As usual, a great and heated debate has cropped up over what appears to be a pretty innocent situation. A little girl in a funky green outfit arrives at your door, knocks, hands over a trifold, glossy, full-color form, and pipes, “Dooywanna buy some Girl Scout Cookies??”
And your heart goes, “Aww, she’s so little.”
And your brain goes, “Pretty sure that the corporate office up there is in bed with Planned Parenthood.”
And your tummy goes, “SAMOAS!!”
I’ll be honest. Most of the time, I go with my stomach. I imagine there are lots of other well-meaning people out there who do the same (or go with their heart, which is the next most likely thing for me to do), and I think that’s ok. Unfortunately, there is a real and deep problem with the Girl Scouts of America and their support of feminist agendas, Planned Parenthood, and GLTB agendas which do attempt to undermine the values which Christians hold sacred. The questions of whether or not it is ethical to support the Girls Scouts of America is not a new debate. Catholics who send them a big check every year, or work at the council level or above, probably need to do a little soul-searching. But this week, we’re talking about those front-door cookie commandos, and how Catholics need to turn away the little vendors with a kind explanation about GSA’s political agenda being incompatible with our morals.
At LifeSiteNews, a good friend of mine has written a follow-up article about the cookie debate, which is generating some pretty vehement criticism (the original article from LifeSite is here). “Reconsider?” the commenters fume. “Give them a chance???” they wheeze. “Like, srsly??????” Those of us out there who go with our tummy, apparently, are contributing to the Next Great Evil Thing in society. Meh. I grant you the evil of Planned Parenthood, and I’ll even grant you the Girl Scouts being sketchy. I don’t do March of Dimes, or Pink Ribbons, or any of that other stuff, because of clear connections with questionable agendas.
The author of the article agrees that the relationship between the Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood is troubling, but suggests that we can counter that liberal agenda while still giving support to the small, local groups. My “defense” of Girl Scouts in general is even more radical in its subsidiarity than the LifeSite article tries to be. Mr. Jalsevac suggests that perhaps, since they appear to do good on the local level, whether we can find a way to support individual troops? I don’t even care about the troop. I want to support that little girl on my front step.
Because what I see on the step is an American child out with her mother or father on one of the few days a week they are able to be together as a family. For an entire morning, or afternoon, that little girl is developing a work ethic alongside a parent, doing a brave thing by knocking on strangers’ doors, and doing it because the adult with her is loving and supportive. I see a freezing mom or dad, bored and tired, smiling and encouraging their daughter to speak up, to explain the cookies, and to answer all my questions.
I could not answer the door, which is the easiest solution. I could answer, listen to the spiel, then say “no.” I could answer, listen to the spiel, and say, “Good job! I’d buy cookies but I don’t like the GSA’s policies.” I could scream, “Baby killers!!!” through the window. But I don’t see how passing on the guilt of the corporation to that little girl is really fair to her. I do admit, all levels of Girl Scouting are somehow involved with the top-floor agenda, and I was in Girl Scouts briefly myself, so I can attest to the feminist bent of much of their literature and programming. (As for troop autonomy, which is mentioned in the LifeSite comments, my troop was pretty autonomous. My troop leader literally tore whole sections from her handbook and trashed them, and we were only allowed to to merit badges that were outdoors, crafts, or learning about other countries. Sounds like autonomy to me.)
However, most of the 6-8 year olds who come to my door are utterly clueless about those agendas, as are their parents. Unlike many of the other situations where we boycott a company or avoid a product, in this situation there is an innocent child caught in the middle. She’s trying to learn, to grow, and she trusts her parents who have allowed her to join this organization–one that to her means friends, badges, a field trip to the planetarium, and yes, selling cookies. While sending a letter to PepsiCo or ignoring that “Pink Ribbon Race” invite from your neighbor is straightforward, undermining someone’s planetarium trip (and the judgement of her parents by extension) isn’t quite the same thing.
And if I buy a box of fatty, overpriced, same-as-last-year sugar bombs in order to reward the little girl for her effort, I will still sleep in peace that night.
(Image credit www.sesamestreet.com. Which is a little ironic, and could start an entirely different debate about what we let our kids get involved with, influences of corporations, and how to boycott junk in all its forms.)
12 thoughts on “The Cookie Monster”
I left the land of the Little Green cookie sellers this spring, now living back in Europe. However, I did not see mention in your piece about the fact that the local troop gets very little of the cash from the sales. It goes all the way up to the top of their (Cookie Monster ?) food chain. I discovered the same from a large donation we collected once for the Red Cross for a burned out family. Ten percent goes to their HQ. I would have every household in each troop’s neighbourhood write them, and explain your actions, should ypu wish to. Honouring the totally innocent girls’ sincerity, and their parents’ sacrifice to me would compromise me in that real context. I was a regular purchaser of their sweetest cookies without knowing the children are in fact being used.
It’s true that troops receive virtually none of the proceeds from the cookie sales. I can’t argue with that, and really my whole take on this subject sidesteps the money question altogether. I’m open to disagreement, too! I see the argument that by buying a cookie in order to “protect” one child/family, I’m probably victimizing another child/family that’s on the receiving end of Planned Parenthood’s “services.” I should have put in the article itself, that I really am wondering about the existence of a moral obligation to boycott people, places, or businesses which whom we disagree. Is it a moral question? Or a prudential one?
Humble question Jennifer. We make moral choices daily- do I buy at WM where the staff is kept at 30 hours to avoid paying insurance? Do I vote for a pro-life candidate who hates immigrants and wantsa to start another war? One weighs the person, the issues and decides. As I wrote, I did not know those little girls and their parents are being used to feed the people at the top. I forgot to add the obvious point that we they as you noted are very expensive cookies to do so. How about donating to the troop- presuming the money stays within the troop and area troops, and buying less expensive cookies at a non-Wal Mart store!?? I still hunger for the chocolate mint kind!
If the link between GSA and PP is true, then the logic is flawed. Even if the little girl at the door (and her parents) don’t know they are raising money to support abortion et al. buying the highly marked-up cookies is still not okay. Sleeping well at night is hardly the measure of correctness here. Nearly all of us sleep well at night, even when we know we are remotely cooperating with grave evil. I’m afraid it only gets easier, the more we do.
I have no unique perspective to offer about the GSA, except the fact that my family will buy them like we do every year.
But let the GSA be an example for anyone who questions the necessity of intertwining the Boy Scouts of America with Christian faith.
I struggle with this in so many consumer choices. I can’t get organic options at an affordable price in the small town where I live from anywhere but WalMart. So I reluctantly agree to become complicit with evil for the sake of giving my child toxin-free yogurt and baby food and still keep within our family’s budget. When I go downstate, I can buy from Whole Foods affordable organic shampoo that was sustainably produced and whose profits benefit women’s cooperatives in Africa, but I am also cognizant that Whole Foods donates money to support Planned Parenthood. I believe in voting with my dollar- but which way? I don’t want to eat or bathe in toxins, neither do I want to support the most evil corporation in existence. It’s quite the Catch-22.
We have a Girl Scouts troop at my parish. I’ve discussed with the troop leaders the sad reality of what GSA has come to represent to me, and they have assured me that they locally try to offset what happens in corporate policy. I remain a non-purchaser of their product, but I appreciate that they are making some effort. With alternatives like the Little Flowers program, I don’t know why parents continue allowing their daughters to be in GSA.
In response to your question, Jennifer, is it a moral question?– absolutely in the affirmative: EATING IS A MORAL ACT. I refer you to the Natl Catholic Rural Life Conference, who can explain why this is in capital letters
By shopping at Whole Foods, am I formally cooperative in the intrinsic moral evil of abortion? no, but I did make my opinions known to their corporation. Yet, how food is produced generally in this country is so over-the-top morally evil and often repugnant, it’s hard to find any situation where we aren’t giving consumer support to injustice. So we have to muddle through and try our best in the ways that we can, while exercising prudence in our finances. But we should never throw up our hands. We should constantly demand better and condemn the evil being foisted upon us by forces outside our control. We should never stop exercising forethought and care in how we spend our dollars on food. We as Catholics really ought not to rest easy and let people blow with the wind. We should be the voice of reason, even if our voice is not heard or when it’s heard and ignored or belittled. We must be the Lorax in every venue, be it our food system, our health care system, or our politics. That’s the vocation of the lay faithful. We must seek to keep watersheds pure just as we seek to defend marriage. We must be stewards of our finances and our ecology.
Our beloved Holy Father is a wonderful model of this sort of exemplary living.
SWP, meat is meat. Food is food. Eating is not in itself a moral act. I suggest you go reread First Corinthians chapter 8. I read the argument by the ntl catholic rural life conference, n the way and was very much unconvinced.
St Paul was referring to food offered to idols. I’m talking about food and the farmers who grow our food and the choices we make about what we put into our bodies, which is without question a moral choice.
I think our Holy Father has made it abundantly clear how much concern for sustainability and environmental integrity are as much a part of living with human integrity as respecting the sacredness of human sexuality. In fact he says it well in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate #27:
Life in many poor countries is still extremely insecure as a consequence of food shortages, and the situation could become worse: hunger still reaps enormous numbers of victims among those who, like Lazarus, are not permitted to take their place at the rich man’s table, contrary to the hopes expressed by Paul VI[64]. Feed the hungry (cf. Mt 25: 35, 37, 42) is an ethical imperative for the universal Church, as she responds to the teachings of her Founder, the Lord Jesus, concerning solidarity and the sharing of goods. Moreover, the elimination of world hunger has also, in the global era, become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the planet. Hunger is not so much dependent on lack of material things as on shortage of social resources, the most important of which are institutional. What is missing, in other words, is a network of economic institutions capable of guaranteeing regular access to sufficient food and water for nutritional needs, and also capable of addressing the primary needs and necessities ensuing from genuine food crises, whether due to natural causes or political irresponsibility, nationally and internationally. The problem of food insecurity needs to be addressed within a long-term perspective, eliminating the structural causes that give rise to it and promoting the agricultural development of poorer countries. This can be done by investing in rural infrastructures, irrigation systems, transport, organization of markets, and in the development and dissemination of agricultural technology that can make the best use of the human, natural and socio-economic resources that are more readily available at the local level, while guaranteeing their sustainability over the long term as well. All this needs to be accomplished with the involvement of local communities in choices and decisions that affect the use of agricultural land. In this perspective, it could be useful to consider the new possibilities that are opening up through proper use of traditional as well as innovative farming techniques, always assuming that these have been judged, after sufficient testing, to be appropriate, respectful of the environment and attentive to the needs of the most deprived peoples. At the same time, the question of equitable agrarian reform in developing countries should not be ignored. The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life. It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination[65]. It is important, moreover, to emphasize that solidarity with poor countries in the process of development can point towards a solution of the current global crisis, as politicians and directors of international institutions have begun to sense in recent times. Through support for economically poor countries by means of financial plans inspired by solidarity — so that these countries can take steps to satisfy their own citizens’ demand for consumer goods and for development — not only can true economic growth be generated, but a contribution can be made towards sustaining the productive capacities of rich countries that risk being compromised by the crisis.
Did you catch where he mentions three criteria for farming technology: that it be appropriate,
respectful of the environment, and attentive to the needs of the most deprived peoples?
I urge you to demonstrate our food system meets those three criteria. Meat is not meat when it has been genetically modified, resulting in chickens who can’t stand upright or cows that have had their immunity compromised. Food is not food when it has been produced in a laboratory.
We have a moral responsibility to protect ourselves, our watersheds, and the farmers who grow our food from exposure to pesticides. We do that by purchasing foods that are produced without the use of pesticides. Exactly what part of caring about farmers leaves you ‘unconvinced’?
Did you also note the part where our Holy Father says, “The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life.” How do you get access to clean water except by ensuring that the watersheds exposed to farmers remain free of pesticides?
The papal magisterium of Popes Paul VI, JohnPaul II, and Benedict XVI have made it abundantly clear how very much eating is a moral act. Read up!
Human beings legitimately exercise a responsible stewardship over nature, in order to protect it, to enjoy its fruits and to cultivate it in new ways, with the assistance of advanced technologies, so that it can worthily accommodate and feed the world’s population. On this earth there is room for everyone: here the entire human family must find the resources to live with dignity, through the help of nature itself — God’s gift to his children — and through hard work and creativity. At the same time we must recognize our grave duty to hand the earth on to future generations in such a condition that they too can worthily inhabit it and continue to cultivate it. This means being committed to making joint decisions “after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying”[120]. Let us hope that the international community and individual governments will succeed in countering harmful ways of treating the environment. It is likewise incumbent upon the competent authorities to make every effort to ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations: the protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate obliges all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet[121]. One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources, based on a realization that the notion of “efficiency” is not value-free.
51. The way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself, and vice versa. This invites contemporary society to a serious review of its life-style, which, in many parts of the world, is prone to hedonism and consumerism, regardless of their harmful consequences[122]. What is needed is an effective shift in mentality which can lead to the adoption of new life-styles “in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments”[123]. Every violation of solidarity and civic friendship harms the environment, just as environmental deterioration in turn upsets relations in society. Nature, especially in our time, is so integrated into the dynamics of society and culture that by now it hardly constitutes an independent variable. Desertification and the decline in productivity in some agricultural areas are also the result of impoverishment and underdevelopment among their inhabitants. When incentives are offered for their economic and cultural development, nature itself is protected. Moreover, how many natural resources are squandered by wars! Peace in and among peoples would also provide greater protection for nature. The hoarding of resources, especially water, can generate serious conflicts among the peoples involved. Peaceful agreement about the use of resources can protect nature and, at the same time, the well-being of the societies concerned.
The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere. In so doing, she must defend not only earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone. She must above all protect mankind from self-destruction. There is need for what might be called a human ecology, correctly understood. The deterioration of nature is in fact closely connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence: when “human ecology”[124] is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits. Just as human virtues are interrelated, such that the weakening of one places others at risk, so the ecological system is based on respect for a plan that affects both the health of society and its good relationship with nature.
In order to protect nature, it is not enough to intervene with economic incentives or deterrents; not even an apposite education is sufficient. These are important steps, but the decisive issue is the overall moral tenor of society. If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves. The book of nature is one and indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral human development. Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society.
Haydock’s Catholic Commentary on the Bible says this about
1 Cor 8:13
Ver. 13. “If meat scandalize.” That is, if my eating cause my brother to sin. (Challoner) — Can we put any meat, or life itself, in competition with a soul, and the blood of Christ, which has been shed for that soul, when we know the value of each!
I’d say that St. Paul is admonishing us to be mindful of what we eat and how it might lead us or others into sin. Eating meat that introduces toxins into our bodies from cows grown in feedlots where they have been pumped full of chemicals to keep them immune and fed only corn instead of eating grass, the digestion of which allows them to have immunity naturally– I’d attest that might be leading others into sin when we say we don’t care where our meat comes from or how it was produced. They can continue their unjust and immoral practices because we tell them it’s okay to take our ground beef and bleach it and then dye it red instead of producing beef that is safe and clean in the first place.
Don’t put yourself in conflict with Christ: eat morally- Know who grows your food and how!
Actually the more I think about it, the more 1 Cor 8 seems to defend what I’m saying. If eating meat causes another’s downfall, don’t eat it.
If the food you eat is causing harm to the people that grow it and causes harm to your family- then don’t eat it!
You’ve just scripturally vindicated the Natl. Catholic Rural Life Conference and its position of being in defense of rural farmers and their families.
I hope and pray that your eyes will be opened. We are putting all sorts of toxins into our bodies. Wasn’t that the reading from this past Sunday, about glorifying God in our bodies, because they are temples of the Holy Spirit?
How is the ingestion of harmful toxins a glorification of God in our bodies?
I also would say it’s incumbent on us to educate the girls who come to our door and their parents on the reasons why we are unable to purchase their product. We could be saving a life!