Why I Won’t Drop a Penny in Those Red Buckets

New York, N.Y.

[draft]

In high school I somehow ended up taking a turn at ringing the red bell during the holidays for The Salvation Army in my local community. I remember feeling vaguely uncomfortable with the vibes I was receiving from the leadership, but it wasn;t for decades alter that I learned more.

As Zinnia Jones reported in The Huffington Post in 2013, the church has publicly articulated its belief that homosexuality is unacceptable, stating:

“Scripture opposes homosexual practices by direct comment and also by clearly implied disapproval. The Bible treats such practices as self-evidently abnormal. … Attempts to establish or promote such relationships as viable alternatives to heterosexually-based family life do not conform to God’s will for society.”

While such statements were recently removed from the Salvation Army’s website, the church has yet to repudiate any of its explicitly anti-gay beliefs. And though these positions may seem to be limited to the group’s internal doctrines, they’ve become a persistent element of the church’s overtly political activities — activities which have negatively impacted the Salvation Army’s ability to provide charitable services, and have aimed to limit the rights and benefits of LGBT citizens in multiple nations.

2013 — The Salvation Army continues to remove links from its website to religious ministries providing so-called “ex-gay” conversion therapy, such as Harvest USA and Pure Life Ministries. These links were previously provided as resources under the Salvation Army’s section on dealing with “sexual addictions.”

“Without discrimination” — myth or fact? The Salvation Army has recently attempted to counter this perception of the church as homophobic, scrubbing explicitly anti-gay statements from its websites and issuing missives purportedly “debunking” the “myth” of its anti-LGBT stances.

Supporting the Salvation Army this season, whether by tossing your change in their red kettles or donating your used goods to their resale shops, means assisting an aggressively anti-gay church in furthering its goals of discrimination. Would-be donors should consider whether “doing the most good” might mean supporting one of the many other effective and reputable charities that provide for the needy without engaging in anti-gay beliefs, policies, or political activities.

Many Salvation Army shelters do help LGBTQ people — but critics say harm-reduction services don’t make up for anti-gay lobbying

In his recent op-ed, Hudson explained that even if some Salvation Army leaders are themselves anti-gay, their personal beliefs are outweighed by the services the organization provides to at-risk LGBTQ people.

“It’s true,” Hudson wrote, “that the Salvation Army’s pastoral leaders, who subscribe to the international tenets of the church on which we are founded, do themselves adhere to a traditional biblical definition of marriage — that’s also true of the leaders of most churches around the world.”

In other words, the Salvation Army does provide lifesaving services, including food and shelter, to LGBTQ people facing homelessness, but it also appears to have no problem with its leadership potentially expressing homophobic views that help contribute to broader discrimination against LGBTQ people.

“The Salvation Army speaks out of both sides of its mouth,” Meister said. “They’ll deliver services to LGBTQ folks, but on the other side, they are very actively, as a religious organization, opposing marriage rights and a lot of other rights. Transgender issues have been one, particularly, that they have had problems with.”

LGBTQ youth are disproportionately vulnerable to homelessness. A 2017 report by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago found that LGBTQ young adults were 120 percent more likely to experience homelessness than straight, cisgender people in the same age range. The high rates of homelessness among LGBTQ youth are often due to homophobia in their families or in their communities.

“It helps perpetuate discrimination, particularly among youth, particularly among the trans population. It is particularly insidious,” Meister added. “With youth in the transgender population, we already have a very high suicide rate, and the doctrine that they espouse helps contribute to that.”