The Girl Scouts of America is promoting badges that teach campers about Islam's "holy Prophet," encourage girls to wear hijabs, and reward them with patches for participating in Ramadan activities. The programs include a Ramadan badge, a Hajj patch, a Jumaa patch, and an event called "Share Ramadan With a Friend."
There is no "Share Easter With a Friend" patch. There is no "Learn About Jesus" badge. Funny how that works.
The program, which show Girl Scout chapters partnering with mosques and Islamic organizations, to run Muslim-specific Scout troops. The curriculum has girls learning the Five Pillars of Islam, eating halal foods, fasting during Ramadan, practicing Muslim prayer routines, and — yes — trying on hijabs and other modesty garments.
The patches aren't framed as comparative religion. They're framed as celebration. Girls aren't learning "here's what Muslims believe alongside what Christians, Jews, and Hindus believe." They're learning about the "light of Islam" specifically. The language treats one faith as a cultural experience worth immersing in while every other religion in America gets the strict "separation of church and state" treatment the moment it appears within a hundred yards of a youth organization.
GSUSA has spent decades carefully stripping any whiff of Christianity from its programming. Scout troops that once met in church basements were told to keep religion out of activities. Parents who wanted faith-based badge work were directed to separate religious programs outside the Girl Scout umbrella. The message was clear: religion and scouting don't mix.
Unless it's Islam. Then it gets a badge, a patch, a field trip to a mosque, and a hijab fitting.
Nobody at Girl Scouts headquarters looked at a program called "Share Ramadan With a Friend" and asked, "What happens when a parent requests 'Share Christmas With a Friend'?" Or maybe they did ask, and the answer was that Christmas would be "exclusionary" while Ramadan is "multicultural." That's the framework: Christianity is a religion that must be kept private. Islam is a culture that must be explored.
The program also introduces girls to the concept of "kafir" — the Islamic term for non-believers. So your eight-year-old can earn a patch while learning the word for what she is in the theology she's being asked to celebrate.
A 2006 Harvard study examined how youth organizations shape cultural attitudes through programming choices. The researchers found that what gets included signals what an institution values — and what gets excluded signals what it doesn't. Girl Scouts didn't need a study to understand that. They made the choice deliberately.
Fall enrollment is opening now. Parents are finding out what's in the catalog. The patches are printed. The mosque field trips are scheduled.
The same organization that would never hand a girl a Bible is handing her a hijab. And calling it a badge.