I don’t vote on one issue, but I won’t donate to organizations that are hostile to people and organizations I support.
The Salvation Army is openly hostile to our gay and lesbian friends, and they won’t get a penny from me this holiday season.
Many, many good people — my friends and neighbors — ring the bell for the Salvation Army during December.
And many, many good people — my friends and neighbors — donate to the Salvation Army’s red kettles during December.
But I do not. I do not ring the bell for the Salvation Army. I do not donate to the Salvation Army, because the Salvation Army discriminates against gays and lesbians in employment, works to defeat civil rights measures that protect gays and lesbians and promotes position that gay relationships “do not conform to God’s will for society.”
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.
As do I. There are more worthy charities out there.