The Patriot Post® · Co-Ed Boy Scouts?

After breaking down the “barriers” within the male gender over the last few years by accepting boys who claim to be homosexual or transgender, this week the Boy Scouts crossed the Rubicon and announced that girls can begin to become full members in 2019. What’s in a name, anyway?

Starting that year, girls will be placed in separate-gender individual Cub Scout dens consisting of about a half-dozen members, with the local pack having the option of combining dens of each gender or maintaining separate groups. Once girls cross the bridge to become Boy Scouts, they will have a separate but equal track that could lead them, too, to become Eagle Scouts, the pinnacle of the Scouting experience.

It appears the Boy Scouts are trying to walk a very fine line here by allowing girls to join but without placing them in many situations where they will interact with boys. “This unique approach allows the organization to maintain the integrity of the single gender model while also meeting the needs of today’s families,” said the Scouts in a release. They also claimed a survey showed that 90% of parents whose families were not involved in Scouting would like to get their daughters into a program like the Cub Scouts.

This may have been news to the Girl Scouts, whose Brownie and Junior programs cater to girls who are about the age of Cub Scouts. Understandably, they were less than thrilled. “We’ve had competitors come and go and this is yet another competitor,” said Girl Scouts Chief Customer Officer Lisa Margosian. “This is a direct response to boost their declining membership. At this point we’re just about reminding people that we have an expertise in serving girls that the Boy Scouts just don’t have.” They have cookies, too.

Faced with a decline in numbers and under increasing pressure from organizations like NOW to modify their rules, the Boy Scouts caved once again. Perhaps this structure is in answer to worries some Boy Scout parents have and could appeal as a “one-stop shop” of sorts, but this also gives parents of young girls an option to avoid the “all-in for the progressive agenda” Girl Scouts.

Another casualty will be male bonding. Boys behave differently when girls are present, and thus will lose something only found in a single-sex environment.

It’s not an overstatement to call this a radical move, but the vote among their Board of Directors was unanimous and the die is now cast. As BSA’s Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh stated, “The values of Scouting — trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind, brave and reverent, for example — are important for both young men and women.”

That much is true, and as membership rolls decline for both Boy and Girl Scouts it was perhaps inevitable the two groups come together somehow — and the Boy Scouts blinked first. The question can and should be asked, though: How much of the decline in membership is from the national organizations succumbing to the leftist cultural agenda? In catering to pressure groups, the Scouts are now losing the parents who would once sought out the unique and wholesome experience of Scouting.

In fact, what’s happening to the Scouts is a microcosm of what’s happening to boys around the country — feminization. Rabid feminism says that in order for girls to be equal, they have to be just like boys. Which is odd given how much feminists hate men.

As Nicole Russell put it, “This decision is not only indicative of the toxic hold third-wave feminism has on large organizations and the people who run them, but demonstrative of a consolidated effort to eradicate the influence of boys and men on society. Simply put, it’s not enough to emasculate men or categorize them as predators or toxic, now we must equate them with girls in order to remove gender differences, and eventually men, altogether.”

With this change by the Boy Scouts, just imagine their Scout camp. If “boys will be boys,” how long do you think it will be before a girl (or, more specifically, the parents of a girl) will be offended? It may have been harmless fun when the parents or grandparents were in the Boy Scouts many ago, but in this era of triggered snowflakes it may not be long before the Boy Scouts are neutered for good.