.
I'd ask you to visit a couple of other sites established by former Girl Scout supporters. Keep in mind when you visit these sites that they are hosted by young women who felt compelled to leave the local Girl Scout troops that they loved because they felt their convictions were being betrayed. Check out Honest Girl Scouts and 100 Questions for the Girl Scouts.
And if you are the parent of a teen-age girl, download the Happy, Healthy and Hot brochure that Planned Parenthood produced for teens and then tell me if this is the kind of message you want inculcated into your daughter's impressionable young mind. Did you really sign her up for the Girl Scouts so that she could learn more about homosexuality, masturbation and condoms?
(*These discussion topics don't seem to square with the stated purposes in the national charter of Girl Scouts of America, as foot-noted at the end of this blog.)
Now there are many fine local Girl Scout chapters that would never intentionally support this kind of garbage. However, they DO unintentionally support this agenda by retaining their affiliation with the national Girls Scouts organization -- and 50 cents of every box of cookies they sell goes to the national headquarters.
That's right, headquarters gets a bigger slice of the pie than the local chapter, which only gets to keep 10%.
The Girl Scouts have historically enjoyed great support from church groups. For decades, many Christians have been involved with scouting because it re-affirmed the traditional moral values that parents taught at home. Sadly, that no longer seems to be the case.
I've got to stand with Bob Morris on this one. I admire what the Girl Scouts of America used to be. I am disgusted over what the national leadership has done to undermine it's founding principles.
So instead of being angry at Bob Morris for having the courage of his convictions, why aren't more people angry at the sleazy left-wingers who have hi-jacked what was once a great organization and turned it into just another avenue for indoctrinating young girls into a sexualized, amoral, humanist world-view?
This is a perfect example of well-worn radical-left strategy: Gain control of a reputable organization; politicize it with your agenda; and if anyone dares to object, then you ridicule your opponents and accuse them of playing politics.
So far, that con-game is working flawlessly.
Just ask Bob Morris, the man who had the temerity to refuse to endorse the defilement of an iconic American tradition.
[*Footnote -- from the "Purpose" section of the Girl Scouts' National Charter]
-CITE-
36 USC Sec. 80302 01/07/2011
-EXPCITE-
TITLE 36 - PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL OBSERVANCES, CEREMONIES, AND
ORGANIZATIONS
Subtitle II - Patriotic and National Organizations
Part B - Organizations
CHAPTER 803 - GIRL SCOUTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
-HEAD-
Sec. 80302. Purposes
-STATUTE-
The purposes of the corporation are -
(1) to promote the qualities of truth, loyalty, helpfulness,
friendliness, courtesy, purity, kindness, obedience,
cheerfulness, thriftiness, and kindred virtues among girls, as a
preparation for their responsibilities in the home and for
service to the community;
(2) to direct and coordinate the Girl Scout movement in the
United States and territories and possessions of the United
States; and
(3) to fix and maintain standards for the movement that will
inspire the rising generation with the highest ideals of
character, patriotism, conduct, and attainment.
At one time or another, we’ve all heard preachers who make God sound like Attilla the Hun.
Fire and brimstone, judgment and damnation, death and destruction all await the poor soul who doesn’t measure up to this cruel God’s standards.
Admittedly, the Bible is full of instances where the wrath of God is stirred and he lowers the boom on wicked men and nations. But is it fair to type-cast God as a cosmic thunderer looking for an excuse to hammer somebody?
The judgment of God comes because of gross, unrepentant transgression. God has always reached out in mercy and sent prophets to warn a people who were falling into sin and setting themselves up for judgment. Only after people have time and again rejected God’s warnings has he, as a last resort, brought judgment upon them.
God takes no delight in the death of the wicked. He desires that all people would turn to him and be saved. Micah 7:20 declares: “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.”
He is indeed a God of judgment when his efforts to turn people back to him have failed. But judgment is not what God desires. He desires repentance. God wants us to wake up and realize that without his guidance and blessing we are wasting our lives and spoiling his creation.
Many people have difficulty comprehending the love of God. He seems so far away and beyond our reach. In all of this vast creation, some wonder, how much could God care about any one person’s life?One of the many reasons that Jesus had for coming to this earth was to give us a living, human example of God’s personality. He told the disciple Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)
Jesus spent a great deal of time ministering to people one on one. He cared deeply about his personal relationships. He told his disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you.” (John 15:14-15)
The heart of the Gospel is this: Jesus Christ, our God and creator, came to our sinful world to live among us, teach us, and most importantly, to die as a sacrifice for our sins. To seal the deal, and to prove His claims, He rose from the grave and returned to heaven 40 days later.
Jesus is still there today. He sits at the right hand of the Father, and He calls to you daily through the Holy Spirit. The only thing keeping you from a loving, secure relationship with God Almighty is your stubborn heart.
I'll be the first person to admit that this whole Gospel story sounds pretty far-fetched. Why would God choose to work in such strange and hard-to-imagine ways? I cannot answer that, but I can tell you that once you place your trust in him, and Jesus introduces himself to you, you will know the joy of being on the good side of the God who created you.
Once you have met the eternal God who cannot lie, you can rest in the knowledge that He understands more than you can ever comprehend, and that is okay. You can't figure it all out, and you don't need to; all you really need to know is that you belong to him.
And with knowing him will come the richness of his blessings. Knowing him means you can find your purpose in life. It means you can enjoy an inner peace that you cannot now imagine. It means that you have God’s guarantee of an eternal citizenship in heaven.
Your alternative? Keep doing what you’ve been doing. Live your life apart from God, restless and insecure. Worry about your uncertain future. Squander your few years upon this earth living without a purpose. And when you die...well, you won’t be spending eternity with God in heaven. The only other option is hell, and you will have all of eternity to regret having sent yourself there.
Don’t be afraid of God. He is the kindest person you will ever meet. Like the father waiting for the prodigal son, his arms are open wide. He wants you to come home. He wants you to join his family. A prayer like this one can bring you to peace with God right now:
“God, I have my doubts. Please heal my unbelief. I know I don’t deserve your mercy, and I’ve spent my life sinning against you. Jesus, I give up! I ask you to forgive me, cleanse me and heal my heart. I want to know your love and your friendship. I give you my life today, Lord, and I ask you to bring me into your family. I want to live my life doing what you created me to do.”
Once you’ve given your heart to God, you need to find companionship in a good local church where other believers can help you grow in faith and understanding. You will a baby Christian, freshly born again, and you will have a lot to learn.
Babies are ignorant and messy, but they sure are cute and lovable! Come to Jesus now and He will love on you just like a proud father with a new-born infant.
Deroy Murdock reports on a recent study by the Pew Research Center about the alarming extent of ghost voting in our electoral system.
READ MORE
Charles Krauthammer writes an excellent column about the frightening and invasive creep of government control that Obamacare is ushering into our everyday lives. READ MORE
The next time you hear some doofus media commentator, or a Muslim apologist from CAIR (Council for American Islamic Relations) extolling the benefits of Sharia Law, take a deep breath.
Once your head is clear and your heart beat is stable, perhaps you should consider, as an example of Muslim tolerance, the sad plight of Hamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old newspaper columnist from Saudi Arabia.
The young man made the fatal mistake of speaking his mind, and by doing so, he failed to give the proper respect to the Prophet Muhammad. Saudi clerics are demanding that Kashgari be charged with apostasy, and then executed after a fair trial.
Kashgari received more than 30,000 responses and a number of death threats as a result of a posting he made on Twitter. He decided to flee Saudi Arabia after more than 13,000 people joined a Facebook page titled "The Saudi People Demand the Execution of Hamza Kashgari".
Saudi authorities somehow persuaded Interpol, the international police agency, to put out a "red notice" which flagged Kashgari as a wanted criminal. He was detained by local police in Malaysia, and will most likely be returned to Saudi Arabia to stand trial.
Exactly what heinous crime did this young man commit? What awful blasphemies did he spew against the Prophet Muhammad?
His tweet, which the authorities have since deleted, simply read: "I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you … I will not pray for you."
Under Sharia Law, that kind of smart-alecky free speech gets your head chopped off.
That is all you need to know to understand why we must never allow Sharia Law to gain a foothold in America.
You can read more about this story HERE.
To the Liberal mind, anything that stands in the way of maximizing contraception and abortion services must be eliminated. And as usual, Liberals are seeking more government power to more effectively control every aspect of our lives.
Their latest attack is on the Catholic Church.
In promulgating new insurance regulations under Obamacare, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced that virtually all employers will be required to offer employee insurance plans that cover sterilization and contraceptives – including drugs that cause abortion. In addition, these services must be offered with no co-pays or deductibles.
Initially, there was talk that religious institutions might be exempted from this policy to accommodate "freedom of conscience," but that tolerant attitude got the heave-ho from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who will allow the "conscience" exemption to only those organizations that exist to inculcate religious values for the benefit of members of their own faith.
At least for now; what's to stop her from changing her mind again after the next election?
Religious hospitals and universities are therefore not exempt, since these institutions provide services to the general public. Ironic, isn't it, that by tolerantly serving people of all faiths you are forced by your government to forfeit the free exercise of your own?
Never mind that the Catholic Church, to it's great credit, has always affirmed the sanctity of human life as one of it's doctrinal foundations.
Never mind that there are over 44 million Catholics in this country.
Never mind that Catholic hospitals are private institutions founded to fulfill a religious duty to care for the sick.
Never mind that the First Amendment plainly declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
If your religion regards human life as God-given and sacred, how can you freely exercise your religion if the government forces you to violate your conscience?
This latest HHS ruling exemplifies the kind of outrageous hokum that results when Congress abdicates it's responsibility to legislate, and instead creates unaccountable government bureaucracies to manufacture rules that have the force of law.
We are on the slipperiest of slippery slopes here: The day is coming when a Christian OB/GYN will have to decide whether he will bow to Caesar and perform abortions, or give up his medical practice.
WIBC's Greg Garrison said it even better: This isn't a slippery slope, it's a headlong plunge down a well shaft. If the government can arbitrarily make rules like this one, are there any limits left to federal power?
It is always the same with Liberals: Under the guise of "fairness" and "social justice" they bypass the established legal process and dictate, by administrative fiat or judicial meddling, how the rest of us are supposed to live our lives.
To the Liberal mind, the State is the supreme power. The individual is only of worth to the degree that he serves the interests of the State.
Let's just get it over with now and change the motto on our currency to "In Obama We Trust."
