SANTA ROSA, California (The Adobo Chronicles) – Five girls wearing makeshift scout uniforms recently stood before top Boy Scout brass in Santa Rosa, California, and made an announcement: We want in.
Allie Westover, 13, along with her sister Skyler and three friends — Ella Jacobs, Daphen Mortenson and Taylor Alcozer –told a panel of men in khaki uniforms weighted by pins and patches that they want to join the Boy Scouts. They dropped scout application forms in front of them.
In a year in which gender roles in traditional American institutions have undergone major changes and challenges, a fight in Northern California over joining the Boy Scouts is among the most recent points of contention. These girls — the latest of many over the decades who have sought to become Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts instead of Brownies and Girl Scouts — say they would rather be camping and tying knots than selling cookies.
Almost simultaneously, twin brothers Elton and John Smith stormed a Girl Scouts headquarters in San Francisco, demanding that they be signed up and immediately dispatched to sell girl scout cookies at the Whole Foods grocery store on Market and Dolores Streets.
“Why can’t we be selling cookies just like our girl counterparts,” they said. “We’re done with all the boring camping and other macho activities. We think we’ll do a great job raising funds for scouting in general by selling cookies, especially in the Castro (San Francisco’s gay district) area,” the brothers said.
There will a joint council meeting by the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of Northern California at the Harvey Milk Academy auditorium in the Castro the day after Thanksgiving to try to resolve the two controversial issues brought up by the brave boy and girl scouts.
And the San Francisco Bay Area couldn’t be a better venue for this historic meeting.
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