Reasons not to donate to Salvation Army this holiday season:
- They don’t pay their female pastors. (Their wages get added to their husbands’ paychecks.)
- They turn away gay people from homeless services and other programs.
- They fire people for having mental illnesses.
This sounds sketchy as heck.
The first claim requires their female pastors to be married to another member of the Salvation Army to even be possible, much less true, and none of the claims are sourced.
I’ve done a quick Google search on all three claims and wasn’t able to find anything I’d consider definite proof of any of these claims. Individual instances of the SA fucking up, yeah, but nothing that makes it seem like any of these claims are actual policy for the organization as a whole, and even a few “oh shit oh shit we’re sorry that’s not how we do things” on their part.
Trans people have actually died because the Salvation Army refused to let them into their shelters.
Gay homeless people have been turned away from their shelters.
Their Australian branch also has a history of child abuse dating back to the 1950′s. Which is really ironic, considering they smear-campaigned a guy and accused him of being a child molester because he…
ran a conference on sex-positivity and sex education, and also happened to be into BDSM.
For years they had “MARRIAGE IS FOR STRAIGHTS ONLY” horseshit on their official website, but that’s since been taken down. Whether it was an epiphany of conscience or PR, I can’t say. But they’re still getting caught funding anti-gay stuff all of the time. Sometimes legislation restricting gay rights, sometimes conversion therapy organizations.
And like most cults, if you marry outside of the Salvation Army, they kick you out.
Granted, the original post should have cited its’ sources. But it is no secret that these people are demonstrably monstrous. I don’t understand why Google failed to give you any of this information.
The Salvation Army also regularly refuses to release their tax information for purposes of transparency. Religious organizations don’t have to, so they are within their rights by law in the US, but any org that wants me to give them money and then won’t prove where they’re spending it is super suspect.
The US branch still has (or had, six months ago) “gay sex is wrong” sentiments in their bylaws, although they claim they will allow queer people into their shelters and/or organization as long as they remain entirely celibate. In reality that tends to translate to *points up* and also has been read by some Salvation Army officers as an insistence that trans people present as their assigned-at-birth gender in order to be admitted.
There are so many better local and national charities you can give your money to. Don’t be suckered by the kettles.
Whenever I reblog or post information about the Salvation Army I always get a lot of “THEY’RE DOING GOOD LEAVE THEM ALONE” bullshit, so I’ll just pre-emptively respond: Yes, of course they do some good. For very specific people. Under very specific circumstances. I’m not saying you shouldn’t support charities that help people. But why would you support a charity that won’t help all people, including some of the most vulnerable? Why would you support a charity that won’t tell you what it actually does with your money? (I mean, despite their boasts about the frugality of their officers, we know what they do with some of the larger gifts they receive.)
The options aren’t “Salvation Army or nothing”. Just take the money you’d have given to them and give it to an organization that doesn’t turn away those in need from its door and claim that’s God’s will. This isn’t rocket fuckin’ science.
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