For many of our friends in the United States, the Salvation Army’s deployment of bells and buckets signify the arrival of Christmas.
Their motto “Doing The Most Good” falls far short of what they actually Do.
Few people, including the kind volunteers asking you to donate your pocket, realize that they are donating to an organization that supports discrimination of the LGBT Community and refers LGBT people to “ex-gay groups“. Some soldiers in the Salvation Army even believe LGBT people should be put to death!
As recently as November 26, they were still referring clients to two anti-gay organizations: Harvest USA and Pure Life Ministries.
To their credit, it seems that they have begun to change their anti-gay stance. On paper at least. Only time will tell if real changes are implemented.
Those smiling bell ringers and their little red buckets of hate will not see another penny from my pockets until I can be certain that the discrimination against Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered people has ended.
There are so many worthy charities in the world that provide assistance to those in need without requiring a subscription to their religious belief system in order to receive the help they need. I hope that this year you will consider one of them instead.
There are a couple of great sites where you can locate credible charities if you want to actually do the most good:
UPDATE: John Aravosis over at AmericaBlog has designed an awesome “coupon” to put in the Salvation Army’s Hate kettles. I printed mine, and hope you will too!
Image Credit: David Volz
