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Salvation army on gay rights

Several years ago, I began bypassing the Salvation Army bell-ringers and stopped putting money in the ubiquitous red Christmas kettle, a holiday fixture in 2,000 stores and lane corners across Canada.

Yes, the Salvation Army helps the impoverished by running diet banks and offering emergency relief, addiction rehab, and clothing and shelter for people in necessitate — and it’s been doing so in Canada since 1882. But it also has a long history of discriminating against the LGBTQ2 community.


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Like many conservative organizations, the Salvation Army adheres to a theology that considers gay sex sinful. It has denounced marriage equality as a threat to religious freedom, vigorously fought against policies extending health benefits to same-sex partners and referred lgbtq+ individuals to conversion therapy. In 1986, it campaigned to retain the criminalization of homosexuality in New Zealand. It eventually apologized 20 years later.

One of the most disturbing incidents was a 2012 Australian radio interview with a media spokesperson who said he agreed with Romans 1:18-32, which calls for homosexuals to be put to death. “That’s part of

Salvationists and Friends,

I scribble to share with you a promise the Canada and Bermuda Territory has made regarding “conversion” therapy, also established as “reparative” therapy.

We recognize there are diverse views within the broader Christian church and within our own movement regarding sexual orientation and gender self. At the identical time, we sense compelled to comment internally and externally about a put of practices that have been widely discredited and are known to result in harm.

While there are various definitions of conversion therapy in the medical, mental-health and social-work professions, as well as in law, at its most basic, conversion or reparative therapy is an attempt to alter a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender self to cisgender.  It is rooted in the notion that there is something inherently wrong about certain sexual orientations or gender identities, and that queer attraction or a transgender identity needs repair.

Issuing this remark does not represent we are modifying Salvation Army doctrine or teaching. The Salvation Army has long maintained that same-sex attraction is not morally blameworthy.

The New Zealand Area has pr

LGBT Statement

The following utterance is The Salvation Army Northern Division’s response to false accusations claiming that The Salvation Army discriminates against the LGBT society and pays lobbyists to fight against their interests.

  • The Salvation Army is open and inclusive to all people. Anyone who comes through our doors will receive help based on their need and our capacity to assist. We annually serve around 30 million Americans from a variety of backgrounds – we do not pick and choose who we serve based on religion, sexual orientation or any other factor. This promise to serve goes to the core of our beliefs as laid out in our organizational Mission Statement: “The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.”
  • Any instance of discrimination is in direct conflict to our core opinions and is against all of our policies.
  • It is not The Salvation Army’s practice to spend funds on lobbying.  The Salvation Army i

    A few years back, we were asked about the current bond between our communities and the Salvation Army. As you realize, the Army organised the infamous petition against homosexual law reform in the 1980s, an proceed which damaged relations for many years, so that many homosexual people still feel unable to contribute to the SA’s fundraising efforts. So the Board wrote to them. After considerable discussion, the following joint statement was written in 2012.

    RAINBOW WELLINGTON AND THE SALVATION ARMY REACH A RAPPROCHEMENT:
    A SIGNIFICANT STEP FORWARD

    “A very significant step forward and an important building block for the future”, is how Tony Simpson, Chair of the Wellington based gay, lesbian and akin groups human rights organisation Rainbow Wellington, and Campbell Roberts, leader of The Salvation Army’s Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit, described jointly issued statements of the two groups made public today. 

    For the past year, both groups have been considering future perspectives on their relationship.

    “This initially arose” says Simpson, “because our board was discussing the role of The Salvation Army in the context of the 25th anniversary of the 1986 decriminalisation of