‘Tis the season to donate to charitable organizations that don’t promote bigotry against our LGBT friends.
This dude “Scripture” sounds like a real jerk, innit?
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]by Imani Gandy (ABL)| 100 Comments
This post is in: Gay Rights are Human Rights
This dude “Scripture” sounds like a real jerk, innit?
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]Comments are closed.
[…] Balloon Juice comes this post about why everyone should resist the urge to give money to those Salvation Army […]
Svensker
I get what you’re saying and why…but where we live, the Sally Ann and another similarly-narrowed (is that English!?) Christian mission really do the work for the homeless. They are out there walking the walk, feeding people, sheltering them, helping them get jobs, helping them get clothes, etc. They’re not perfect. But in our neighborhood they are the folks doing the work. If there are other organizations ready to step up, great. So far, where we are, there haven’t been.
shortstop
I politely (no, really!) mentioned this to a bell ringer last night. He seemed confused, then angry.
Punchy
A little OT, but in times where we need jobs, more money for the poor, and some economic ideas, instead we get this douchebaggery
DougJ
@Punchy:
What an asshole.
(What does Sullivan think about it?)
LittlePig
Uh, “Love your neighbor as yourself?”
Maybe they should get Scripture to talk to that crazy Jesus guy.
Jason Bylinowski
I agree that some of their stances are backwards, but the fact is that the SA does yeoman’s work for the homeless in our community and although I no longer give money to the organization, I do still drop off my old stuff there, as well as Goodwill Industries, whose presence is growing here in recent years.
Culture of Truth
Abortion, alcohol, drugs, marriage, pornography, gambling, homosexuality – They have a whole website for Thanksgiving conversation topics?
DougJ
@Jason Bylinowski:
Me too, they do a lot of good, I wish they didn’t have to also push bigotry.
Gex
If we didn’t give all our faith-based initiative money to Christians who hate gays, we could probably find Christians who don’t hate gays to take the money and do the work. But if we keep supporting the ones who take Fed cash in exchange for lobbying to exempt themselves from discrimination laws, that’s what kind of Christian charity groups we’ll get.
dan
How about we donate to the Salvation Army to enable them to feed the hungry, and if we feel strongly enough we can lobby the officers of the organization to take a more tolerant view of our LGBT friends?
Brachiator
The Salvation Army, like many religious organizations, believes all kinds of crazy shit. I disagree with their position on euthanasia and pornography.
They are not actively persecuting gays.
I’ll make an exception here.
Turgidson
On the bright side, the very next clause on that screen capture at least points out (ATTN AMERICAN TALIBAN) that there is also no scriptural support for treating gays like shit even if you don’t support marriage equality, and that they won’t discriminate against gays in deciding who to help. Obviously that’s not good enough, but it’s not totally cruel and evil either.
That said, while I’ll probably still put my spare change into their collection bins (they do help a lot of people who need it), I’ll save my folding money-sized donations for more tolerant outlets.
TooManyJens
@Punchy: Oh, HELL to the NO. I like that I live in a blue state thanks to Chicago.
shortstop
I once gave an old car to one of their recovery centers, which do astonishing work with the addicted. There is an alarming shortage of programming for people who are both addicted and poor. That was 10 years ago, and the organization as a whole almost seems to be moving backward, not forward, in its views. Or perhaps it isn’t, but then it’s reacting more loudly to the rest of society moving forward.
Gex
Also, the details on their treachery include urging W. to withhold funds from states that adopted laws barring discrimination against gays. They literally would withhold aid to the needy if they don’t get to hate on gays. So they really aren’t that dedicated to helping the needy.
The Other Bob
@Turgidson:
“Likewise, there is no scriptural support for demeaning or mistreating anyone for reason of his or her sexual orientation. The Salvation Army opposes any such abuse.
In keeping with these convictions, the services of The Salvation Army are available to all who qualify, without regard to sexual orientation.”
I know what you are saying ABL, but I cannot say that all Christian organizations would take the position in bold above. Thoughts?
Gex
@Gex: Or, to put it another way, their “charity” is contingent on being able to discriminate against gays.
eemom
@Svensker:
@Jason Bylinowski:
yep, this is one of those gray-area issues where knee-jerk toe-the-PC line at ALL times at ALL costs attitudes don’t work so good.
Thus more flame war fodder.
Citizen_X
Yes, but He must be obeyed. Who says so? Scripture!
Whatta great racket, huh?
eemom
@Gex:
link?
shortstop
@Punchy: If it wouldn’t hurt plenty of people like TooManyJens, I’d say do it. I’d love to see these fuckers try to survive without the economic engine and tax base of Chicago. These are the same idiots who whined that “only two counties” — Cook and St. Clair — reelected Pat Quinn, as though land mass rather than personhood should be the measure of voting.
All of this is just mighty thin cover for “too many black people are voting.” Thank dog we still have a Democratic legislature and governor, or this would absolutely be another Wisconsin.
TooManyJens
@The Other Bob:
Without regard to sexual orientation, perhaps, but I have read anecdotal reports from gay people that the SA refused them services because they wouldn’t leave the “gay lifestyle” — i.e., become celibate.
eemom
I personally put money in their cups because they’re decent people standing outside the Giant on freezing winter nights trying to do some good — not bigoted assholes working to sabotage marriage equality.
bemused
Sigh. In our wide spread rural/small town area, there aren’t many charities and the SA does so much good here which is badly needed. I don’t like that view but they don’t discriminate their giving. And that reminds me to cut a check to them and the local food shelf.
dadanarchist
The Wobblies used to refer to them as the Starvation Army. The Joe Hill ballad, The Preacher and the Slave – which contains the famous line, “You’ll get pie in the sky when you die (that’s a lie!) – is about the Salvation Army. Orwell (no, no, I’m not Sully trolling) was harsh them as well in Down and Out in Paris and London.
Mnemosyne
This is why my old-stuff donations now go to Out of the Closet, which is a charity for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Stuff OotC doesn’t take goes to Goodwill.
As others have said, the problem isn’t that the Salvation Army has discriminatory beliefs, it’s that they’ve defended their right to discriminate against their employees and, yes, against the people they claim they want to help.
You can believe whatever you want to, but once you start denying help to people based on your beliefs, that’s when I don’t give you another dime.
The Other Bob
@TooManyJens:
You know, after I posted, I was thinking, what if the Salvation Army said the following:
“Scripture forbids inter-marriage between members of different races.
Likewise, there is no scriptural support for demeaning or mistreating anyone for reason of his race or interacial marriage.
In keeping with these convictions, the services of The Salvation Army are available to all who qualify, without regard to race or inter-racial marriage.”
greylocks
In all suburban and urban areas, there are plenty of small, local charities that do good works without being moralistic assholes who only help you if you’re willing to sit through their sermons and read their brainwashing materials. Look the good ones up in the phone book and quit making excuses for feeding the Salvation Army indoctrination monster.
MikeJ
I’ll give to the Salvation Army if I can go to Cuba and drink milk with that preservative they use. I think they call it “Bacardi”. And they have to send a hot chick with me.
satby
When there’s no other outlet we have to make do with the ones around. The SA was also front and center on Katrina relief while the Red Cross was still hanging back. In Michigansippi, the SA is one of the only groups doing the homeless service.
And I always balance my support with support for equality.
Mnemosyne
Also, if anyone in California is looking for a place to donate this holiday, may I suggest Homeboy Industries? They help Southern California gang members leave that life, get clean, and learn skills that will let them have a future.
If you’re in So Cal, you can go for true slacktivism and buy their salsas and tortilla chips at your local Ralphs market.
Steve
Whenever I see the Salvation Army guy I always think of that SNL sketch with Justin Timberlake wearing the big soup carton. A classic of the genre.
Auguste
@MikeJ:
They have the best prayer meetings, too.
DougJ
@eemom:
Who’s being naive, Kay?
WaterGirl
@TooManyJens: You beat me to it!
Suffern ACE
@Punchy: Fine, but just wait until we implement the Rule 28 trigger to Section 33 of the Uniform UN Conspiracy Treaty and force everyone downstate to live in Rockford.
shortstop
@Suffern ACE: Ha! That was the third baseman’s solution to this as well.
Mnemosyne
@TooManyJens:
There was a similar proposal here in California out in the desert nearish to San Diego (which is already quite the conservative area). It seems to have died off once everyone else pointed out that people living in the high desert have zero tax base and it’s the rest of us pointy-headed elitists keeping them afloat.
I think the downstaters would be equally surprised to find out that Cook County contributes a hell of a lot more tax money to the state than they ever thought.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
It’s weird to me how much stuff that doesn’t have “scriptural support” anti-gay people are willing to go along with. There’s no “scriptural support” for almost everything in our lives today. Is there “scriptural support” for a Constitutional political system? The Interstate Highway Systtem? Electric pencil sharpeners? Blueberry pie? And how about the stuff that’s explicitly fprbidden, like cloth made of cotton and linen or pork and shellfish?
I say this as a Christian dude: there’s a lot of fucked up shit in the Bible. I don’t hold with all of it. People living a long time ago wrote it to help them understand the world as they knew it and to control society. There’s a lot of good stuff in it about social justice and the morality of wealth and things like that, and it’s hard for me to find a better system for living than Matthew 25:31-46 (Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.). But we have to use our heads about a lot of it. There was a poster I saw once at a church that said, “Jesus died to take away your sins, not your mind.” That’s a good way of looking at it.
Darkrose
@The Other Bob:
There are Christian organizations that do, like Episcopal Charities. They seem to have different setups for different regions, but the About Us for the San Francisco branch features what certainly appears to be a couple of nice gay boys.
Tom Hilton
@MikeJ: Right there with ya. A hot chick in a uniform, who looks just like Jean Simmons.
khead
@DougJ:
Solid. I can even hear his voice while reading it.
Jay C
@TooManyJens: @Mnemosyne:
Same here in NY: every so often some sort of “separatist” movement springs up in Staten Island: for all his faults, ex-mayor Giuliani had the best answer to that particular bit of foolery: Rudy! said he would be happy to float the proposal himself: as long as SI repaid NYC every penny of the infrastructure costs the City had invested in its fifth Borough. Even at cost, they figured out that it would eat up ALL of even the most optimistic income projections for the “independent” SI for like a hundred years – end of “separatist” talk.
Bago
And I shall make you fishers of men. Kinky.
shortstop
@Jay C: It’s interesting that separatist/secessionist wannabes are never the people who are actually paying the state’s (or country’s) bills. Apparently Misplaced Victim Syndrome has a direct and negative impact on the brain’s math center.
Jennifer
I stopped tossing into the SA pots way back in the early Bush era, after hearing about how they had spent several hundred thousand dollars lobbying Congress to get an exemption that would allow them to discriminate against “teh homos” in hiring and still collect federal funds. I thought, “fuck if I’m going to pay for your next lobbying campaign to excuse your fucking bigotry. If you got that much scratch to throw around on lobbying, you don’t need my spare change.”
HRA
The SA according to my relatives who served on different fronts in WWII was there for them. Most of them served for the duration of the war and never once saw the Red Cross.
I have gay family members who I love dearly and will always stand up for them. Still, it has been a long family tradition to give to the Salvation Army even before the US was in WWII and I will continue it.
beergoggles
People I know have been kicked out of their stores for sounding gay. People I know have been denied aid from them for having a same-gender partner (why gay people would go to xtian organizations for aid or even be xtian still confounds me).
I make it a point to go to stores that they ring their bells in front of and inform them that I will no longer be shopping there due to their sanction of the SA and I make sure to tell them why.
Ajay
Didnt know this. I dont care how much good they do, I wouldnt put a penny in their bucket.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Jason Bylinowski:
Yeah, uhm….Not so much.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@dadanarchist:
Damn! Didn’t see your comment before I made mine!
Daveboy
I remember one time, I read it in the Bible I think, Jesus was walking down the road and some guy on the side of the road was like, “Hey Jesus, I got a real bad ingrown toe, can you help me out with this? It’s killing me to walk to the market and hospitals haven’t been invented yet.” And Jesus was like, “Sure no prob…hey wait a sec, are you gay? Because if you’re gay, I can’t help you.” And the guy was like, “You hang around with 13 guys all day and you’re judging me? Weak, dude.”
It was cool though, they had a few beers and Jesus fixed him up. Happy Thanksgiving.
Lihtox
Just my opinion:
Doesn’t matter to me what they believe so much as what they do. If they were turning gay people away, or if they were heavily lobbying against gay people, then no.
But something like half of Americans have a problem with homosexuality, one way or another. Refusing to do business with half the country is a demand for purity along the lines of what the GOP now expects and which we rightly mock in them.
Jennifer
@Lihtox: See my comment at 46. I really don’t see it as a “purity” issue to not give money to a “charity” that is spending hundreds of thousands to try to get around following federal law while still reaping the benefit of federal funding. They could be honest about their principles and simply forego federal funding and NOT blow hundreds of thousands of dollars that was donated to them with the understanding that it would go to help the poor rather than to screw the homos, or they can abide by federal law and continue accepting federal funds. What they did was to screw folks like me twice – first, by pretending that the money I tossed into the pot would all go to help those in need, and second, by taking my tax dollars while discriminating against fellow citizens. So no, it’s not about “purity”.
taylormattd
I LOVE you ABL.
And sorry if this comment makes me one of those terrible commenters in ABL threads that gives Anne Laurie the vapors.
Gustopher
I try not to shop at places that have those bell-ringing bigots in front.
Unfortunately, that isn’t always possible — grocery stores almost always have them, for instance — so I like to point out that they are dressed like Santa, and that Santa is an anagram of Satan.
C. Isaac
Its things like this that make me glad I chose a secular food bank to offer my donations to. Bigotry has no place on the altar of charity.
It’s sad to see the SA has any sort of stance on this. It shouldn’t matter. The needy are the needy and we have to do our best to help them.
It’s as if people are trying to turn the term ‘Christian charity’ in a ironic joke of itself.
canuckistani
My mother was an SA member. When she on her deathbed, an SA officer came to see her and spent her time bitching to my aunt about how the city didn’t want to give them parade permits.
I don’t punch the fuckers when I see them on the street, but that’s as far as my charity extends.
ABL
@The Other Bob: bigotry is bigotry. there are plenty of charitable donations all over the world i would prefer to give my money to.
my old clothes go to goodwill and out of the closet. i never really see salvation army locations or bell-ringers, so it’s easy for me to be sanctimonious on this one.
ABL
@taylormattd: ::snort::
ABL
@Lihtox: it’s not about purity. what if you replaced “homosexuality” with “blacks”?
“Something like half of Americans have a problem with black people…”
doesn’t sit so well, does it?
shortstop
@C. Isaac: There is a mission here in Chicago — not SA — that runs an overnight shelter for men who are homeless. Those who go to a morning prayer service, which is locally famous for its proselytizing, may have breakfast. Those who choose not to are sent on their way without anything to eat.
Now, they’re a private charity and they can set whatever parameters they want for who and how they help. But what the fuck?!
toujoursdan
Gay Episcopalian (aka Catholic-lite) here.
I go to a church with a gay priest and with a straight bishop who strongly supported the NY State Marriage Equality law, and then told his gay clergy in partnerships that they need to get married after it passed.
The Bible was written in a time and place (a semi desert area with frequent drought and famine) when there was a very rational imperative for everyone to get married and have as many kids as possible. Even young children brought income into the family through housework, herding, etc., then grew into adults who guarded the family from hostile neighbours or tribes, and also provided social security for the elderly and infirm. And given that the infant mortality rate was very high, having lots of children that survived into adulthood was a very difficult thing to do even under the best of circumstances.
Coming out as gay in Biblical times would have been seen as putting everyone at risk. Not getting married and having children meant fewer people to raise crops and tend animals, which put everyone at greater risk of starvation if the rains failed. Not getting married and having children meant fewer people to guard against encroachment of land and property, which would have impoverished everyone. Not getting married and having children meant fewer people to marry off to form family alliances which were seen as necessary for economic and personal security.
The kind of individualism we have today where we can choose our destiny based on our desires, instead of the needs of an extended family is due to our industrialization, affluence and the ceding of social support system to the State. The Bible (IMHO) contains a lot of wisdom but that is mixed with the fact that it is a product of its time, as we are a product of ours.
Eventually organized religion will catch up to this new reality, like it did with slavery and colonialism. It already has in my denomination (with a very few exceptions), other mainline Protestant denominations (ELCA Lutherans, PCUSA Presbyterians, UCC Congregationalists, Quakers, etc.), Reformed and Conservative Judaism and others. Even many young evangelicals and Catholics are gay friendly.
I’ll still give to the Salvation Army as flawed as they are. They are the one of the few organizations left that actively engages the homeless and the substance-abuse dependent in many areas. Not giving them money means that some of the most vulnerable suffer. They are anti-gay, but they aren’t activist about it. They aren’t actively giving money to anti-gay marriage campaigns like the Mormons and RC have or grandstanding like Fred Phelps.
beergoggles
@ABL:
Just because it doesn’t sit well doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Sly
I stopped giving to the Salvation Army in 2004, after the fascist lunatics from the national organization tried kick out all the Jews and homosexuals who worked in their state-funded Social Services for Children division.
It isn’t just quaint bigotry on a mission statement. These assholes mean what they say.
General Stuck
@taylormattd:
You better watch yer mouth, or else Anne Laurie will disappear your happy ass.
Mnemosyne
@Lihtox:
They’re doing both of those things, actually. So now it’s A-OK for us to shun them, yes?
curiousleo
I’m often surprised at how many people do not realize the SA is an actual church denomination and not just a “do-good” organization w/ Xian overtones.
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
The Episcopal Church for the win.
RinaX
Wow, and I just gave a couple of dollars to them when I went to the store to pick up supplies. Truth be told, I always just feel bad for the bell ringers because so many people walk by and ignore them, and you know, charity, so yeah. I really had no idea about their stance on gays, and frequently drop off my old clothes to them.
PurpleGirl
@toujoursdan:
No, they have their own lobbyists to talk to legislators.
ETA: I have good memories of working with various local SA entities (Candy Striper at a hospital; arts leaders with a seniors club. But I know that they are not always on the same side as me in social justice issues. My charity of choice for that is Housing Works, which works with Aids and HIV positive homeless people. (And who Guiliani hated.)
Makewi
@ABL:
Of course, whether you agree with it or not, the bit about same sex celibacy is taken from the actual bible – whereas your bit about not liking blacks is pulled from your desire to not back down on a point which you are fond of.
Just remember, the enemy of the perfect is the good. Also, ABL.
General Stuck
@Makewi:
Oh Scarlett, what you got your feathers ruffled about now? May I suggest, you put down the bible and pick up a copy of the constitution and read the parts about equal rights/protections under the law, and assorted other rights of the individual to be who they are, so long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others. And being homophobic bigots is not covered as a right of others, nor being offended at what adults choose to do in the privacy of their own home. That trumps some wingnut in the first century slipping a bit of bigotry into the good book.
Jeff
Another good reason not to give money to the Salvation Army is that, because of their status as a “chuch”, they aren’t required to follow many of the reporting requirements that apply to large (501c3) nonprofits, so there’s not nearly as much transparency about how your money is being used…
Also, they have chosen NOT to provide any information to Charity Navigator, the leading (if imperfect) 3rd party evaluator of large charities’ fiscal responsibility and transparency… which doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not doing well by their donors, but it doesn’t look particularly good.
Reference: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=484#1
Gromitt Gunn
@eemom: Well, at least you’re consistent in tossing GLBTs in front of the bus at the earliest opportunity.
eemom
@Gromitt Gunn:
At least you’re consistent in your ignorance of anything that isn’t black and white. Fuck off.
Makewi
@General Stuck:
Kind of a non sequiter there buddy. In any case, if it makes you feel better to be hatin’ on them, then have at it. For their part, I imagine they will continue to do good work for those in desperate need of it.
General Stuck
@Makewi:
You misunderestimate my comment. I wasn’t hating on them, my comment was directed at you for being an idiot defending their bigotry, and using racism against blacks in the country as some kind of goofy blunt instrument to bash ABL with. Talk about “non sequitors”. The Salvation Army does good works, but they are simply wrong to discriminate against gay people, in a way that if not illegal, certainly un American per the founding document that we all live by. And I don’t support not supporting them with contributions, over this one issue, but that has nothing to do with your moronic comparisons with racism
General Stuck
@Makewi:
Such as your suggestion, that seems to indicate you think racism isn’t covered in the bible, and therefore lacking in authority in your pea brane.
Lojasmo
@Lihtox:
No, half of Americans have a problem with gays getting married. The percentage of Americans who have a problem with gays in general is much smaller.
Fucking apologists/followers. How do they work?
ETA: I haven’t given money to those fuckwits since before I could ever afford to make charitable donations…over fifteen years ago.
Fuck homophobic orgs.
Gromitt Gunn
@eemom: That’s probably the stupidest statement in this thread. And Makewi is posting today.
Also, I have a pretty good sense of who is a real ally and who is a pretend ally. And you’ve consistently stated that you’re willing to compromise to the detriment of GLBTs.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Actually, it’s not, but why let this be the first time you let facts stand in your way?
Basing your religious beliefs on a mistranslation is really just embarrassing.
eemom
@Gromitt Gunn:
No, I haven’t consistently stated that at all.
I said at one point, a year or more ago, at some point when DADT was still an issue, that under the circumstances that existed at the time I didn’t think it was the hill the Obama administration should die on.
I said what I said in this thread.
Now go find some other example of where I “threw LGBT people under the bus.” And when you find that you can’t, STFU.
JR
Well, I don’t agree with anyone on everything. I sold part of our farm to a best friend for $10 so they would live next door. He’s a beer-expert, scientist building their house, I’ve known him for 25 years.
I don’t agree with everything he thinks, and vice versa. Heck, I don’t think I agree with my wife of 40 years about everything.
We mostly donate to a secular food bank, and a few dem candidates, but I still put a $20 in the kettle sometimes. As mentioned above, when the Red Cross is afraid to show, there will be the SA giving away coffee and sandwiches to everyone working on the disaster.
My wife has been to a lot of disasters where the ONLY food was from a Salvation Army sandwich wagon. For days! So we pitch a little in, because we might need a sandwich some day. You might need food too, someday.
gaz
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
do you have to dry clean it?
does it stink after a while?
Mnemosyne
@gaz:
You think you’re joking, but there is such a thing as sock yarn that has shrimp (and crab) shells in it.
JMC in the ATL
@eemom: Oh, how *fascinating.* So it is okay to align yourself with homobigots what, once per year? Twice per year? What’s the cut off point? How many daggers in the back from “allies” should the average LGBT be expected to endure before sitting with their back against the wall?
Murc
Something else to keep in mind is that the SA has destroyed millions of dollars worth of charitably given toys and other materiel rather than use them for their intended purpose.
If you’re sending donations to landfills and incinerators, you are not a charity anymore.
Steve T.
From Bil Browning at The Billerico Project:
eemom
@JMC in the ATL:
Not putting YOUR personal political agenda above ALL else, ALL the time, no matter what — disaster-ravaged, cold and hungry people be damned — every other clusterfuck threatening to destroy the country be damned — does not equal allying myself with homobigots, which I have never done.
FUCK. YOU. You fucking wish there were more “homobigot allies” like me.
gwangung
No. No, I don’t think so.
If you have to boast about how good an ally you are, I don’t think you’re much of an ally at all.
eemom
@gwangung:
I’m responding to unjust attacks, not “boasting.”
None of you assholes know jack shit about what kind of ally I’ve been to LGBT people in my life.
But if I’d shown up on this thread and said “Fuck the Salvation Army” it’d be all good, right?
Assholes. They come in all varieties: straight, gay, bi, trans, and other.
No one of importance
@gwangung: \
You should realise that there’s no one eemom won’t throw under a bus if it suits her. Her principles are trite and her dedication to them shallow.
Trust me, you really are better off without her ‘support’.
David Koch
This isn’t so bad. They specifically say only christian gays should remain celebrate.
They’re perfectly fine with non-believers and non-christians listening to ABBA.
eemom
@No one of importance:
You’d better scope out another analogy. Under the bus ain’t a “one size fits all.”
“Shallow,” too — another adj you might want to rethink.
squirrelhugger
My household has done a lot of volunteer work for the SA. I have never in my life seen them proselytizing when providing services to needy or dealing with us. They are exceptional in that respect in the religious world. If I wasn’t an atheist, they would be one of the few churches I’d consider as genuinely “Christian”. And yeah, they have some flaws and have a right-wing kook streak. It’s pretty much inevitable– if they weren’t kooks in *some* respect, they’d be atheists.
patrick II
@shortstop:
Without Chicago Illinois would be Arkansas with more snow.
Jay in Oregon
@C. Isaac:
There are people who say that this is exactly what is happening. This is an old series of articles, but I found myself rereading it this week: “Christians in the Hand of an Angry God”
http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/118585.html
jezme
After reading this, I realize how few of you know anything about SA. I am a gay man with partner who found ourselves down on our luck and stranded a couple of years back. We were not discriminated against in any way, but treated with the upmost respect by SA, after no other organization in town would help in any way. We were given lodging, clean clothes, meals, shower access, bus passes, an address to have our mail sent to and steered to social service workers who could help find us employment.
At no time were we required to attend any services or meetings at their chapel. We were welcomed with open arms if we chose to go. We were asked if we would like someone to pray with us before we left the one service that we did attend, but never pressured for even that. Every time I pass a kettle now, I reach into my pocket, and if there is something in there I thank God and the SA that we were able to get back on our feet quickly and drop it in their kettle. I will always do that as I have witnessed first hand their never ending generosity. Don’t listen to the heresay on here, go witness the actual giving for yourself by volunteering some afternoon.
Aries
Just did my first 2-hour shift of bell ringing for the SA yesterday and feel pretty good about it, regardless of the oddity of their “scriptural” stance on homosexuality. I’m signed up for two more shifts this holiday season and may do more. I appreciate what they do for this community, overall.