why I don’t support the salvation army (and neither should you)

I love this. They are only distorting their message by being so anti-gay.

This is an extremely passive aggressive means of making sure the LGBT message is not heard, and that the needy suffer as a result. If you have a problem with the Salvation Army’s LGBT agenda, which I do, write them a letter telling them why you are withholding your donation this year, and ask that they consider revising their policies. It does no good to silently withhold money and make their overwhelming number of beneficiaries suffer as a result of your lack of desire to actually take action and make your voice heard. It is undeniable that the Salvation Army does do good work, and that many could not have survived without their assistance. To starve the entire organization is to punish those who need it. Change the organization to ensure they can continue to do good works, while revising their negative stance on LGBT rights. Write the Salvation Army (The Salvation Army National Headquarters 615 Slaters Lane P.O. Box 269 Alexandria, VA 22313) and let them know that they need to change their policies in order to obtain your support. Don’t be foolish and simply deny the needy due to your laziness- take action to receive action.

To be fair, The Salvation Army does not have a political agenda. As a 501(c)3 religious organization, they are not bound to any political party and actually have the right to have their own hiring processes, as they see fit. While I do not know the details of what happened in New York, I can say with confidence that the donations that are made to The Salvation Army, whether through the National Red Kettle Campain or through individual donations throughout the year, go towards helping billions and billions of people across the 123 countries that The Salvation Army is located in. And, on another note entirely, The Salvation Army is one of the leaders as far as benefits for all of it’s employees and their families, inlcuding the thousands of homosexual employees employed worldwide. So please, the next time you decide to rant about an organization as a whole, make sure you actually know what you are talking about instead of using one isolated incident to fuel your fire.

As far as *I* can make out, the New York episode was subtly different than this post suggests. They seem to have been unwilling to comply with hiring standards mandated by the proposed legislation, and believed themselves to be exempt from such standards, as a church. It wasn’t “we will kill all your homeless if you pass this law” it was “we will be unable to comply with the requirements this law places on vendors, and will therefore have to cease being one of your vendors, even though we’ll lose a bunch of money by doing so.”

This is, I admit, after 5 minutes of googling and skimming. So, not exactly precision research.

That said, you should give your money to whatever charities you like. As Chris points out there’s not exactly a shortage of charities in need of money, you should be able to find plenty with philosophies that align pretty much exactly with your own, whatever they may be.

Couple of facts that I know for certain as I work there (but I am NOT speaking on behalf of the Salvation Army in an official capacity):

1 - Each and every Salvation Army location is its own “company” and all donations taken in a specific location serve the city in which it is located. 2 - The Nashville Area Salvation Army does NOT discriminate in its hiring of anyone and I mean anyone. 3 - The Salvation Army as a whole does NOT discriminate (sex, race, religion (yes you don’t even have to be a Christian), sexual orientation, etc.) in anyone in regards to our helping those in need. The only requirement to receive their assistance is that you demonstrate a need.

Now, feel free to give you donations where you will, but as with generalizations, you can’t paint every Salvation Army with the same brush and I just wanted to point out a few things about the local organization.

I’m with Misty here.  I was pretty much 100% against the salvation army for years.  Then I got involved with Freemasonry and the chaplain of our lodge was a high ranking guy in the Boston area Salvation Army, and I witnessed first hand all the good they do in our community.

Now I feel like punishing the entire organization for the misdeeds of a few loud mouthed boneheads is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I was in Joplin a couple of days after the 2011 tornado. The Salvation Army was magnificent. They rolled in and set up 8 or 9 canteens where anybody could get a free meal, bottled water and other beverages, they also arranged for a good deal of the temporary shelters in Joplin and carried out other rescue work. I along with many rescuers ate most of our meals at canteens. They never asked for payment or even a donation. They just did their work and, at an appropriate time, packed up and went to the next crisis.

While there I saw the Red Cross, FEMA, National Guard, Baptists, Mormons, Methodists – hell, even the $cientologists showed up. Who didn’t I see? Why, the Homomob, of course. The never show up except to whine.

I’m doubling my donations to the kettles this year just because I stumbled across this Intarwebs whine.

=*)

The Salvation Army is a Christian Church whose ministries are numerous, including the many social services everybody is well aware of. The issue in New York was one that would have The Salvation Army go against a fundamental belief that Marriage is supposed to be between a Man and a Woman. If they would have accepted the proposed ordinance they would be agreeing that marriage is not what God had intended. I only pray as a member of the Salvation Army that our leaders will continue to make the right choices when it comes to our (Christians) fundamental beliefs.