Salvation Army Leader: "Gay parents should be put to death."

[Stephanie66]

Remember this when the bell ringers are out in force. It sounds like the interviewer even tried to give him an out, and he persisted. Now I don't have to feel guilty when I don't toss a buck in the red bucket.

Christmas, it is the time of the year for holiday shopping, and also hearing the bell ringers for the Salvation Army collection donations. Those donations provide Christmas dinners, clothing, and Christmas toys for children in need. The charity collects millions of dollars in donations every year, and they distribute it to needy families, seniors, and the homeless in keeping with the spirit of the holiday season.

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The Salvation Army has expressed their Christian beliefs in the past, stating that they do not accept the LGBTQ lifestyle, nor do they stand up for gay marriage. Salvation Army went on record recently, stating that LGBTQ parents should be put to death as the bible instructs. Major Andrew Craibe, a Salvation Army Media Relations Director, went on public radio hosted by journalist Serena Ryan, to discuss a recent call by LGBTQ parents for a boycott of the nonprofit for its anti-gay policies and beliefs.

Ryan questioned Craibe about Salvation Story: Salvationist Handbook of Doctrine, the manual used to train Salvation Army “soldiers†and members. Several chapters refer to the sin of homosexuality, including a section that cites Romans 1:18-32, which includes a admonition that homosexuals “deserved to dieâ€;

“ Ryan: According to the Salvation Army gay parents deserve death. How do you respond to that, as part of your doctrine?â€

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

Ryan: So they should die.â€

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

http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_arti ... U.facebook

[PennySycamore]

WHAT. THE. FUCK?

ETA: I always used to make sure I put money in the red kettles at Christmas inspired by the example of Mame Dennis who dropped money in the kettle even though she was broke and maybe had just been fired from Macy's. I haven't given in years, but I'm probably not the only person inspired by Auntie Mame. Do these shits at the Salvation Army realize that the writer of Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis, was bisexual?

ET additionally add: This seems to be somewhat old news as it's from 2012. The Salvation Army in both the US and Australia have tried to distance themselves from the statement and have said that this guy doesn't speak for the organization. I still won't go out of my way to drop money in their kettles.

[Arete]

Apparently this shit from the Salvation Army does not realize that the "lusts" and "unnatural acts" of the Roman world have nothing to do with a 21st century same sex couple. Male on male relationships as viewed by Paul would have been heavy on catamites (male prostitutes) and humiliation (both the Greeks and Romans despised the passive partner in same sex coupling).

[Minerva]

:pink-shock:

...at least they don't beat around the bush? I hope this bites them in the butt.

[Tesseract]

WTH. I'm tempted to print out the article to drop in the kettle and instead give more to our local charities.

[Minerva]

WTH. I'm tempted to print out the article to drop in the kettle and instead give more to our local charities.

I'm tempted to print it out and drop it in the hands of everyone I know who might be tempted to donate this winter.

[ladyamylynn]

Bell-ringing ass-hats.

[Tesseract]

I'm tempted to print it out and drop it in the hands of everyone I know who might be tempted to donate this winter.

Even better!

[RachelB]

WTH. I'm tempted to print out the article to drop in the kettle and instead give more to our local charities.

I have been putting notes in kettles for the last couple of Novembers and Decembers that say, "If your organization weren't so anti-LGBT, this would have been a $5 bill. In honor of your efforts, I am donating that $5 to the county food bank instead, as they do not have your organization's discriminatory policies. They appreciate your being out here!"

Everybody wins-- I get to unburden myself, the bell-ringer gets the satisfaction of knowing that someone is going to eat better, and an organization that doesn't discriminated against gender and sexual minorities gets a little extra money.

[Mama Mia]

I wonder how they reconcile this when some if their programs take government money, and aren't allowed to discriminate.

[Stephanie66]

I wonder how they reconcile this when some if their programs take government money, and aren't allowed to discriminate.

I will say the Salvation Army helped a co-worker of mine when she was facing eviction. They never asked her anything about her religion or sexual orientation, nor made her participate in any of their worship services. Perhaps funding through the government is treated differently?

[Patsy]

Nothing new. They get involved in political stuff in different countries, fuck over trans people.

http://community.feministing.com/2011/1 ... tion-army/

Was it also a subgroup of SA who were refusing to give kids any non-gender-conforming toys in their Christmas bundles? I remember reading about someone being instructed that yes, they could pick a toy gun to put in a boy's bundle, but no, not a doll. Was that Salvation Army? Ring any bells (haw haw) for anyone?

[OkToBeTakei]

Where is he leader?

As per SA UK

We oppose any discrimination, marginalisation or persecution of any person. We find no scriptural support for demeaning or mistreating anyone for any reason.

Anyone who comes to The Salvation Army will receive assistance based solely on their need and our capacity to provide help. We work with people who are vulnerable and marginalised across the world, and offer very practical help, unconditional assistance and support regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

We employ a large number of people of other faiths, cultures and varying sexual orientation and we respect and value the rich diversity of our staff and the communities in which we serve.

Their 'beliefs' page is a bit holy moley though :lol:

[Minerva]

I will say the Salvation Army helped a co-worker of mine when she was facing eviction. They never asked her anything about her religion or sexual orientation, nor made her participate in any of their worship services. Perhaps funding through the government is treated differently?

I don't think their homophobic stance governs how they treat all of the recipients of their help (though there have apparently been isolated incidents), but a few years back it came out that they have an anti-gay hiring policy for their higher-up corporate positions. I think the un-christian anti-gay treatment is reserved for their employees.

[twinmama]

Wow, kind of makes me want to take a shit in their little red cans. Even without this though they drive me nuts. I hate people basically begging for money or donations at the entrance to the grocery store. I donate money to charities, I don't need to be reminded or begged every time I need milk.

[singsingsing]

Romans 1:18-32 is not about homosexuality. The sin being referenced here is people replacing the worship of God with the worship of false/mortal idols or images. According to the passage, BECAUSE they committed this sin, they began to participate in totally depraved behaviour in cults. Having 'shameful' sexual relations was only the tip of the iceberg: the writer is much more concerned with the fact that, "They [were] full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They [were] gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent[ed] ways of doing evil; they disobey[ed] their parents; they [had] no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy." <-- All THAT is why the writer goes on to say that they deserve death.

1. Obviously what I quoted above does not describe the average gay person any more than it describes the average straight person.

2. Unless the Salvation Army believes that people who gossip, boast, or disrespect their parents should be put to death... WTF are they talking about?

[docmom]

2. Unless the Salvation Army believes that people who gossip, boast, or disrespect their parents should be put to death... WTF are they talking about?

Well that would pretty effectively wipe out the entire teenage population :wink-kitty:

[pattygbucks]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/sexualit ... onarmy.asp

[Swamptribe]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/sexuality/salvationarmy.asp

Was just going to post the snopes article. Haven't put anything in their kettle for years though, they Salvation Army is uber cult like.

[Arete]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/sexuality/salvationarmy.asp

Thank you for posting this. I was starting to despair when I heard of Romans 1 18-32 being used as anti-gay propaganda. As singsingsing explained so well, that is NOT what that passage is about, and even when you go to the condemnation of male-male unions in the passage, what Paul saw of male-male relations is NOTHING like what they are in the 21st century. Pulling single clauses out of context makes me even stabbier than pulling complete sentences out of context in the fundamentalist Biblical verse Olympics.

[pattygbucks]

Salvation Army provides a lot of really great services to those in need. There are very few charitable organizations, secular or religious, that I agree with 100%.

I hate when media outlets report edited or partial stories and people make snap decision based on a "report" with an agenda. I usually look up things like this more than one place...both from left and right sources. As with most things, in the middle lies the "true story". Everyone, when taken out of context, has said something that is hateful to any number or people.

[Minerva]

Salvation Army provides a lot of really great services to those in need. There are very few charitable organizations, secular or religious, that I agree with 100%.

I hate when media outlets report edited or partial stories and people make snap decision based on a "report" with an agenda. I usually look up things like this more than one place...both from left and right sources. As with most things, in the middle lies the "true story". Everyone, when taken out of context, has said something that is hateful to any number or people.

The SA's [link=http://tgvnews.com/2013/06/salvation-army-says-gays-need-to-be-put-to-death/]clarifying statement[/link] (which Dawkins didn't bother to include) doesn't help their case at all, though, and the lines of the interview that Dawkins excluded make it sound even worse. We already know they don't (officially) discriminate while dispensing services. Only Bruce Harmer's [link=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/andrew-craibe-salvation-army-official-gays-put-to-death_n_1628135.html]comments[/link] can be considered to add balance or context, and they don't change the SA's history of political participation, their opposition to same-sex marriage, their refusal to provide benefits to gay couples, nor do they change what Andrew Craibe said.

I can think of many charitable organizations that I don't agree with 100%, yet that provide great services, that aren't anti-gay. Sorry, but they're not all the same. I usually look things up and read about them from a credible news source - works way better than just assuming the truth must lie between what the left and right say.

ETA - if richarddawkins.net had wanted to provide useful context, they could have included the fact that this happened in Australia's branch of the Salvation Army, or that the interview was published a year prior to them blogging about it.

[pattygbucks]

"credible news source" I'm curious to hear what you consider them to be.

IMO there are none. Fox news leans far right, CNN maybe centerist(?), MSNBC leans far left. My 20 page local newspaper leans right. The Boston Globe, that I get on the weekend, leans far left.

[OkToBeTakei]

"credible news source" I'm curious to hear what you consider them to be.

IMO there are none. Fox news leans far right, CNN maybe centerist(?), MSNBC leans far left. My 20 page local newspaper leans right. The Boston Globe, that I get on the weekend, leans far left.

I would imagine it is the same for most countries. Some news agencies/newspapers definitely have political leanings. I reckon looking out with your country can help. For instance I use the Guardian news site which is in the UK but I will often look and see how NY Times or other European news is reporting on issues. Does not mean you will get an unbiased view but if you then cross reference opinion with a good selection of reporting you can generally find a fairly balanced view. Best not to look at just one source.

[Minerva]

"credible news source" I'm curious to hear what you consider them to be.

IMO there are none. Fox news leans far right, CNN maybe centerist(?), MSNBC leans far left. My 20 page local newspaper leans right. The Boston Globe, that I get on the weekend, leans far left.

So...you just don't trust any news sources?

A news source can be credible while having a political leaning. What matters is the standards they expect their news reporters to adhere to: including all salient facts, including the voice of "both sides" when pertinent, avoiding sensationalism, using neutral language (a newspaper's style guide can be a good indication of their professionalism), respecting people's privacy, citing one's sources. Obviously even professional news sources fail at this (more often through human error than from bias), which is why it's important to read/watch the news critically - more so when it's a controversial issue than when it's, say, a fluff piece or story about a freak accident. However, this is not the same as assuming every news source has no more credibility than an op ed or a blog. I'd adopt the "somewhere in the middle" method if I lived in a world with only blogs and op eds to go by, but as it is, that'd be my least reliable way of finding information. I personally don't think it's hard to tell whether a source is credible - perhaps you're a more suspicious person than I am.

But let's talk about credible news sources. Sun Media is solidly to the right. My local paper is pretty right of centre, too. The majority of the time, my local paper's reporting is entirely professional. When it isn't, corrections are published. I don't read the editorials if I don't want my blood pressure to rise, but I have no need to assume that the news articles are inherently biased. I'll look at them extra carefully if it's about something politicized like abortion, compare their coverage to that of other sources if necessary, but the reporting is always fact-based and professional, and usually quite objective, too. Sun media, on the other hand, operates using far looser journalistic standards. Its headlines are sensationalist and misleading, its reporters don't always employ good taste or respect for people's privacy, its articles labelled "news" can read like op eds. I take it with a grain of salt at any given time. (Hell, my campus news paper has higher standards than Sun media, and it's run by amateurs since my school doesn't offer journalism - rabidly centrist amateurs, I'll add, though they generally have the ability to publish credible news articles.)

Another example of professional reporting: HuffPo arguably counts as a blog, but its article on Andrew Craibe's interview had all the necessary components to make it (the article, not the blog itself obviously) credible. It cites its sources, includes all possible context, quotes "both sides", etc.

I also wouldn't qualify MSNBC as far-left (I mean...I'm far left. They're not that far to the left at all), but they are hella biased, so I take them with a grain of salt, too.

ETA Aspiring Journalist Friend has informed me that journalism students are also encouraged to avoid the use of adverbs to increase their objectivity. Interesting.