This is true, but throwing up your hands and saying “there’s nothing I can do about it, so why try?” is also lazy. You can’t prevent all of your dollars from going to bigots, but you can certainly make informed choices to prevent as many of them as possible from doing so. All it takes is a few minutes online to check out where the places you commonly shop donate their money, and make a couple of changes based on that. Head-in-the-sand thinking, on the other hand, allows the status quo to continue. I chose Target over Wal-Mart in part because of their policies: lesser of two evils, maybe, but at least I didn’t choose the greater of two evils, and at least I made a semi-informed choice.
Giving to charity is not the same as spending money at a retail establishment. When buying a retail product, you are exchanging money for a product that you need or want. It has nothing to do with furthering the organization’s goals. You can argue that a responsible consumer pays attention to the businesses they patronize, but it’s still not remotely the same as donating money to a charity. There, you are providing money directly for the organization to further its agenda.
Not at all. The standard I attempt to hold myself to, albeit certainly imperfectly, is that I try not to support organizations that I know are anti-LGBT, and I try to remain reasonably informed. You’re excluding the middle here: making a choice between either exercising no judgment at all, or refusing to ever spend a dollar that I think might ever make it into the hands of a homophobe somewhere. That’s silly. I can do the best I can and a very easy start is not supporting organizations who I know are directly working to oppress queer people. Like the Salvation Army.
Actually, Target has a great gay rights record, and Wal-Mart’s has improved a lot over the years, in large part because these organizations see that it’s good for the bottom line to be gay-friendly. That’s exactly why gay people and straight people who consider themselves in favor of gay rights should vote with our pocketbooks, to the extent we reasonably can.
Any line of reasoning that leads to the conclusion that it’s somehow better to support an openly anti-gay organization – one that, again, works publicly to oppose marriage equality, a right that ought to be a no-brainer in this day and age – than another organization that isn’t officially anti-gay is just, well, bizarre. There are lots of charitable groups.
Even if that were the case (it only is if you stretch quite far, by looking at things like donations to PACs that donated to PACs that supported homophobic candidates), it’s still often pretty easy, with a minimum of research, to go find which companies have non-discrimination policies and which don’t, or which ones provide employees’ same-sex partners with benefits and which don’t. Supporting the companies that treat their queer employees well actually directly improves the lives of other queer people and works against the prevalent discrimination against queer people.
So no, it’s not “dangerous” to avoid giving to the Salvation Army. It’s dangerous to give in to the arguments of these straight people who are trying to cover up or make excuses for their homophobia. And it’s certainly not better to give to groups that officially and openly hate us than to groups that don’t.
Well, I don’t see the distinction as clearly as you. I agree it’s not the same as giving to charity, but the end result is that your dollars are going to support positions you oppose. When you donate to charity you get a warm fuzzy feeling inside, when you go to Target you get a blender. Not the same but the net result is similar.
But you don’t have to convince me not to donate to Salvation Army or any other openly bigoted charity.
I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said overall. It’s great when corporations treat gay employees and customers well. And we should support those companies and corporations over others. I’m just a bit more cynical than you and others, I guess because it all seems like a sham to me if at the end of the day they are still spending millions in PACs and lobbyists to support legislators who are homophobic.
That being said, I obviously don’t think it’s a GREAT idea to donate to openly bigoted charities, but I don’t think it’s all that terrible either. But as I’ve said before, you don’t have to convince me not to donate to them.
They are spending millions to support candidates who are pro-business. That’s their priority. That those candidates tend to be very busy pandering to their social conservative base is a non-priority. (And I don’t believe Republican Candidate = homophobic - I think Republican Candidate = pandering - although in some cases I think the candidates themselves are homophobic). The problem with candidates is that - at least in this country - you vote for one guy (although MANY of these companies support several candidates financially across both liberal and conservative platforms - you want to make sure your money is spread).
It would be great if things were as simple as you described - much easier to just make simple decisions. And it would be great (well, maybe) if all that money were not being spread around in the political system.
From the Candian Website
http://www.salvationarmy.ca/faq/
Again, they have an official policy of non-descrimination against sexual orientation when delivering services to those in need.
Still working on getting a cite for where the donations go.
This is great to see, though I will cynically note that Canadian laws regarding discrimination against gays are different from US laws. I can’t pull up the American site from here but it would be interesting if a similar statement were on that page, too.
The devil in the details with that statement, perfectparanoia, is twofold:
First off, and simplest, is that what the Salvation Army in Canada does may or may not be what it does in the US, or worldwide. In general, it is my understanding that Canada is much further advanced than the US in terms of recognizing civil rights for LGBT persons. This makes for a very different legal environment, which will affect how organizations within the nation behave.
Secondly, official policies may or may not be enforced. Or they may be enforced with a wink and a nod. The statement, “Don’t let anyone catch you discriminating against LBGT persons,” can mean very different things depending upon where the emphasis is placed in the sentence. If the emphasis is on the word ‘discriminating,’ well and good. If it’s on ‘catch’ however…
The long and the short of it, for me, remains what the Salvation Army was willing to do in NYC to fight against extending civil rights to LGBT people. That has irrevocably tainted them in my eyes, unless and until they do a 180 and start pushing for civil rights.
Has anyone posted their stated stand on homosexuality from the U.S. site?
That’s nice but, as we’ve seen in this thread (and I’ve heard a lot of similar stories in the past), there’s ample reason to believe that this officially anti-gay religious organization’s members frequently do not adhere to this policy, or adhere to it grudgingly. Which is not to even touch their political activities.
And while they may be scrupulous about keeping a separation between money used to provide services to the needy and money to do the Lord’s political work, well, money is fungible. Five bucks dropped in their canisters is still five bucks that their general budget doesn’t have to pay into their charitable works budget. Sort of like how we’ve all read how donations to the United Way earmarked toward a particular charity don’t actually change how much they give to that charity, since they’ve already budgeted how much they’re giving out to each group they collect for.
And, as OtakuLoki mentioned, that doesn’t even touch on the widely publicized instances in which they’ve tried to force cities not to pass anti-discrimination lawsuits precisely by withholding charitable services.
There are decent charitable groups out there. I don’t understand why people are so invested in inventing some rationale to justify what this group does.
[QUOTE=Bloodless Turnip]
Has anyone posted their stated stand on homosexuality from the U.S. site?
[/QUOTE]
Looks like it’s the usual “love the sinner” stuff you’d typically hear from any fundamentalist Christian group. I’m not sure what bearing it has on this discussion.
The SA Eastern Territory says:
Which is why they’d rather pull out of NYC or SF and not offer services to anyone rather than having non-discriminatory hiring and benefits policies.
I don’t donate to them (and I didn’t put my son in Boy Scouts) because of the gay thing… but I have to admit to having benefited from them. Back when I was 18 and jobless in the 1990 recession, my apartment didn’t have electricity because I couldn’t afford the $150-ish deposit they required to start up an account with the electric company. I lived like that for a month and a half, and finally found a Salvation Army program that would get the power turned on. I waited outside the building starting at 5am and waited most of the day, but by the end of the day, and some driving around to have things signed by different people, the Salvation Army got my electricity turned on. So they’re not pure evil.
But like I said, because of the gay thing I won’t support them (or the Boy Scouts).
To those of you who admit that the S.A. is homophobic, but donate to them anyway, because they do help a lot of people:
Jerry Sandusky helped a lot of people too. You can’t just overlook evil, just because it’s connected to good.
My thoughts on this may come out a bit disjointed, so I’ll just bulletpoint them and hope for some clarity
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I think there is no disagreement that the Salvation Army’s position is homophobic. They are religious based organization and use their interpretation of the Bible to steer their charitable work and advance their beliefs.
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The Salvation Army does not discriminate solely on GLBT issues. They also decide who can marry whom in the straight world as well. Or choose whom to hire based on the religious (or non-religious) holdings of the candidate. (Presumably based on the stories of Ham or Phinehas.)
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The Salvation Army should be as free as they want to discriminate against any group or person as they choose. Provided that they receive no governmental funding. Except that the Sally army does and does.
- I should be able to choose whether or not I want to fund an organization like the Salvation Army or any Catholic run charity. I choose not to.
Unfortunately, my stance has its consequences. And while I believe it’s a principled position based on not supporting an organization who chooses, in some cases vehemently, to go against a group based on a couple thousand year old mythologically based text, I can understand those who choose to still donate.
In the case of the lesbian couple with children. What is worse, 5 people on the street or 1? Obviously it’s 5. It’s a simple answer. If I lived in a town where the KKK ran the only homeless shelter and the town’s population was 97% white and it helped a lot of people, I wouldn’t give money to them. But I can see how some could knowing that at least most of the people would be taken care of.
I think it’s myopic to label those who would still put a quarter in the kettle as homophobic. I can see both sides of the coin. For me though, both sides of my coin will stay in my pocket.
Yes you do.
This is the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard from anyone who isn’t a professional politician or PR flack.
I’m curious if people think it’s hypocritical of me to not donate to the SA (which I don’t and never have) despite having had them directly provide me aid (getting my electricity turned on, as explained in my previous post). If it matters, I’m pretty sure that they have an agreement with the power company to waive the fee–I don’t think they actually paid the deposit for my electricity with actual dollars.
This would be a relevant point only if someone had done that. For one, I imagine most people aren’t even aware of the Salvation Army’s position, or of how bad their track record is.
It would appear no one really cared.
Not hypocritical; when you’re in need, you accept help from whomever offers. If Joe Stalin offered me a hand when I was stuck in a hole, I’d take it. I’d still oppose his politics and ideals.
One suggestion: “Pay it forward.” Give money to some other charity, with the ideal of restoring the karmic balance, yet still avoiding giving any reward to the homophobic stinkers.