Damn, Y'all Starting The 'War On The Girl Scouts' Again?

The conservative movement 'War On Women' for the last few years has also included because of their progressive outlook, attacking the Girl Scouts.

The fundies have foaming at the mouth hatred for Girl Scouts of the USA because it not only didn't get taken over by the wingers like they did the Boy Scouts, GSUSA has stated on its website the organization “does not have a relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood,” and that it will remain a “secular organization” that will not take a position on human sexuality, birth control, abortion.

The faith-based haters not only have stopped organizing and supporting Girl Scout troops, in some cases they are denying them meeting spaces.  They have even gone as far as organizing their own conservative alternative organization called the AmeriKKKan American Heritage Girls.

They have also over the last few years attacked the Girl Scout cookie drives which are one of the funding streams for the organization. 

Thanks to longtime reader Jazmine for bringing to my attention another 'War On The Girl Scouts' attack to shine a bright spotlight on. 

This latest violation of the Ten Commandments comes from right wing pastor Kevin Swanson.   He urged his Generations Radio show listeners not to buy Girl Scout cookies because 'the organization promotes lesbianism' 

“I’d say you ought to say no to the Girl Scout cookies,” Swanson told listeners. “I don’t want to support lesbianism, I don’t want to support Planned Parenthood and I don’t want to support abortion, and if that be the case I’m not buying Girl Scout cookies.”

And if that fear and smear line wasn't enough to stir up the sheeple, Swanson called the Girl Scouts of the USA  ”a wicked organization,” that doesn’t promote “godly womanhood.”

He also attacked my mayor and threw the c-word in there:  Communist. 

And oh yeah, the commandment Pharisee Swanson violated was 'thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.'

Yeah, it's time to rebuke this fool in the name of Jesus by tripling your orders of Girl Scout cookies when the GSUSA cookie drives start in your area.

And yeah, he's earned a Shut Up Fool award nomination for this one.

Indonesian Trans Festival Shut Down By Islamic Defenders Front

There are some areas of our planet in which it's a struggle for our trans brothers and transsisters to openly live their lives in peace.  Unfortunately for the seven million transpeople who live there Indonesia is becoming one of them no thanks in large part to the Islamic Defenders Front and neglect of their human rights.

That neglect of trans human rights is particularly galling since Indonesia was where the Yogyakarta Principles were created.

A 2010 ILGA regional conference was disrupted by these so called 'defenders of the faith' and earlier this month the IDF was back on the reprehensible job of hatin' on the local transwomen by disrupting a trans festival in Jakarta planned to dispel myths and lies being spread about the local trans community.

IDF thugs showed up with sticks and helmets to break up the event, claiming the organizers didn't have a police permit and the neighborhood didn't want them having a trans pageant there.   The festival and its pageant portion was moved to the Legal Aid Foundation in central Jakarta

Merlyn Sofyan, the initiator of the festival, denied the event was only just a trans pageant.

“It’s called Festival Waria Berbudaya [Cultural Transgender Festival], not a pageant where contestants are judged by their looks,” Sofyan told the Jakarta Globe. “Festival Waria Berbudaya is an attempt to answer the wrong perceptions in our community by producing decent human resources of waria. It’s not going to be instant, but we’re trying to nurture them.”

But Salim Alatas, the head of the Jakarta chapter of faith based transphobes the IDF insisted that such an event would not be tolerated, whatever the reason was.

Sofyan, who herself was a winner of the Miss Waria 2006 pageant, said in that interview it was not the role of the IDF to say who was right or wrong.  "If we’re talking about religion, who has the right to judge other people?” said Sofyan, who had hoped the festival would counter negative sentiments toward the transgender community in Indonesia.

Indeed, since when did the Islamic Defenders Front get the right to judge other people in Indonesia, much less use thuggish tactics to break up and disrupt events they don't like?  

That's not defending your faith, that's expressing to the world how little faith you actually have if you can't live up to the principles of it and let others live their lives in peace.