Reason's Not to Donate to Salvation Army.

• Cynic wrote on 2011-12-26 03:21

  Religious people often claim moral superiority because of the fact that there are so many religious charities, and so few explicitly secular ones. The reason for that, of course, is that atheists generally don’t care whether the charity is labelled “Christian” (or whatever other religion), so long as it does good work. Unfortunately, it turns out that in some cases, the label does matter, and one of those cases is The Salvation Army.
  
  You know them. They have arms in over 100 countries, with slick advertising campaigns, and pick-up bins and outlet stores in most major urban areas. Every year around Christmas time they come out in droves with their little pots – sometimes with musical accompaniment, sometimes just bells – and camp out in malls and on street corners asking for your spare change with “sharing is caring” signage. It’s hard to forget about their religious background given that the word “salvation” is right in their name, but they’re so pervasive, and so non-controversial, that it’s just not a big deal to most people. And if you do want to donate to a charity at holiday time, you can’t beat the convenience. For years it used to be my custom to do all my Christmas shopping with a set amount of money, and once it was done, whatever was left went straight into the bucket of the first Salvation Army volunteer I happened across.
  
  I now regret that custom, and will no longer donate to the Salvation Army. I also ask anyone of conscience to stop doing it, too.
  
  Why? Because it’s a religious organization? Not exactly. The fact alone that they are religious never bothered me, and it still wouldn’t today. Unfortunately, there are some disturbing facts about their operations that are not well known that ruin their value as a charity. And, unfortunately, their religious background is to blame for their failings.
  
  
  [SIZE="3"]The Salvation Army sometimes refuses help to people they don’t approve of[/SIZE]
  
  The Salvation Army is an explicitly Christian organization, and has in practice – many times – shown the limits of Christian charity by refusing to help various groups. In other cases, they have refused help unless the people being helped attend Christian lectures and services.
  
  I know it sounds almost too shocking to believe, but it’s actually true. The Salvation Army has refused assistance to gay couples unless they break up and go straight, Muslim families who refuse to attend “Christian Bible classes”, kids who can’t prove their immigration status, and more.
  
  The Salvation Army claims that (some of!) these kinds of lapses are isolated incidents, and that they contradict the policy of the organization as a whole. That may be partially true, but for some facts to keep in mind:
  

  Some types of discrimination are explicitly Salvation Army policy (more on this shortly). While there may not be explicit instructions to refuse help to groups that are institutionally discriminated against – and while such a refusal might contradict with their stated policy – there are apparently no instructions to require that help be given, which is an important point, because;
  

  The various branches and shelters of the Salvation Army have a fair amount of independence in their day-to-day activities. Whenever one of these discrimination incidents hits the media, the organization usually responds by saying that the decisions were made at the local level, not at the top. That’s probably true, but when you stack the organization with religious people, under a religious banner (and, in some cases, institutionalize the bigotry associated with the religion), it’s foolish not to expect some kind of religious discrimination to happen. Mission statements notwithstanding, if you’re a religious organization, and you’re serious about preventing discrimination when providing services, it’s irresponsible not to make it clear that discrimination during operations is not tolerable.

So if you’re a member of some group not approved by standard Christian mores, it’s a craps-shoot whether you are going to receive help or not. That’s bad, but it gets worse, because the discrimination exists on the other side, too.


[SIZE="3"]The Salvation Army sometimes discards or destroys donations they don’t approve of[/SIZE]

If you donate something to the Salvation Army, such as a toy or a book, you would expect that it would almost certainly end up in the hands of a needy person, or at least at one of their thrift stores so that the proceeds could go to the needy. You would be wrong. The Sally Ann [slang for Salvation army] refuses to distribute the Twilight and Harry Potter toys because of their wizardry, vampire and werewolf content, said Capt. Pam Goodyear.

Please note: the undesirable toys are not sent to another charity, they are destroyed. [1]

It’s not just your donated Harry Potter and Twilight toys at risk of being silently destroyed, because, as Canadian Atheist‘s Ian Cromwell reveals, the Salvation Army burns destroys books. Which books? Well, some are reasonable candidates, like pornography (although, really, if you don’t want to distribute it, at least give it to another charity who might), but others…:


On the other hand, maybe they're doing the world a favour by keeping Harry Potter and Twilight out of the hands of children

"Cromwell: What books (besides pornography and promiscuity) are removed from your shelves?
Salvation Army spokesperson: Books that promote any religion other than Christianity. Certain authors who we know use bad language, explicit sex or violence in their books. Again, I repeat our knowledge in this area is limited so it is highly probable that we miss some unsuitable books.
Cromwell: What happens to those books? Are they put in a place where others may read them?
Salvation Army spokesperson: Destroyed, not re-circulated."

The Salvation Army has stated that the Harry Potter and Twilight toy thing is not an official policy (no word yet on the book thing), it is left to the discretion of the local churches, but bear in mind that there is no official policy either that selections should be made on a reasonable basis or that undesirable donations be redistributed via another charity. There isn’t even a policy in place to warn people that their donation might simply be thrown in the trash.

So unless there is nothing about you that hard-line Christian policy might find offensive, your chances of getting help from The Salvation Army are iffy. And unless your donation has no chance of offending such Christian sensibilities, it might just be silently destroyed. That makes donating to The Salvation Army a little more difficult to justify.

But wait, it gets worse.


[SIZE="3"]The Salvation Army is an explicitly and actively anti-gay organization[/SIZE]


Despite his clothing, that man is probably not gay.

So far, all of the problems I have listed with The Salvation Army can be shrugged off as isolated incidents; they could simply be cases of small groups of extremist nutters at the local level acting independently without the official sanction of the organization as a whole. The fact that the organization doesn’t seem to explicitly forbid such behaviours – except for the vaguest and weakest affirmations of wanting to provide social services without discrimination – is troubling, but not quite damning, because it is conceivable that they are actually institutionally frowned upon.

But then, there’s this:

• In 1986, New Zealand was trying to decriminalize homosexual behaviour. The Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 was intended to amend the Crimes Act 1961 to remove statutes against consensual homosexual sex. It was also intended to provide anti-discrimination laws, but that part didn’t make it (it finally made it 7 years later as the Human Rights Act 1993). The part that did make it passed only very narrowly – 49–44 – and only then because Conservative MP George Gair delayed the vote because several supporters had been unable to make it due to bad weather. So what does that have to do with The Salvation Army? Well, The Salvation Army was petitioning hard in 1986 to get the bill quashed. In fact, it was so bad that in 2008, The Salvation Army issued an official apology for the incident, saying, basically, “Well, not everyone in The Salvation Army was involved”.
  
• They didn’t learn their lesson, because, in 2000, The Salvation Army was again petitioning hard – this time in Scotland. The United Kingdom Local Government Act 1988, Section 28: Prohibition on promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material (original text, without amendments) prevented schools from discussing homosexuality in any kind of positive way, such as as a pretended family relationship (from the original wording). Scotland was the first to make a move to repeal the section, and The Salvation Army joined in the campaign against the repeal. Luckily, the campaign failed, and the law was repealed in June 2000 with a vote of 99–17.
  
• Not all of their activities take the form of legitimate protests that could arguably be blamed on just a few extremist members. Some are downright nefarious. The front page story of the Washington Post on 10 July 2001 was titled Charity Cites Bush Help in Fight Against Hiring Gays: Salvation Army Wants Exemption From Laws. It turned out that the Washington Post had gotten hold of some Salvation Army documents discussing back-room dealing with the Bush administration. In exchange for the Salvation Army’s support of Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) (now renamed the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships), the Bush administration would exempt religious charities that receive federal money from laws that bar discrimination against homosexuals. In other words, The Salvation Army wanted to keep getting federal money… but be allowed to refuse to hire gay people, and to refuse benefits to same-sex partners. Their justification for this argument? That they are not a charitable organization; they are a church. When the story broke, Bush administration officials at first said they were considering the appeal, then – in mere hours – changed their tune, refused The Salvation Army’s request and denied ever hearing about it to begin with.
  
• But The Salvation Army was not done yet. In fact, the worst was yet to come. In 2004 the Equal Benefits Bill overwhelmingly passed in New York City, even against the veto of then-mayor Micheal Bloomberg (last I heard, though, the bill was declared moot in February 2006, because it contradicted other laws about bidding for contracts with the government, but I believe it is still in appeals). This law would have required The Salvation Army to provide equal benefits to same-sex partners of their employees, so long as they wanted to continue doing business with the city government. At this point it should not surprise you that The Salvation Army was not pleased by this development… but what they did next should surprise anyone. In a fit of pique, the New York church threatened to simply refuse to do business with the city government – basically saying that they would rather discriminate than take city money. The practical effect of refusing that US$70 million would mean that it would have to close all of its New York soup kitchens, shelters, foster care programs, and HIV services. I’m sorry to say this, but you read that right: The Salvation Army said that it would rather leave the homeless and unfortunate on the street to rot in the cold rather than give benefits to same-sex partners.
  Direct Relief International
  Various national Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Crystal societies
  Médecins Sans Frontières
  UNICEF
  And many more….

It is important to understand that even while the organization always explains away these incidents initiatives by individual churches and not organization policy, the discrimination is organization policy. It is baldly stated on the main organization web site that The Salvation Army is anti-abortion and anti-gay. What is also notable are the things that are not said. For example, the official statement about “religious persecution” is all about persecution of Christians… and not a word is spent clarifying that the organization does not endorse discriminating against other religions. The closest that it comes to a non-discrimination policy so far as I can tell is in its statement on “human welfare”:

"All Salvation Army social welfare services are provided on a non-discriminatory basis; such services shall be equally available to all persons on the basis of need and capacity to benefit from the service."

That sounds good, but for two problems. First… it’s not true. As the examples I’ve mentioned illustrate, that’s just not the reality of The Salvation Army’s operations. But, more damningly, right before that section it states:

"All Salvation Army positions of full-time service, lay leadership, employment, and volunteer service are open to qualified persons, with exceptions dictated only by the religious purposes and moral positions of The Salvation Army."

Oops. So much for its opposition to unlawful, unjust, or immoral discrimination and its promotion of sensitivity, understanding, and communication.

So while the official policy of The Salvation Army does not allow for discrimination when providing services, it’s institutional philosophy is explicitly and shamelessly discriminatory. Thus it should not be surprising that the fact is that when it comes to practice, discrimination does happen in spite of their stated policy when providing its services. And, of course, discrimination is rampant and encouraged in all other aspects of the organization. The organization even actively campaigns – sometimes using back-room deals – to further discrimination, and is even willing to sacrifice its social services for the sake of the discrimination.
We can do better

The Salvation Army’s only virtues as a charitable organization seems to be that it’s big, and convenient. It’s certainly hard to deny the convenience of making a small donation while shopping at one of their kettles.
[SIZE="3"]
But we can do better.[/SIZE]

There are organizations that do more good, without discriminatory qualifications, without the risk of having your donations simply discarded if they don’t measure up to fundamentalist Christian principles, and without supporting odious anti-tolerance campaigning as a side-effect.

Here is just a small sampling of alternatives available:

Doing good should not have qualifications. The Salvation Army is not bad because it’s Christian, it’s bad because it takes its Christianity more seriously than it takes its charitable calling. We can do better. The organizations will make the most of your support to do good, without taking the opportunity of your goodwill to harm others or further the cause of intolerance.

Give generously, but give wisely.

- http://arise-blog.org/2010/12/do-not-donate-to-the-salvation-army/


I thought this was interesting. With a bit of further research, you can see examples of some of the horrid things they have done. In one instance, a trans-woman died because they refused to let her into the shelter simply due to her trans status.

It does suck, though, since they're pretty much the base donation place for any cause, especially during the Holidays.