Tag: Salvation Army

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Salvation Army removes anti-gay groups from it’s website in effort to be more LGBT friendly

The Salvation Army had recently launched a new campaign to combat it’s long reputation for being anti-gay. Wayne Besen, at Truth Wins Out, called for a boycott on charity until the organization removes all anti-LGBT materials from its website, starting with two “ex-gay” ministries that are listed as sexual addiction resources.

In a press release, Besen wrote “While we appreciate The Salvation Army’s recent outreach to the LGBT community, we won’t settle for cheap spin, we insist on substance.  If The Salvation Army is truly committed to non-discrimination, it will immediately eliminate these “ex-gay” groups as resources, and scrub its entire website of all anti-gay materials.”

Well, hours later it appears The Salvation Army has done exactly that and removed the two organizations, Harvest USA and Pure Life Ministries, from the Salvation Army website.

Their letter to Truth Wins Out reads in part:

We sincerely appreciate you bringing this matter to our attention. As you know, The Salvation Army strives to live out our mission of meeting human need without discrimination. Our doors are always open to anyone who seeks our help, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. We simply do not discriminate against the people we serve or the people we hire.

We have removed the page of referrals for sexual addiction centers. Truthfully this was an old page that had been archived but was reposted when we launched our new website last month. We apologize for our oversight and any confusion this may have caused. The Salvation Army does not consider homosexual orientation a sin. Please know that we serve anyone who comes to our doors without discrimination.

Bravo Wayne Besen and Truth Wins Out!

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David Bromstad responds to criticism for working with anti-gay Salvation Army

Openly gay HGTV star David Bromstad recently accepted an offer to participate in a fundraiser for the famously anti-gay Salvation Army. And he’s received a lot of flack for it.

He posted this response on his Facebook page:

“Dear fans, I’ve read your feedback on my participation with The Salvation Army USA, as an openly gay person whom just happens to also be a celebrity, I took the Salvation Army’s request to participate in their fundraiser as one step in the right direction towards equality. If we simply separate ourselves from those that we assume appose us or our beliefs then we will never make strides in the right direction. I applaud the Salvation Army’s symbolic handshake towards acceptance and would be foolish to not extend my hand in acceptance.”

Towleroad notes that a Salvation Army official last year declared that homosexuals should be put to death.

The Salvation Army later apologized for the “miscommunication.”

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Salvation Army Major: LGBT People Should Be Put to Death

In an interview with Australian LGBT journalists Serena Ryan and Pete Dillon, a senior Salvation Army official said that non-celibate LGBT people should be put to death.

The official, Major Andrew Craibe, is the Salvation Army’s Territorial Media Relations Director for the Southern Territory in Victoria.

Australian pop star Darren Hayes, the openly gay former lead singer of Savage Garden, recently called for a boycott of the Salvation Army because of the church’s anti-gay beliefs (just as I did here in the States). Hayes’s comments caused quite the firestorm, so Major Craibe appeared on Ryan and Dillon’s podcast, Salt and Pepper, to discuss the Salvation Army’s official position on homosexuality and whether it’s evolved over time.

Above is the interview with Salvation Army Major Andrew Craibe in full.

Ryan told Craibe that she prepared for the interview by reading all 170 pages of Salvation Story: Salvationist Handbook of Doctrine, a manual published by the group’s international headquarters in London and available online.

Ryan expressed incredulity that the official Salvation Army handbook cites a scriptural passage which calls for the execution of LGBT people, and asked Craibe how he would respond to a hypothetical LGBT person receiving guidance from the Salvation Army who discovers the homophobic citation (around the 7:00 mark).

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: So we should die.

CRAIBE: We have an alignment to the Scriptures,  that’s our belief.

RYAN: Wow. So we should die.

There’s a lot more at Truth Wins Out.