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Salvation Army Official: Gays Deserve Death


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Well Just what we want to hear this holiday season. This is going to cost them big time. Christians hating gays is going to be such a big loss it is going to be amazing.

Just in time to ruin Gay Pride month, a media relations director for the Salvation Army had no problem reminding us and the queer journalists he was talking to that gays should be put to death. In talking to Australian queer journalists Serena Ryan and Pete Dillon on their Salt and Pepper radio show (audio below which was picked up by Truth Wins Out's John Becker), Major Andrew Craibe, a media relations director for one of the organization's Australian branches, had this exchange with the hosts:

Ryan: According to the Salvation Army, [gay people] deserve death. How do you respond to that, as part of your doctrine?

Craibe: Well, that’s a part of our belief system.

Ryan: So we should die.

Craibe: You know, we have an alignment to the Scriptures, but that’s our belief.

The doctrine they're referring to is, as Queerty's Dan Avery reports, the Salvation Story: Salvationist Handbook of Doctrine, which borrows heavily from Romans 1:18-32 and states:

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. . .

They know God’s decree, that those who practise such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practise them.

Until this weekend, Craibe's media presence had been mostly non-existent, his last remarks that we found were about children with disabilities, social and financial disadvantages, and their visit to a zoo--not something you would expect from a guy who sounds more or less like a hate monger.

Since Craibe's quotes popped up this weekend, the Salvation Army has officially distanced itself from Craibe's remarks with a carefully-worded response. In a statement, Salvation Army spokesman Major Bruce Harmer said Craibe's comments were "extremely regrettable" and Salvation Army members did "not believe, and would never endorse, a view that homosexual activity should result in any form of physical punishment." Harmer goes on to apologize, citing a misunderstanding of the "death" passage (he says the passage refers to "spiritual death" and not physical death):

The Salvation Army believes in the sanctity of all human life and believes it would be inconsistent with Christian teaching to call for anyone to be put to death. We consider every person to be of infinite value, and each life a gift from God to be cherished, nurtured and preserved.

The apology doesn't mention Craibe by name, and yes, a charity (a charity!) to have to carefully point out that they don't condone physical harm towards gays and lesbians is pretty embarrassing. But it also shows you that Craibe's interview might not be the organization's biggest problem.

Craibe's whole interview is a bit curious (it's embedded below), in that the Salvation Army is well-known for being the second largest charity in the U.S. but is also notorious for its anti-gay stance. This past December, The New York Times published a story on their rigid and much-dissented views, in particular how the organization ignored a homeless homosexual couple and offered to help if they only broke up. And the LGBT Bilerico project/blog (created by Bil Browning, who was the subject of the Times piece), has more references about the Salvation Army's history of anti-LGBT actions--from threatening to shut down soup kitchens in New York City because of civil rights ordinances to trying to get a resolution passed so that the charity could ignore non-discrimination laws. And according to the Times report:

The Salvation Army’s “Position Statement†on homosexuality, found on its Web site, reads in part: “The Salvation Army does not consider same-sex orientation blameworthy in itself. Homosexual conduct, like heterosexual conduct, requires individual responsibility and must be guided by the light of scriptural teaching. Scripture forbids sexual intimacy between members of the same sex. The Salvation Army believes, therefore, that Christians whose sexual orientation is primarily or exclusively same-sex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life.â€

That page has since been deleted, but it still makes you wonder of why one of the organization's Media Relations Directors, Major Andrew Craibe and his 32 years of Salvation Army experience, decided to go on a queer radio show and talk about death. It seems like an inevitable lose-lose situation and not very savvy from a PR perspective. And isn't telling your interviewer that they should be put to death violate some kind of PR commandment, let along the numerous Christian ones.

Here's the full audio version of interview (the remarks come around the 7-minute mark, and again at 10:23):

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2 ... ath/53885/

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I will no longer be donating money to the Salvation Army charity kettles this year (in years past I've usually thrown some change or a few dollars in.) Instead, my dollars will be going to an LGBT youth organization. Craibe's statement's are beyond disgusting, hateful, violent...just beyond words.

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I stopped donating - unless the bell ringer really looks like they need a smile as well as a dollar - when I found out that a married woman officer in the SA can never be promoted to a rank higher than that held by her husband; years before, Big Daddy JB had said he'd stopped supporting the SA when he learned that the local commanders-in-chief (generals or colonels or whatever, they actually hold military-sounding rank) lived in the toniest of the suburbs and drove big-arse ole Caddys and Chryslers paid for by the SA.

The "die, gays" position will help me resist the urge to fill the kettles. mkitten, I like the idea of donating to an LGBT organizaiton, good thought~!

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They're never getting my money again. Miserable assholes. Why don't these people quit hawking Jesus like a two-bit whore and realize HE WAS NOT THE MURDERING, HATEFUL, SPITEFUL, RACIST, SLIME RIDDLED, MONKEY BUTT that all you BASTARDS are trying to pull him off as???

Jesus LOVED and FORGAVE everyone.

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I stopped giving years ago, mostly due to their stance on gays but also because there have been instances of the SA throwing out donated toys they thought were evil (such as Harry Potter toys)

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I stopped donating - unless the bell ringer really looks like they need a smile as well as a dollar - when I found out that a married woman officer in the SA can never be promoted to a rank higher than that held by her husband; years before, Big Daddy JB had said he'd stopped supporting the SA when he learned that the local commanders-in-chief (generals or colonels or whatever, they actually hold military-sounding rank) lived in the toniest of the suburbs and drove big-arse ole Caddys and Chryslers paid for by the SA.

The "die, gays" position will help me resist the urge to fill the kettles. mkitten, I like the idea of donating to an LGBT organizaiton, good thought~!

Thanks, I'm thinking of emailing or writing a letter with a picture of the check that I write to the LGBT org (bank info crossed out :P ) and explaining exactly why the money on the check is NOT going to SA.

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This is why I have never and will never donate to the salvation army. I've found most people really don't know what they're donating to when they give to those bell ringers. They just see them in malls all the time and assume it's a good cause. I told my best friend last year about their anti-gay stance and she won't donate again either, but most people just don't know.

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I love the leg-humpers who're crying, "Why are you persecuting Christians who want gay people to die? We won't actually do it, but believe they should because being gay's a sin! It's totally not the same as people using the Bible as justification for slavery even though for those who think slavery is evil and not needed now but support the view that slavery was "needed" (could get away with it because it was legal to own people back then in America and the ancient world) in Biblical times; Wa! Wah! Waah! Waah!

Waaah! Waaaah! Wah." :auto-ambulance: :auto-ambulance: :auto-ambulance: (Please correct me if my comparison is off :oops: )

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