(no subject)

[inahandbasket]

The Salvation Army gets a large amount of money from the government.
The Salvation Army has just won a court case that says they can hire and fire people based on their religion.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4945299 (click listen to hear the broadcast)

fan fucking tastic.
This administration is now officially sponsoring religious discrimination.
Can we impeach them yet?

Comments

[claireh.livejournal.com]

of course not. you can only impeach people for their sexual habits.
duh!

[inahandbasket]

Oh, right, right. Silly me.

[road-to-hell.livejournal.com]

I'd say that I hope it gets appealed to the supreme court, but now I'm afraid they might take away freedom of religion.

[blimey85.livejournal.com]

I think the Salvation Army is a special case. First of all, it's a religious group. A london minister is the one who founded it. Second, it's not a US organization. It's very much international although being a large and wealthy country, I'm sure most if not nearly all of it's funding as well as probably most of the organization is now American. It may very well have it's headquarters here now... I don't know.

While a regular company should not be able to hire or fire based on religion, this is in fact a religious organization. It's not a church but religion does play a role. I understand that they get money from the feds, quite a bit of money from the feds, but that doesn't change the type of organization they are, or what they do with that money. They help a lot of people in a lot of places and htey are a very good organization... as far as I know. I've never heard anything bad about them... which is more than I can say for orgs like the Red Cross... remember the "yes we know that you donated specifcially for 9/11 but I want to spend that money on this and this and something else"? But I've never heard anything bad about SA... well, other than this. But to me this is nothing. It would be if they weren't a religious org however.

Ok, I just did a quick bit of research... it looks to be like a church in many ways. It's headquartered in London.

I have a question, when did SA start getting federal funds? Was it only after Bush took office or have they been getting federal funds for a while now? Have their policies regarding religion recently change, at least after Bush took office or have they been the same for at least many years? I'm guessing that they haven't changed their policies much and have been getting funding for quite a while. Of course since this has to do with religion, it's gotta have something to do with the Religious Right (as opposed to the Athiest Wrong I guess... lol)... and of course it's a great chance to slam Bush. Lets forget what the SA is all about... and the good that they do. Ya know, in my hometown the government cheese is handed out at a church each month... that's probably wrong as well. I know they wouldn't hire anyone that openly opposed their faith at the church... and they are getting funding for their cheese program (along with beans, rice, flour, and some other stuff) from the feds... so we should probably shut them down too. And while we are at it, while we are making things harder on people who need that cheese (and the other stuff given out the first Wednesday of each month, and while we are going after orgs like SA because they don't want to associate with people who have a different faith than them, lets go ahead and impeach Bush cause surely he's out to screw us in the end.

Sorry for my rant. I'm just so fucking tired of people ripping on Bush. Especially for stupid shit like this. Ya know, it's time likes this that I really wish I had paid attention in my English classes and could write better. Maybe someday I'll get a writing tutor.

[inahandbasket]

Hey, I like ripping on Bush any chance I get. ;o)

Yes, true, this is only tangentially related to him, and I doubt he had any hand in it, but I also highly doubt that this would have gone through any court in a... how to put this... less religious administration.

Here's an article which directly links this to bush. I make no claims of validity of this one, it's an op-ed style piece, just pointing it out. http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/01/07/18_outing.html


That said, let me speak to your exact points.
The greater NY Salvation Army alone receives nearly $90 million dollars per year in federal/state/city funds (link). This is not a new thing, they've been getting federal funds for a loooong time.

I'm not arguing that they don't do good work, nor am I advocating shutting them down. But internally they are divided between secular and ministry work, and they do a lot of each. Yes, by all means, keep the ministry however you want it. Just hetero-christians I assume. But if you're getting money from the government to hire people for your secular humanitarian work, it is my opinion that you CANNOT discriminate based on sexuality/race/religion/haircolor/hobbies/shoesize in your hiring of those people. Period. End of story.

Yes, they do good work.
No, that doesn't mean they get to only hire hetero christians with the government funds they're given.

[axessdenyd.livejournal.com]

Well, everyone seemed to think it was good news when colleges who received federal funding were allowed to keep army recruiters off campus.

I think it's basically the same argument, but placed in a different framework.