“Initially, Booth did not want to start a church. “From the very start, Booth was ready and willing to go with the army metaphor,” Diane Winston, the author of Red Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army, told NPR in 2009. Although it’s since evolved into a massive international organization known more for its charitable work than for its ministering, the Salvation Army has never really strayed from its religious roots - or from its use of military allusions.
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Founded by minister William Booth in 1852, the organization initially focused on preaching to marginalized people, including the poor and homeless. The Salvation Army’s origins date back to mid-19th century England. (The organization did not respond to The Goods’ request for comment.) The Salvation Army’s surprisingly radical origins Time and time again, the organization denies having anti-gay bias, even though the paper trail documenting anti-gay stances goes back decades. Hudson didn’t exactly tell the whole truth about the history of the Salvation Army, which has previously come under fire for discriminating against LGBTQ people. But when that organization depends on the generosity of donors to provide much-needed assistance to so many across all walks of life, it’s devastating.
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At minimum, perpetuating rhetoric that vilifies an organization with the reach, housing, programming, and resources that we have in place to lift them up is counterintuitive and inefficient. And that refrain is dangerous to the very community we are wrongly accused of rejecting. He continued:Įcause our organization is rooted in faith, a chorus repeatedly rises that insists we are anti-LGBTQ. “hile we can’t claim an exact number, we believe by sheer size and access that we are the largest provider of poverty relief for people in the LGBTQ community,” Hudson wrote, adding that the organization’s critics are hurting the very community for which they claim to advocate.
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(The organization uses military terms like “commander” to refer to its leadership its members are called Salvationists.) In late November, David Hudson, national commander of the Salvation Army, wrote an op-ed for USA Today in which he essentially dismissed the allegations of discrimination as fake news. Goulding ended up performing at the halftime show after all, and Chick-fil-A later clarified that it hadn’t entirely ruled out donating to faith-based groups in the future, but the reputational damage was already done. Then, Chick-fil-A announced it was changing its philanthropic structure and would no longer donate to organizations that have been linked with anti-LGBTQ causes (at least for now), cutting the Salvation Army off from hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential contributions. First, Ellie Goulding threatened to cancel her performance at the NFL’s Thanksgiving Day halftime show - intended to coincide with the beginning of this year’s Red Kettle Campaign - because of allegations over the Salvation Army’s history of discriminating against the LGBTQ community. It’s been a somewhat tough holiday season for the Salvation Army.