The scouts are a great example. Because i think they do a lot of good, and i think their goals were always mostly-good, and i think they have changed in very constructive ways.
Personally, I’m going to continue to be suspicious of the salvation army until and unless i have reason to believe they have actually changed. But i suspect, speaking as a non-Christian, that their mission has always been suspect, and even if their didn’t require people to profess belief in Christ to eat a hot meal, their primary goal has always been evangelism and not helping people’s physical problems. And that’s just not a core belief that i can get behind.
This is a really good question. One thing I haven’t yet seen mentioned is that I expect there to be a certain amount of transparency around admitting the ethical failing and being able to describe the way it was harmful.
Yeah, I agree - in fact in the particular case of a Christian organisation, I think I sort of expect the corporate equivalent of repentance - characterised by admission of fault, actual regret, a decision to change and a credible plan or set of actions to make that happen.
I want more than that. Not just to acknowledge they did harm, but to do something to improve what they tried to harm, with at least twice the effort and expense.
Example: Chick-fil-A has actively supported anti-LGTB organizations. If they were to say they were no longer going to do that, they would need to donate as much money to pro-LGBT organizations as they have to anti-LGBT. And then some
You mean like this? The Salvation Army stands against homophobia, which victimises people and can reinforce feelings of alienation, loneliness and despair. We want to be an inclusive church community where members of the LGBT community find welcome and the encouragement to develop their relationship with God… Our international mission statement is very clear on this point when it says we will “meet human needs in [Jesus’] name without discrimination”. Anyone who comes through our doors will be welcomed with love and service, based on their need and our capacity to provide.[162]… As of April 2018, the “Inclusion” page on the official U.K. website stated that the Salvation Army stands against homophobia and does not permit discrimination in its employment practices or delivery of care.[165]
As of 2018, the U.S.A. Central Territory website explicitly states that it serves and welcomes the LGBT community.[166]
On the website of its USA division, the organisation currently maintains an informative/promotional document titled “The LGBTQ Community and The Salvation Army” which states (among other things) that it is “committed to serving the LGBTQ community”; “[w]hen a transgender person seeks help from us, we serve them in the same manner as any other person seeking assistance”; it “is an Equal Opportunity Employer” with regard to “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression” (et al.); and that it “provide[s] benefits to the spouses of employees in same-sex marriages”.[167]
Not seeing a great deal of expression of regret or admission of fault in there (except a little bit in the passive voice), so, no. Not wholly like that.
I mean, I sort of get it; an organisation admitting fault and expressing regret probably opens the door to liability, but it sort of smacks of hollow revisionism just to announce ‘We’re Super LGBT Friendly!’ without explicitly acknowledging that this new position was arrived at by the realisation that previous to this, something was gravely wrong.
This. Of course it’s easier to change an organization than a person. The organization just has to remove the people who were causing the problem and replace them with people who work on fixing the problem. So one big thing I would look for is a change in who is actually in charge, not just a “we’re going to keep the same people, but we / they promise to do better”.
Just look at prominent leaders, both politicians and corporate leaders, and you’ll see how rare change for the better by an individual person is. The only two I can think of off the top of my head in living memory are the late senator Robert Byrd and Bill Gates. So for me to believe an organization has changed, they need to send the problematic people out the door and bring in new, hopefully better, leaders.
I disagree. It is much harder to change an organization. Organizations with major ethical problems are often rotten from the top. Those who let the violations happen are not going to fire themselves, though they may fire scapegoats. And it is easy for an organization’s PR department to issue a statement about how tolerant they are (like the Salvation Army statement) but a lot harder to enforce tolerance.
A company I worked for was reasonably ethical, and we got acquired by a company that wasn’t. We got all the ethics messages, but we still got in trouble with the government for infractions in selling to them. It’s clear that this behavior came from the founder/CEO, and he was not about to fire himself. Serious ethical problems don’t come from people, they come from corporate culture.
It sounds like you’re disagreement might be a matter of how I’m referring to things. That’s why I tried clarify by stating that the old “we’re going to keep the same people but they promise to do better” statement is almost always a bunch of BS, and that making that claim isn’t going to improve that company’s esteem in my books. If the founder / CEO / company president / whoever is still the same person, I won’t believe their claim of how they are going to clean up their act. But on the other hand, that means that the problems really are due to a person, that same CEO or company founder or whoever. Get someone different in there and they can change the culture, even if that means getting rid of everyone following the old culture and bringing in new people who will establish a better one.
If any org or company states publically "we did wrong, we apologize’ they will be sued. So, what you are saying they have to be so remorseful, that they want to be sued out of existence.
Is it possible to find some middle ground between:
Admitting failings and being sued out of existence.
Just publishing ‘We have always been at war with homophobia’ and hoping everyone will accept that?
I’m guessing the only way liability could be limited would be if the change was occurring because of some legal process where some equivalent of plea bargaining was available (and I don’t think that exists, and it would probably not be practical to implement).