It's the holiday season. Christmas decorations are out, college students are stressing about exams and final grades, and charities are reminding you of the importance of giving. This time of year also means that in front of almost every Wal-Mart, somebody from the Salvation Army is trying to collect your donations, which they claim will go to the less fortunate.
For the most part, they are right. Their donations do go to the less fortunate, with the exception of one group of people: members of the LGBTQ community. This charity, which claims to serve everybody, has a long and dark history of discriminating against LGBTQ people in both their employment practices and homeless shelters. This has been exhibited time and time again, yet people still continue to donate to the Salvation Army and deny their discrimination.
The earliest instances of discrimination start with the background of the organization. The Salvation Army is its own church, a part of the Methodist church and was organized by a preacher named William Booth. While there isn't anything necessarily wrong with being a Christian charity, the Salvation Army has only recently deleted quotes from the Methodist church that call homosexuality unnatural and a sin, and has yet to speak out against it. In fact, in 2012 a spokesperson for the Salvation Army, saying that being gay is "going against the will of God." As recently as 2013, the Salvation Army had been recommending conversion therapy on its website, a practice that has been known to hurt the LGBTQ community.
While what I just listed were very damaging opinions, they aren't the main reason you should avoid those red kettles. The Salvation Army has used your money and their status as a religious charity to actively oppose LGBTQ rights and discriminate against others. In 1998 and 2004, the Salvation Army threatened to take away money from a US city and shut down services in those cities-because of laws in place that would force companies to treat same-sex couples and straight couples the same. In 2001, the Salvation Army attempted to make a deal with the Bush administration that would make them exempt from anti-discrimination laws. Fortunately, the deal fell short.
The biggest reason why you shouldn't donate to the Salvation Army is, on top of all this, they do not actively help everyone who needs it. Bill Browning talked with the New York Times about how he and his then-boyfriend were refused shelter by the Salvation Army unless they broke up. They were told that they "needed to be saved" from homosexuality. A Salvation Army in Vermont fired Daniella Morantez, the alleged reason being her bisexuality. When writing about her experiences, she stated that the Salvation Army had found out about her sexuality the day before she got fired, and that she would now have to tell her daughter that she was jobless. Worst of all, in March of 2014 a transgender woman named Jodielynn Wiley was rejected from a Salvation Army shelter in Paris, Texas, because she had not had gender reassignment surgery. Another trans woman, Jennifer Gale, died in the cold after she was rejected from a Salvation Army shelter.
When the Salvation Army claims that they are helping those in need, in actuality they are only helping cisgender, straight people in need. While LGBTQ people are being rejected from shelters, resulting in their deaths, supporters have the gall to say that by speaking out against Salvation Army you are speaking out against helping the homeless. It's important to help the homeless, but not at the expense of LGBTQ people, many of whom are homeless themselves.
Considering other places to donate this holiday season? Around this time, local homeless shelters are suffering and many are willing to help everybody, not just cishet people. Consider donating to UNICEF, St. Jude, or Doctors Without Borders.
