Australia's Guides drop Queen and God from pledge

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/06/australia-guides-queen-god-pledge


Belinda Allen, director of Girl Guides Australia, said the change came after extensive consultation over 18 months. Photograph: Craig Borrow/Newspix/Rex Features


Australia's Guides have dropped any reference to the Queen or God in their "promise", delighting republicans and drawing ire from monarchists.

Instead of promising to "do my duty to God, to serve the Queen and my country", Guides will now promise to "be true to myself and to serve my community and Australia".

Belinda Allen, director of Girl Guides Australia, said the change followed extensive consultation over 18 months.

"Many of the members didn't feel that with our multicultural community of people from 200 nations that it was necessarily relevant for the Queen to be mentioned," she said.

"We're open to girls from all cultures, backgrounds and faiths and we listened to our membership before we made the change."

[LiberalEsto]

1. As a former Girl Guide, I salute them

The Estonian-American scouting organization for girls is Guides. not Scouts.

[SwissTony]

2. Some RW Australians are complaining that this goes against our traditions...

and this is just backdoor Republicanism. Lizzie is personally quite popular in Oz. I suspect Charles is much less so. I sincerely hope that when The Queen passes, Australia will vote to become a Republic.

And as for God...Australia is a much more secular country than most.