# Salvation Army says Gays should be put to death **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 23, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007 "2012-06-23T01:36:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/1 "2012-06-23T01:36:50Z")
An interview with official Major Andrew Craibe, the Salvation Army’s Territorial Media Relations Director for the Southern Territory in Victoria, can be seen partially(and heard in its entirety) [here](http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/06/26448/). One of the interviewers reads directly from the Salvation Army Guidebook: > [@](#): > > ``` > RYAN: . . . that says, according to the Salvation Army, that [they] deserve death. How do you respond to that, as part of your doctrine? > > CRAIBE: Well, that’s a part of our belief system. > > RYAN (cutting in): So we should die. > > CRAIBE: You know, we have an alignment to the Scriptures, but that’s our belief. > > RYAN: Wow. So we should die. > > ``` Later on in the interview they talk about allegations that the group refused assistance to a person in need who wouldn’t agree to participate in an “ex-gay” program. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/2 "2012-06-23T01:43:29Z")
It’s hard to understand how anyone working as a spokesperson for a Christian group wouldn’t have some canned response to that – I’m sure anyone speaking on behalf of, say, the Catholic Church would be able to cite some document in which the Church officially declares some “love the sinner, hate the sin” policy. The excerpts quoted in the article sure are pretty damning, given that he doesn’t appear to have an answer. Kind of peeved they didn’t bother with a transcript of the whole thing, though. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/3 "2012-06-23T02:13:55Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > It’s hard to understand how anyone working as a spokesperson for a Christian group wouldn’t have some canned response to that – I’m sure anyone speaking on behalf of, say, the Catholic Church would be able to cite some document in which the Church officially declares some “love the sinner, hate the sin” policy. [More context](http://www.truthwinsout.org/news/2012/06/26448/): > [@](#): > > RYAN: It’s going into Romans again . . . I accept that you’re out there wanting to help people . . . I don’t accept that this sexuality that is part of my DNA is a choice. I also don’t accept the support of any religion in a financial sense, and this is what the gay community is up in arms about: that you’re proposing in your religious doctrine and the way that you train — this is _part_ of your training of your soldiers — that because we’re gay, that — we must die. If you go to Romans, book 1, 18-32, it’s all there, mate. I mean, how can you stand by that? How is that Christian? > > CRAIBE: Well, well, because that \*is \*part of our Christian doctrine – > > RYAN (interrupting): But how is that Christian? Shouldn’t it be about love? > > CRAIBE: — that’s our understanding of that. Well, the love that we would show is about that: consideration for all human beings to come to know salvation – > > RYAN: Or die. . . > > CRAIBE: Well, yes. It appears the official SA position is “hate the sin, kill the sinner”. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/4 "2012-06-23T02:15:14Z")
Bigoted organization is bigoted, news at 11! ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/5 "2012-06-23T02:23:14Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#): > > Bigoted organization is bigoted, news at 11! Seems like it’ll be news to some people here. Last time this was discussed [there were plenty of Dopers defending them](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=633253). (To be sure, some of those people were posting in defense of the group not because they were ignorant of their stance but because they were sympathetic to it.) ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/6 "2012-06-23T03:55:05Z")
> [@](#): > > They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Good thing they stop reading there, eh? Because just after that… _ **Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whenever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.** _ Of course, this is Pauline doctrine, as evidenced by Romans 2:16 where **Paul** says “…according to _ **my** _ gospel”. Not God’s gospel, not Jesus’ gospel. PAUL’S GOSPEL. I have a small problem with that. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/7 "2012-06-23T03:58:45Z")
I don’t want to sound like I’m defending the SA’s homophobia, but this whole thing seems to be a bit sensationalistic to me. The offensive passages in The Handbook of Doctrine were as follows: > [@](#): > > Evil that arises from the wickedness of human beings can be > seen as a risk of our creation as free, personal beings, made in the > image of God (Genesis 3; Romans 1:18-32). > [@](#): > > Sin is an intrusion into human life. It was not originally present in > human nature. Our slavery to sin originated in human disobedience > to God’s command (Genesis 2:17; 3:1-7; Romans 1:18-20). Those don’t seem to be particularly noteworthy tenants for Christians to hold. The problem was apparently in the cited Romans 1:18-32, which mentions homosexual sex as a symptom of sin. But the sinners described as being worthy of death go a little bit beyond just engaging in homosexual acts: > [@](#): > > They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. I’m not a Christian, so I could be wrong, but it also seems clear to me that the “death” involved here is spiritual death, i.e., going to hell. I’m not saying it’s okay that the SA is out saying “homosexual acts lead to you going to hell,” but interpreting all this as “LGBT People Should Be Put to Death” seems dishonest to me. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/8 "2012-06-23T04:35:55Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Not God’s gospel, not Jesus’ gospel. PAUL’S GOSPEL. > > I have a small problem with that. Of course, Paul was always trying to take credit for John’s work. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/9 "2012-06-23T04:36:31Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > I’m not saying it’s okay that the SA is out saying “homosexual acts lead to you going to hell,” but interpreting all this as “LGBT People Should Be Put to Death” seems dishonest to me. If the interviewee had disagreed when explicitly asked if Salvation Army theology taught that people who have gay sex should be put to death, I’d agree. It could well be argued that it wasn’t a fair question to ask, but the senior official with the Salvation Army gave a clear and damning answer nonetheless. The straightforward reading of that passage in Romans, incidentally, says that people who have gay sex deserve to die. (It’s a passage I’m familiar with.) Certainly churches may and do interpret scripture with an understanding that the simplest reading is not necessarily correct. But at least according to this one official with the Salvation Army, that organization (which openly is a Christian denomination in its own right, not merely a charity) interprets those verses straightforwardly. Given that organization’s generally awful record on LGBT issues, I can’t say it’s a huge surprise. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/10 "2012-06-23T04:58:11Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Of course, Paul was always trying to take credit for John’s work. And completely leaving George and Ringo out of the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/11 "2012-06-23T05:23:37Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > And completely leaving George and Ringo out of the whole thing. You saw what I did there. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/12 "2012-06-23T06:02:31Z")
Hey, at least he’s upfront about it. I really hate the groups that want to put people to death but weasel around on saying so. If you’re going to kill people, man up and acknowledge it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/13 "2012-06-23T06:45:45Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > An interview with official Major Andrew Craibe, the Salvation Army’s Territorial Media Relations Director for the Southern Territory in Victoria, can be seen partially(and heard in its entirety) [here](http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/06/26448/). One of the interviewers reads directly from the Salvation Army Guidebook: > > Later on in the interview they talk about allegations that the group refused assistance to a person in need who wouldn’t agree to participate in an “ex-gay” program. How . . . Victorian! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/14 "2012-06-23T07:17:39Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Hey, at least he’s upfront about it. I really hate the groups that want to put people to death but weasel around on saying so. If you’re going to kill people, man up and acknowledge it. I agree with **cckerberos** , though, that interpreting the Salvation Army spokesperson’s statements as saying “gays should be put to death” is weaseling a bit in the other direction. I condemn and reject any doctrine that holds that gays “deserve death” for being gay. But such doctrines are **not** necessarily the same thing as saying “the state ought to impose capital punishment for homosexuality”, which is what the melodramatic phrase “gays should be put to death” implies. There are plenty of conservative Christians who **do** literally, explicitly advocate instituting capital punishment for homosexuality in the civil legal code, which is appalling. But AFAIK the Salvation Army does not support any such policy, and this guy’s remarks don’t suggest to me that he or anybody else in the Salvation Army seriously thinks that they should. So for everybody who charged into this thread thinking they were going to be outraged by Salvation Army protesters chanting “Fry the Queers” outside the state legislature, I recommend taking a deep breath, untwisting the panties, and dialing down the shock and horror. Not really anything to see here except unremarkably typical homophobes being homophobic in an unremarkably typical way. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/15 "2012-06-23T07:33:04Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > So for everybody who charged into this thread thinking they were going to be outraged by Salvation Army protesters chanting “Fry the Queers” outside the state legislature, I recommend taking a deep breath, untwisting the panties, and dialing down the shock and horror. Not really anything to see here except unremarkably typical homophobes being homophobic in an unremarkably typical way. Okay, I’ll start by acknowledging that I conflated these two in an earlier post and I never bothered to fix my error after I noticed it later. I should have been more careful and not made that error in the first place. It’s true that no one in this conversation said gay people should be put to death, and the passage in Romans does not say that. (You have to page back to Leviticus to find that one.) However, this person – a senior official with the Salvation Army, according to the article – when explicitly asked by the interviewer, indicated that they agreed with the passage in Romans that says those who have gay sex deserve death. And there’s nothing really unclear about that. Now, I agree that that is better than saying anyone who has had gay sex should be put to death. And in the Salvation Army’s defense, they are not advocating for a public policy of executing those of us who have had gay sex, as indeed some minor Christian groups argue. However, in my opinion, it’s still pretty outrageous for them to say that anyone who has had gay sex deserves to die, even if they’re not arguing that the government should step in and make it happen. My panties are not twisted in the slightest, and while I’m well aware that many, many people out there agree and that this attitude is, as you put it, “unremarkably typical”, it’s still something that people legitimately should be upset about. If I were wearing the most comfortable underwear in the world, I still wouldn’t find their attitude acceptable. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/16 "2012-06-23T07:45:51Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > If I were wearing the most comfortable underwear in the world, I still wouldn’t find their attitude acceptable. Neither do I, as I noted in my previous post (the “condemn and reject” bit). I’m just agreeing with **cckerberos** that the phrase “gays should be put to death” is an unfair, unjustified and arguably even dishonest exaggeration and hyperbolic misrepresentation of that unacceptable attitude. Lorry knose, there are enough Christians (not to mention plenty of non-Christians) already who are literally and sincerely advocating that the state should judicially murder people for being gay. We don’t need to make the situation seem even worse than it is by inaccurately tarring more mainstream groups with that brush. ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/17 "2012-06-23T07:55:57Z")
I approve of his forthrightness, even if his message is stone-age bigotry. It’s refreshing in its’ novelty. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/18 "2012-06-23T15:23:54Z")
This is why I never give those bell-ringing assholes a cent! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/19 "2012-06-23T17:10:15Z")
If only Saul of Tarsus had taken that left turn at Albuquerque and not the road to Damascus, he would not have become Paul, the total pain in the ass. Ah, well, I can still shop at Goodwill. Tonier clientele, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007/20 "2012-06-23T19:08:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > … condemn and reject any doctrine that holds that gays “deserve death” for being gay. But such doctrines are **not** necessarily the same thing as saying “the state ought to impose capital punishment for homosexuality”, which is what the melodramatic phrase “gays should be put to death” implies… Good for the SA! They don’t want “the state” to execute homosexuals. Perhaps decriminalizing the murder of gays would be a good idea from their POV. Or how about a good neighborhood stoning in a back alley? Or maybe they are grateful for AIDS, which kills large numbers of gays, but straight deaths from it are like a form of collateral damage. I would have liked another followup question. If “God” says gays “deserve to die”, is it a sin for a Christian to kill one? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salvation-army-says-gays-should-be-put-to-death/626007.md?page=2)