It’s that time of year to say no to the Salvation Army.
Never forget they let a Trans woman die instead of helping her.
Never forget they have tossed entire families on the street for having an LGBT child.
Never forget they tell non Christian families that unless they convert they will not help them.
Never forget that the Salvation Army is bigoted and hateful, many of the bell ringers routinely heckle and harass LGBT couples.
Annual reblog.
It’s time for my annual My Mom story.
My mom and grandma used to volunteer a lot for the local Salvation Army, mostly helping with their fabric sale. Mom mostly did it for something to do with grandma.
I held my tongue for awhile, but finally I said “Mom, the SA has some really problematic policies. I’m not telling you what to do, but you might want to look into it.”
She did.
Keep in mind my mom is a boomer white lady living in a modest Midwestern city.
She didn’t like the things she found out. She went directly to the leaders of their chapter and asked, “If a gay or trans person came to you for help, what would you do?”
They said: “We’d direct them to someone who could help them.”
Her: “But that’s supposed to be YOU.”
Them: “We’re not equipped to help them” (or some other vagueing bullshit)
My mom (aka not stupid): Fuck this shit, I’m out.
She resigned from the SA. A lot of her friends asked why. She told them why.
Over the next year, over sixty people left the local SA, citing their views on lgbtq people as the reason.
In an area like Mississippi, the Salvation Army is often one of the very few shelter options, even fewer who will take couples/families - yeah, most shelters here force couples regardless of orientation to split up (at least temporarily) to receive services. The cruelty is the point. In a place like Mississippi, the government doesn’t directly provide homeless services, just a program that has a shoestring budget and social workers that will move heaven and earth itself with what little they have to work with to shuffle the homeless between private charities that might deign to take them, and it then gives the charities some grants to take people. While my wife and I were homeless last year and the shoestring budget service was running out of funds to help us before we could find a permanent place, our options were exceedingly limited. We’re married, queer on paper. I’m disabled and trans. Even if, somehow, we could magically trick? SA into thinking we were cishet enough… Even if I could recite all the Jesus-speak ingrained from a young age (and leave out the weirder cult parts) and play the part of a Good Southern Christian Husband™… We were in a heat wave. In Mississippi. This shouldn’t matter for a shelter, except even during the deadly heatwave, they kicked the homeless out in the middle of the day except on weekends, despite having the resources to shelter them and provide lifesaving water. They also charged anyone with jobs room and board. Instead of, you know, running on donations and allowing the homeless to get on their feet again. We didn’t risk it with Salvation Army.
