So what's so bad about The Salvation Army anyway?

[Xithras]

37. I look at the SA the same way I look at the Boy Scouts.

It's an organization that, overall, has done (and continues to do) wonderful things for many people. But it's also an organization that holds some policies that I find highly objectionable.

Do their objectionable policies negate the good they do? Not really, but that doesn't mean that we give them a pass on those policies either. As progressives, our goals should always be to improve ALL of society, and that means that we should support the good while opposing the bad. In the case of these two organizations, that generally means that we keep pressure on them until their discriminatory practices are ended, without actually causing the destruction of the organizations themselves. And yes, I'm aware that there are some extremists right here on DU who would like to see both the Salvation Army and the Boy Scouts abolished completely...but they tend to be a vocal minority.

The world isn't black and white, and organizations are rarely "good" or "evil". As progressives, we simply have to use our judgement when deciding how (and when) to push those organizations to change their policies. We don't have to pick one side or the other.

As a bisexual man, I drop coins in the Salvation Army buckets every holiday season and I feel no guilt about doing so. I don't donate to support the Salvation Army, I donate to feed the poor who would otherwise go hungry during the holidays. Maybe there's a bit of cognitive dissonance there, but I chose to err on the side of feeding homeless people.