Transcript for Boy Scouts to begin admitting girls

We move on to the big change for the boy scouts. After more than 100 years they voted unanimously to begin admitting girls to its ranks drawing a fierce reply from the girl scouts. Adrienne Bankert has more. It's huge, historic. The boy scouts leadership says it came about after years of requests from busy families to have more options for the siblings of boy scouts. Now while some applaud the shift others are call it a politically correct mistake. In recent years the boy scouts have attempted to counter declining membership numbers in a variety of ways. ??? ??? baby I was born to a scout ??? Reporter: Admitting girls as members was only recently discussed. I think that girls should have the opportunity to join either program. Reporter: This morning 16-year-old Sydney Ireland is among those celebrating girls, something she's been fighting for for years. But leaders of the girl scouts are outraged. In a strongly worded statement they condemn the boy scouts move to include girls telling ABC news, the boy scouts house is on fire. Instead of addressing systemic issues of continuing sexual assault, financial mismanagement and deficient programming, bsa's senior management wants to add an accelerant to the house fire by recruiting girls. Girl scouts generate half of their annual revenue needs through those famous cookies selling 200 million boxeses a year which generate almost a billion dollars in sales. No word if the scouts will attempt their own cookie franchise. And girls have been welcome at group and family boy scout programs for over 40 years but this is a game changer. As you saw girl scouts corner the market on those cookie sales but boy scouts have the coveted eagle scout ranking which Sydney and other girls want to attain. Can you imagine the reaction if they start to sell cookies? Oh, that would -- It could be more explosive than this announcement. That was a pretty explosive announcement but hearing from parents who have both boys and girls and boy scouts and girl scouts it's very interesting how they look at it and it's far from over. Definitely. Let's put it that way. Good way to put it.

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