Think twice: where does the holiday money go?
Jordan T. Smith
Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: Opinion
This holiday season if you are out shopping for gifts at your favorite mall or taking a stroll through a downtown area in the brisk weather, you will probably see a person dressed in a formal military style outfit ringing a bell by a red kettle and asking people to drop their spare change in it. He or she will be collecting money for The Salvation Army, a Christian, non-profit group that is one of America's oldest charitable organizations.
The Salvation Army raises funds around the holidays and year round to give crucial assistance to needy families and operate homeless shelters and food pantries.
Many people, myself included, refuse to donate anything to The Salvation Army and encourage other people to avoid giving money to them in spite of all of their commendable work. The reason is that The Salvation Army, unlike most other major charity groups, is an openly anti-gay organization. Instead of focusing solely on their original mission of doing the Lord's work through charity, they have decided to also venture into the realm of extreme right wing politics by spreading anti-gay hysteria to the public.
There are many allegations that The Salvation Army refuses to admit gay or transgender people in their homeless shelters, and that they withheld assistance from gay and transgender people when they went to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Salvation Army denies these allegations but they freely admit their anti-gay hostility on their Web Site http://www.salvationarmyusa.org.
In the "about us" section of their Web Site, the first page you can pull up is entitled "beliefs," where the first statement is "God established marriage as a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman, and Himself." Many clergymen would disagree with this interpretation of the Bible.
The more important thing to realize however is that by having that statement as their first listed belief instead of one about the many good acts they have done The Salvation Army is saying that they are a very anti-gay organization. It is also well documented that The Salvation Army has discriminated against gay and transgender people in their employment practices and recruitment of volunteers.
The Salvation Army raises funds around the holidays and year round to give crucial assistance to needy families and operate homeless shelters and food pantries.
Many people, myself included, refuse to donate anything to The Salvation Army and encourage other people to avoid giving money to them in spite of all of their commendable work. The reason is that The Salvation Army, unlike most other major charity groups, is an openly anti-gay organization. Instead of focusing solely on their original mission of doing the Lord's work through charity, they have decided to also venture into the realm of extreme right wing politics by spreading anti-gay hysteria to the public.
There are many allegations that The Salvation Army refuses to admit gay or transgender people in their homeless shelters, and that they withheld assistance from gay and transgender people when they went to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Salvation Army denies these allegations but they freely admit their anti-gay hostility on their Web Site http://www.salvationarmyusa.org.
In the "about us" section of their Web Site, the first page you can pull up is entitled "beliefs," where the first statement is "God established marriage as a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman, and Himself." Many clergymen would disagree with this interpretation of the Bible.
The more important thing to realize however is that by having that statement as their first listed belief instead of one about the many good acts they have done The Salvation Army is saying that they are a very anti-gay organization. It is also well documented that The Salvation Army has discriminated against gay and transgender people in their employment practices and recruitment of volunteers.
Viewing Comments 1 - 5 of 5
Ambrose Burnside III
posted 11/29/07 @ 9:12 PM EST
You make a number of allegations that are not necessarily backed up by or supported by facts.
I am a supporter of the Salvation Army and have not been aware of them being anti gay other than that it is their belief that homosexual behavior is a sin based upon the bible. (Continued…)
Suzanne
posted 12/09/09 @ 10:31 PM EST
I also do not donate to the salvation army because I have had several yard sales with nice things that I have tried to donate to the salvation army and they said it was not valuable enough to them! Come on now! Lets be serious, I am sure a needy person would mind alot of the items that we had, that we could not keep any more do to storage reasons. (Continued…)
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posted 12/15/09 @ 6:35 AM EST
I think that it is good that the Salvation Army raises funds around the holidays.
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posted 3/09/10 @ 1:41 PM EST
Hard to belive, but there's some part of truth in your words...
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