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I have been a board member with a county Salvation Army for seven years. Each Christmas season, I work every weekday between Thanksgiving and Christmas helping with their largest fundraiser of the year: the annual Red Kettle drive.
Donations placed in these red kettles are used to help people in our county throughout the year. This year, we have seen an increase in the number of small slips of paper placed in our kettles with the following message:
In an NBC News piece titled “Gay Groups Boycott Salvation Army Red Kettle Drive”, Bil Browning, editor of a LGBT blog, stated “As the holidays approach, the Salvation Army bell ringers are out in front of stores dunning shoppers for donations. If you care about gay rights, you’ll skip their bucket in favor of a charity that doesn’t actively discriminate against the LGBT community.”
What amazes me about liberal groups is that the word “discrimination” always seems to be a one-way street: It’s MY way or the highway. I hate to burst your bubble, little libbie; but if you have a passionate opinion or belief on anything, then YOU are prejudiced. Only a person looking at the grass from the bottom side can have no opinion and thus no prejudice.
My point is: do not confuse compassion with blind acceptance of something with which a large segment of society does not agree, any more than I would expect you to do the same. If you don’t agree with the Salvation Army because they don’t throw the Bible in the toilet, join hands with others and sing “Kumbaya.” That’s OK, but grow up enough to accept them for their beliefs as they accept you for yours, without expecting an abandonment of their beliefs and values any more than they expect that from you.
If your tender little feelings are hurt, then I must simply say: “Tough!” But from the perspective of one who has actually been involved with an organization that helps local people, it is hard to have a lot of sympathy for people who seem to be sitting on the sidelines contributing little or nothing in helping others up and out of a situation, while condemning those who do. If our government could operate even half as efficiently as the Salvation Army, then we would not be facing another national (they suddenly seem endless) ‘fiscal cliff.’
Merry Christmas from the Red Kettle volunteers worldwide. If that offends you, then my adding a hearty “GOD BLESS YOU” will probably offend you even more – though I know not why.
I hope you will visit me at: ON TARGET NEWS (www.ontargetnews.com)
Photo credit: Ryan McFarland and www.zieak.com (Creative Commons)
I have been a board member with a county Salvation Army for seven years. Each Christmas season, I work every weekday between Thanksgiving and Christmas helping with their largest fundraiser of the year: the annual Red Kettle drive.
Donations placed in these red kettles are used to help people in our county throughout the year. This year, we have seen an increase in the number of small slips of paper placed in our kettles with the following message:
VOUCHER
This holiday season, I am supporting organizations that do not discriminate in any way against people based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other reason.
I will NOT donate to the Salvation Army and will instead give to other charities until the Salvation Army stops discriminating against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in hiring, firing, and promotion, and in the provision of benefits.
In an NBC News piece titled “Gay Groups Boycott Salvation Army Red Kettle Drive”, Bil Browning, editor of a LGBT blog, stated “As the holidays approach, the Salvation Army bell ringers are out in front of stores dunning shoppers for donations. If you care about gay rights, you’ll skip their bucket in favor of a charity that doesn’t actively discriminate against the LGBT community.”
What amazes me about liberal groups is that the word “discrimination” always seems to be a one-way street: It’s MY way or the highway. I hate to burst your bubble, little libbie; but if you have a passionate opinion or belief on anything, then YOU are prejudiced. Only a person looking at the grass from the bottom side can have no opinion and thus no prejudice.
My point is: do not confuse compassion with blind acceptance of something with which a large segment of society does not agree, any more than I would expect you to do the same. If you don’t agree with the Salvation Army because they don’t throw the Bible in the toilet, join hands with others and sing “Kumbaya.” That’s OK, but grow up enough to accept them for their beliefs as they accept you for yours, without expecting an abandonment of their beliefs and values any more than they expect that from you.
If your tender little feelings are hurt, then I must simply say: “Tough!” But from the perspective of one who has actually been involved with an organization that helps local people, it is hard to have a lot of sympathy for people who seem to be sitting on the sidelines contributing little or nothing in helping others up and out of a situation, while condemning those who do. If our government could operate even half as efficiently as the Salvation Army, then we would not be facing another national (they suddenly seem endless) ‘fiscal cliff.’
Merry Christmas from the Red Kettle volunteers worldwide. If that offends you, then my adding a hearty “GOD BLESS YOU” will probably offend you even more – though I know not why.
I hope you will visit me at: ON TARGET NEWS (www.ontargetnews.com)
Photo credit: Ryan McFarland and www.zieak.com (Creative Commons)
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