And Queenless: 

Millions have paid their respects this year to Queen Elizabeth II during her diamond jubilee, marking her 60th year on the throne. But some of her young subjects, the Girl Guides of Australia, have now deleted the queen from their oath, along with a reference to God.

Unceremonious, one might say. It’s about time, according to others.

The Girl Guides, a sister organization of the Girl Scouts, has 10 million members worldwide. Founded in Britain in 1910, the Girl Guides now has about 28,000 members in Australia, down from a reported high of 80,000.

With the deletions of God and queen, the Guides hope “to be seen as more inclusive and a modern, relevant organization and that many more women will like to join us,” said Belinda Allen, director of Girl Guides Australia.

In the old oath, formally known as the Guiding Promise, a girl swore to “do my duty to God, to serve the Queen and my country.”

The new pledge:

“I promise that I will do my best; to be true to myself and develop my beliefs; to serve my community and Australia, and live by the Guide Law.”

“Be true to myself and develop my beliefs”? Good grief, what insipid pap. What a low, flat, miserable era these secular elites are bringing about.

A Jewish Girl Guides leader prefers the new pledge, telling Australian Broadcasting:

The new promise is actually a better fit for Jewish people in that sense, but I think the new promise is a better fit for everyone.

Because Jews cannot in good conscience pledge allegiance to the non-specific God of the old Girl Guides pledge?:

I promise that I will do my best:
To do my duty to God,
to serve the Queen and my country,
To help other people, and
To keep the Guide Law.

I am not a monarchist, but I would a thousand times prefer to live in a world of Gods and Queens than under this soulless egalitarianism, which is, in Burke’s phrase, “the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings.”