The Girl Scouts USA will hold its 52rd Annual Convention next week in Houston. It is to be the kickoff off to the 100-year anniversary on March 12, 2012, and the Girl Scouts are inviting everyone who has ever been a member of the organization to join in the celebration.

There was a time when I bled green and gold, but I will not be joining this party. The Girl Scouts have strayed far from the ideals of founder Juliette Gordon Low. Her scouts pledged to do their duty to “God and My Country” to help other people at all times and to “obey the Girl Scout Laws.”
The Laws encouraged young girls to uphold the highest moral standards. The original “A Girl Scout keeps herself Pure,” was expanded to read, “A Girl Scout is Clean in Thought, Word and Deed.”

Today’s Girl Scouts have put an asterisk by the word “God,” making the great I Am optional. Although local troops can pray to a creator if they choose, most don’t. It’s seen as so last century. Gone, too, are the moral absolutes recorded in His Word.

Today, the scouting experience largely depends on the area council and local troop leaders. Some are quite conservative, but these troops swim upstream against the national organization and have no say in matters of policy.

The beginning of the end of Juliette Low’s brand of scouting came in 1970 when feminist icon Betty Friedan was put on the national governing board. Now it is controlled by left-wing ideologues.

In 1980, the organizations changed its policy on homosexuality and welcomed lesbians as scouts and troop leaders. Today, it’s virtually anything goes. In fact, you no longer have to be a girl to be a Girl Scout. One needs only to “identify as a girl” to be accepted.

In the 1997 book “On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience,” an administrator of the organization estimated that 30 percent of the professional staff were lesbians. GSUSA policy states that it does not permit the “advocacy or promotion of a personal lifestyle or sexual preference.” One can examine the list of entertainers, speakers and role models who will be presented at Houston to see that it is dominated by gay-rights and pro-abortion advocates and left-wing ideologues. Many have more than a casual connection to the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.

The headliner is ABC’s left-wing journalist Katie Couric who often uses her position to salute her liberal heroes and bash conservatives.

Singer Sara Bareilles, who built her career performing and speaking at homosexual events will entertaining the crowd. She has appeared in a gay film and is a darling of the Obama White House.

Houston’s homosexual mayor, Annise Parker, and Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg. a prominent researcher on LGBT acceptance are speakers. Others include:

JoDee Winterhof, former Hillary Clinton campaign strategist and a vice president of the relief organization CARE, a leading international abortion advocate.

Feminist leader and Democratic Party activist Swanee Hunt. In her over-the-top article “Gagged and Bound” for Scripps Howard News Service, she bashed President G.W. Bush for signing a bill that banned the grizzly partial-birth abortion.

C.J. Golden who works with Girl Scout councils around the country to combine Taoism with “modern-day defiance.” Her website TaoGirls.com provides links to GirlZone and Teen Wire, Planned Parenthood’s explicit website for teens.
This is just a small sample. You can find a list of controversial speakers at speaknowgirlscouts.com, along with links to background information that has been scrubbed from their bios on the GSUSA official site.

Be advised: An important part of this year’s program is something called Conversations of Consequence such as “Moving Beyond Diversity to Inclusion.” Now I wonder what that’s promoting? Hummm!

Gay-rights advocate Marlee Matlin is reported to be speaking on philanthropy in one of these “conversations.” Matlin is the deaf actress who starred in the HBO series “The L Word.”

GSUSA puts on a good public face and still manages to snag a few Christian individuals and religious groups who are either ignorant of its agenda or in denial. However, many Christians have fled, and the exodus continues.

Clearly, the Girl Scouts’ 100-year journey took a sharp left turn in 1970 and is now headed downhill at a rapid pace.