The Salvation Army - Bunch of unethical, holier-than-thou ASSHOLES

The BBQ Pit
61

Agreed - but so often on the Straight Dope, it seems to me that we are more than willing to believe people’s opinions with very little to back them up when it comes to slagging an institution; I’m finding it very interesting how unwilling people are to do the same in this particular instance.

wring, I’m not saying charitable organization employees are overpaid, or should work for free; I have no problem with c.o. employees getting paid just like everyone else. My point is that people need to know that c.o.'s have to be run like businesses so that they can STAY in business, and continue to do what they do. Working as a door-to-door canvasser for a number of different charities, I was amazed by how many people refused to donate when they learned that I was a paid canvasser for a legitimate charity.

62

Is this where we cue the lightning bolts and “Trumpets of Doom” ?

63

Who’d win in a fight -

The Salvation Army Vs. The Rainbow Brigade?

The Salvation Army Vs. The KISS Army?

It sounds like we’re going to find out! Huzzah!

64

The Salvation Army would beat the Kiss Army. As soon as the fighting heated up, the Kiss Army would be blinded by the mascara running into their eyes. The Salvation Army could then hit them over their heads with bells and kettles. The Kiss Army would be reasonably well-protected by their big hairdos, but it would be fairly easy for the Salvation Army to knock 'em off their platform shoes while they are dazed.

65

I don’t believe Degrance is entirely off on what he’s saying

This is all I could find for now.

66

From the Washington Post article linked there:

I have no problem with that, as anyone here who knows me knows. A business’s owners ought to be free to hire whomever they wish.

I do, however, have a problem with this from the article:

Holy cow! There’s so much wrong with that, I don’t know where to start.

67

Why?
The government often funds all sorts of programs. For example- programs dealing w/the homeless (federal, state and local governments can fund), job training (federal, state and local support again). etc.

68

Do you have any idea how much $300 million translates to once you’ve restored back to the figure all the salaries, building maintenance, administrative costs, etc.? Don’t forget that government, before it redistributes part of the loot it seizes, takes a substantial cut for itself.

69

Oh come on!

I was paraphasing of course. Have you been living in a closet of any sort for the past couple of decades? Here is a link to a page that give a pretty clear depiction of the tactic. Anti-Gay Politics and the Religious Right

To rephrase “Special rights for perverts”.

From our old buddy Pat Robertson, “I just don’t think we should craft laws that give privileges on the basis of the way people perform sex acts.”

While Gary Bauer says, “While I believe homosexuals have rights, I do not think they are right. And they certainly don’t have more rights than the rest of us. They have a right to their own life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but they do not have a right to impose their views upon our lives, liberties and happiness.”

Type “special rights” and “gay” into any search engine and you can read for days.

The local campaign left no doubt about the “pervert” part. This was about 5 years ago though so I don’t have a quote.

70

well of course I do.

and of course, you also understand that 300 Mil not only is spread out from all 50 states, but probably includes funds from all governmental sources (state, federal and local).

Our local SA gets grants from all levels to provide certain relief services (including a soup kitchen, food bank, clothing bank, day shelter, emeregency utility assistance etc.) to a tri county area. and I don’t doubt that they get a sizeable chunk (more than my company does, no doubt).

You may have a difficulty w/the government being involved in assisting the homeless etc, but that shouldn’t translate to horror that the government allows private non profits to provide the services. Having seen the wage scale at the local SA, vs. the wage scale at say, the local government unit, I can assure you that you get ‘more bang for the buck’ as it were, with non profits providing the service.

71

I have a hard time taking anything in that article seriously after this bit:

and

The Salvation Army is a Christian organization. Doesn’t everyone already know this? The amount of ignorance in the whole second page of that article is quite staggering. I certainly wouldn’t trust the first half of it to be accurate in anything, based on those little gems.

72

Someone’s been HOUSED and doesn’t want to admit it.

And for the record, I fully support the addition of a forum specifically for OPs like this one. Call it, “OMFG” or something.

73

“HOUSED” or “HOSED” ??

74

Wring wrote:

That’s my point. Say you have $1,000 you want to give. Which makes more sense: pay me $200 to hand out the remaining $800 to whomever I choose, or put to work the entire $1,000 yourself in whatever way you see fit?

Degrance wrote:

So you just substitute quotes from other people. Look again. It doesn’t say STUPID up there; it says SKEPTICAL.

75

WADR - Lib look at the cost of services to the homeless. Look at the books of any organization that provides said services. See how much of it comes from private cash donations.

and you’ll see why the governmental support (even if it’s watered down) turns out to be necessary.

76

Libertarian - With your $1000, you might be able to put a homeless family up in a hotel for a couple weeks. With $300,000, you might be able to build a homeless shelter that can feed and house 30 people and keep doing it for years. Sometimes the collective effort can be greater than the sum of individual efforts. That being said, I don’t contribute to United Way because I disagree with the way they disburse their funds, but am much more likely to write a check to Catholic Charities or my local animal shelter. As for SA, I don’t give because I dislike the ambush tactics of standing in front of a doorway, in a manner I think of as trying to “guilt” me into giving. Giving should be voluntary, not coerced.

StG

77

—Holy cow! There’s so much wrong with that, I don’t know where to start.—

Do you mean tying public money to private discrimination? I certainly think that’s unacceptable: public money should not go to places where the public cannot participate. I shouldn’t have to pay taxes to support an organization that won’t hire me on principle, regardless of how strongly I’ll fight for their right to apply those principles privately.

Do you mean the inefficiency of that method of funding? I definately agree on that score, though for the SA it’s no doubt simply a matter of status quo: the money is there to ask for, so they ask.

The problem I see comes when the SA actively lobbies to both recieve federal money AND discriminate at the same time. It should pick one or the other, not push for both at once.

Here’s the Post story reffered to in the link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A37723-2001Jul9&notFound=true

“The report, dated May 1, defines the charity’s “objectives” as making sure states and localities can’t “impose the category of sexual orientation to the list of anti-discrimination protections” or mandate “equal benefits to domestic partnership” unless religious nonprofits are exempt from such provisions.”

I don’t see the rationale for this, other than taking a smaller, more pragmatic bite off a big apple. Either it’s okay for non-governmental funded groups to discriminate, or it’s not. It can’t be only ok for religious non-profits, and it can’t be only bad for race, and okay for sexual orientation. There’s a real principle here, and the principle is what the government can or cannot tell you to do. The principle is not “I am special, and need special protections from government authority” or “my discriminatory views are special, and should be acceptable even though other views are not acceptable.”

"The report also offers an image of the Salvation Army starkly different from that of volunteers ringing bells outside shopping malls at Christmas – a notion that concerns the charity. “The Salvation Army’s role will be a surprise to many in the media,” it says, urging efforts to “minimize the possibility of any ‘leak’ to the media.”

So it also seems that the organization would like to keep quiet about it’s beliefs and principles. That also, I think, cannot be favorably defended.

78

—With your $1000, you might be able to put a homeless family up in a hotel for a couple weeks. With $300,000, you might be able to build a homeless shelter that can feed and house 30 people and keep doing it for years.—

There’s no reason why “collective effort” has to mean “government effort.” People donating individually adds up in exactly the same way people being taxed individually does: without the efficiency loss of taxation.

However, we shouldn’t pretend that non-profits are costless compared to government programs. Often they are free from some of the same regulatory burdens that government faces, but they still need buildings, equipment, etc. and most importantly, they need to be able to attact talented people to run their programs. All this costs money, and there is no necessarily “right” allocation between program services and staff payouts. Non-profits should be honest about what strategy they choose: and people in general should be willing to understand that sometimes higher staff salaries are WORTH the extra cost. So, in some sense, what I’m saying is that the charts about how much money goes into what are helpful for getting a sense of an organization’s overall strategy, but entirely fatuous for deciding if that strategy is a good one, and hence deserves your dollars.

79

I pretty much agree with your points, Apos. Charities would be further helped if they could be free from government frivolity. I can’t recall the name of it, but a Catholic charity in Chicago that was closed down because its wastepaper baskets were plastic comes to mind.

80

Apos - neither you nor Lib has taken the offer to actually see what level of cash donations such charities receive, compared to their operating costs etc. (I specify cash 'cause the typical ‘donation’ of used clothing, furnishing etc often ends up costing the charity quite a bit in trash, sorting and selling, so that the stores don’t really make all that much over their specific costs)

the local VOA runs a shelter, mostly on government grant monies.

And when the local shelter for teens was going to have to close due to a loss of funding, it stayed open - not because the local population ponied up the costs, but because another governmental source was located.

I reiterate - until you can convince me that private cash donations will fund these types of programs at the rate that they’re needed (each of the above that I’ve commented on have turned needy people away, due to a lack of funds, so even w/governmental support, there’s still a need), you’ll not have my support to take away funding.

IME, re the issues of EOE etc, the local SA had to be very specific about cost centers etc, so that zero governmental dollars were supporting the church activities etc, that it only supported the charitable venues.