Planned Parenthood furor splitting Texas Girl Scouts

? Some families are boycotting Thin Mints and Do-Si-Dos and other Girl Scout cookies. Troop 7527 is down to just two members after the other girls were withdrawn by their parents. And Brownie Troop 7087 is no more.

Why are folks in this conservative Texas town where President Bush has his ranch so mad at the Girl Scout organization?

Planned Parenthood and sex education.

The furor was started a few weeks ago by the leader of the anti-abortion group Pro-Life Waco, who sent out e-mails and ran ads on a Christian radio station urging people to boycott Girl Scout cookies because of the “cozy relationship” between the Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood.

Parents were upset to learn that the local Girl Scout organization had given a “woman of distinction award” last year to a Planned Parenthood executive. And they were disturbed to find out that the Girl Scout organization has been giving its endorsement for years to a Planned Parenthood sex-ed program in which girls and boys are given literature on homosexuality, masturbation and condoms.

“It’s not that we’re a bunch of activists. We’re just a bunch of moms who care about their kids,” said Lisa Aguilar, who took her 10-year-old daughter out of her eight-member Girl Scout troop. “For us, it’s the morality. Where is Girl Scouts going?”

The two troops in Crawford, population 700, decided not to deliver the cookie orders that they had already taken.

But cookie sales have skyrocketed this year as many people bought cases just to show their support for the Girl Scouts, said Becky Parker, a troop leader who is the cookie distributor for Waco-area troops.

Girl scouts, from left, Lauren Edwards, Rachel Edwards and Sabrina Beard unpack cookies Feb. 14 at the entrance of the Super Wal-Mart in Bellmead, Texas. A Christian radio station in nearby Waco aired ads for two weeks urging folks to boycott Girl Scout cookies in protest for what they call a cozy

“People thought the boycott was ridiculous and was one man’s extremist views,” Parker said.

While the cookie boycott may have backfired, the furor prompted the parent leaders of the two Crawford troops to quit.

“You’re telling these girls to raise their fingers up to pledge to honor God and country, and yet you’re handing out materials saying homosexuality is OK,” said Brownie leader Donna Coody, who disbanded her five-member troop.

Because of the uproar, the Bluebonnet Council of Girl Scouts, which oversees troops in the Waco area and 13 other counties, announced last week that it would not be affiliated with Planned Parenthood sex-education programs this year.

In an editorial in Friday’s Waco Tribune-Herald, Pam Smallwood, the Planned Parenthood of Central Texas executive director who was honored by the Girl Scouts last year, complained that Girl Scouts had thereby demonstrated that “bullying tactics are more effective than an informed democracy.”