“We know how to camp,” said 10-year-old Skyler Westover at a monthly meeting of the North Bay scout council in Santa Rosa on Friday. “We know how to start a fire. We want to be Boy Scouts. Nothing should hold you back but you.”

Five girls, the Chronicle reports, placed applications one by one in front of council President John Carriger, who perhaps fearing liability had hired a court reporter to attend (in a local scouting first).

“I’d like to be a Boy Scout,” said each girl in turn.

The girls are members of the Unicorns, a group organized by one of their mothers, Danelle Jacobs of Sebastopol. As part of the scouts’ Learning for Life program, for the past year their small troop has been granted permission to partake in some scout activities. Jacobs and other parents are reportedly considering a lawsuit if the girls' applications are denied.

“We’re offering scouting the opportunity to be unique in its recruiting methods,” Jacobs said during the meeting, which took place over the course of an hour, citing the recent progressive changes made by the organization to allow out gay scouts.

But, “There is no provision for girls in Boy Scouts,” Herb Williams, the North Bay scout council's vice president, said. “That’s a fact. It’s been a fact for 100 years.” The council will nevertheless forward the girls' application to national headquarters in Texas.

"It felt like they were saying no to us," said 10-year-old Daphne Mortenson, "but they didn't want to say it with all the cameras.”

Perhaps the scouts were unprepared for the Unicorns.