Does Anyone Give Money to the Salvation Army Outside Stores?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/11/09 at 10:21am

I hesitated bumping this thread back up, but another site I post on was having a similar discussion and someone pointed out this section of the The Salvation Army's Website -

That the loneliness of Adam was remedied by God through the creation of a woman, not a second man (Genesis 2:21, 22)...

The Army recognises that same-sex friendships can be enriching, Christ-honouring relationships, bringing joy through mutual companionship and sharing. However, same-sex relationships which are genitally expressed are unacceptable according to the teaching of Scripture. Attempts to establish or promote such relationships as viable alternatives to heterosexually-based family life do not conform to God’s will for society...

For this reason, and in obedience to the example of Jesus whose compassionate love was all-embracing, Salvationists seek to understand and sensitively to accept and help those of a homosexual disposition and those who express that disposition in sexual acts. Salvationists are opposed to the victimisation of persons on the grounds of sexual orientation and recognise the social and emotional stress and the loneliness borne by many who are homosexual. (emphasis mine)....


For this reason such practices, if unrenounced, render a person ineligible for Salvation Army soldiership, in the same way that unrenounced heterosexual misconduct is a bar to soldiership. The Army recognises the strength of feeling about sexual identity, and the difficulty many find in expressing this identity in keeping with scriptural standards.

So there you have it. It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. And if you genitally express your homosexuality, don't think about joining the Salvation "Army."

Now, I do acknowledge that that site goes to there Indian website (and I pointed it out the person who showed it to me), but since it's Salvation Army International, I think it's something that should be acknowledged.


Salvation Army on Homosexuality

[romantico]

Posted: 12/25/09 at 10:29am

"Some will say, but the Salvation Army performs good work — the organization feeds the hungry, shelters the homeless, clothes the impoverished, whether gay or straight.

Yes, yet there are many other organizations performing the same work as the Salvation Army that do not discriminate against gays and lesbians, that will not use your donation against you.

From the Salvation Army’s Web site: “The Army regards the origins of a homosexual orientation as a mystery and does not regard a homosexual disposition as blameworthy in and of itself or rectifiable at will. Nevertheless, while we are not responsible for what we are, we are accountable for what we do; and homosexual conduct, like heterosexual conduct, is controllable and may be morally evaluated therefore in light of scriptural teaching.

“For this reason, such practices, if unrenounced, render a person ineligible for Salvation Army soldiership.”

I can find a charity more worthy of the stray dollar in my pocket.

I’ll tell you that I used to contribute to the Salvation Army, though I was never enthusiastic about the organization’s missionary work.

But even before the big feud between the Salvation Army and the city of San Francisco over an ordinance mandating that city contractors provide equal benefits to employees, I was made aware that the organization with a reputation for kindness did not take kindly to gays.

I was living in Missouri in the early 1990s and a women’s volleyball league was playing its games at a Salvation Army gym. One Sunday night, players arrived and found the gym locked up and dark. Salvation Army officials had been made aware that the league was affiliated with an LGBT sports association. They decided to serve the sporty servers a “get out” notice because the Army’s position is that the “sexual union leading to a one-flesh relationship is intended to be between male and female.”

Maybe, at first thought, barring 30 women from playing volleyball seems small when compared to the Salvation Army served 33 million people last year and raised about $2 billion for its programs.

But think about those numbers, think about the power of the Salvation Army. It is a massive Christian evangelical organization — with a quasi-military structure and raising $2 billion a year — and it promotes discrimination against gays and lesbians in its employment policy; at local levels of government, going so far as to threaten to close soup kitchens in New York if the city enacted domestic partnership legislation; and at the national level of government, including negotiating with the Bush administration to guarantee that faith-based groups could discriminate against gays and keep their federal funding.

We can find charities more deserving of our dollars and our volunteer time."

http://www.365gay.com/opinion/neff-no-gay-change-for-the-salvation-army/