Troops under the GSUSA banner are operating within Muslim mosques and institutions and incorporating Islamic religious practices and values, independent journalist Natalie G. Winters reports.
There is no published nationwide count of Girl Scout troops meeting in mosques. Public records, however, document mosque-based Girl Scout troops in at least several major metropolitan areas, with more than a dozen individual troops readily identifiable from available sources. The actual number is almost certainly higher.
While the local scouting councils retain most of the influence on what troops can and cannot do under the GSUSA brand, GSUSA retains the ability to deny or approve, and it's doing the latter, not the former.
Scouts are eligible to earn medals for their official uniforms that honor the Islamic faith under the designations Bismillah, In the Name of Allah, Quratulaìn and Muslimeen.
Twenty-nine total faiths are recognized by GSUSA.
"The real danger in this comes down to Islam's attitude toward women and girls," Brad Brandon, founder of the nonprofit Across Nigeria, said on American Family Radio Friday. "They are not sympathetic to the dignity of women or girls. Women are treated as second-class citizens at best."
Such attitudes are especially prevalent in northern Nigeria, Brandon told show host Jenna Ellis.
"Twelve of the northern Nigeria states are controlled by a very strict form of Sharia law where there's genital mutilation, and a woman's testimony under Sharia law is worth half that of a man's," Brandon said.
Honoring such a faith seems contradictory for an organization committed to the development of young girls.
"I would think that the Girl Scouts would be an organization that would want to uphold the dignity, the rights of women, the value of women, and they're aligning themselves with a with a religion that is not known for that and does not practice that, and that's very dangerous," Brandon said.
GSUSA promotes "a belief in God" but farms out the task of defining God to national organizations who have "created religious recognitions to encourage girls to grow stronger in their faith."
The different organizations create the curriculum to be used by the troops, but "The Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. has approved of these programs," the GSUSA website states.
The website doesn't identify mosque-based troops, but mosque-based troops have been documented in California in San Diego, Sacramento and Orange County; in Naperville, Illinois; in New York in Long Island and Brooklyn; in Virginia and in areas around Washington, D.C., and Boston.
Neither Christianity nor Islam approve of same-sex relationships, but GSUSA has approved a special LGBTQ "fun patch" for Pride month, also known as June.
Muslim-affiliated Girl Scout troops are not new. Evidence goes back to at least the early 2000s with multiple troops around the country by 2005-06.
A 2005 Washington Post report said the All Dulles Area Muslim Society's (ADAMS) annual Eid event for Girl Scouts was already in its fifth year. The Post reported five troops affiliated with ADAMS at that time.
In 2006, a Harvard Pluralism Project entry described Muslim Girl Scout troops "popping up" around the country, with reports from Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Chicago, Brooklyn and Portland. It specifically noted Islamic merit badges and changing the Girl Scout Promise to say, "To serve Allah."
In 2012, a troop in the Washington, D.C., area promoted a "Ramadan Lock-in" in which the scouts learned about Ramadan, studied the Quran and Hadith, helped prepare and serve iftar, participated in Ramadan discussions and earned a Ramadan patch. Girls were told to be sure to bring prayer garments and hijabs.
Girl Scouts' response
GSUSA has responded to Winters' story, calling it "misinformation about Girl Scouts and religion."
The GSUSA statement says: "Here are the facts: Girl Scouts is not a religious organization and does not teach religion. For more than a century, we've welcomed girls of every faith and background. Our national My Promise, My Faith pin invites girls to connect the Girl Scout Law with their own faith. Any other faith-based patches are developed by independent faith organizations, not Girl Scouts of the USA. Girl Scouts is proudly for every girl."
Brandon disagrees.
"Not only are they promoting that, but they have a badge for bringing somebody with you to celebrate Ramadan. So that is like almost evangelizing Islam and the spread of Islam. They're talking out of both sides of their mouth, and they're doing damage control at this point because they've been found out, and what's been found out is that they are in fact promoting religion and it's not Christianity. It's not Judaism," he said.
If the GSUSA response seems lacking, Patti Garibay, the founder and executive director of American Heritage Girls (AHG), also feels your pain.
"Girl Scouts has spent decades scrubbing references to God from its promise and its programming, and this is just part of the same drift. It's just more overt," she told AFN. "I believe Islam is a bit chic now. More and more people are coming to that faith. It has been estimated in the year 2050, the US will have Islam as the secondary religion to Christianity," she said.
Recruiting effort
The biggest problem with the Islamic troops is grooming, Garibay said.
"What worries me most about these awards now is the recruitment effort, the fact that they're inviting Christian girls and girls of all sorts into the mosque and into the hajji, being part of this whole Islamic ideology."
