A vicious holiday conundrum...

I'm torn.

Not like you care, but I feel the need to cogitate on the matter, seeing as how either side of the equation is something for which I feel rather strongly.


I don't give to the Salvation Army "bucketers" any longer; in respect to recent events, I cannot in good conscience supply capital to an organization that may very well willingly discriminate against a person who is either gay or of non-Christian background. I note that the S.A. does state that they give to anyone who are in need of their aid, but they also freely reserve the right to discriminate in the hiring, promoting, or general acceptance of homosexual men and women. Heh, I've even gone so far as to find these little slips you can print off from a SoulForce Website (a pro-gay Christian Group) which you put into the S.A. buckets in lieu of cash that state you will not be donating to them, but rather to a more worthy charity. Of course this little bit of jollity was met with resistance, as every thing is these days...


An acquaintance of mine said "it's just another form of discrimination" seeing as how the slips state that the user will specifically NOT donate to Salvation Army... and I suppose that's true. But in my personal opinion, it is not necessarily the organization which would in turn bear discrimination, but rather (in my mind, at least) the cause. I do wish to give to a worthy cause in these holiday times; what better gift to give than to those who have nothing? And I suppose, worse comes to worse, the Salvation Army would be a catalyst through which one could support the poor and hungry (which is never a bad thing). But lest we forget, there are hundreds of charities out there, some of which are openly pro-gay, and in all honesty, I don't think I could care less to whom I give the money as long as it is used for the same purpose and with the same goal in the mind of the middle man - it just seems that one middle man is less hateful than the other towards the people with whom he chooses to associate himself.


I don't know what to do, because on the one hand, I feel that giving to, say, Brothers and Sisters, or Broadway Cares, or hell, the HRC (in spite of their weak-minded diplomacy in the wake of a conservative in-office regime) would be just as effective and more-so worthy of a good feeling, seeing as how these groups are, while guilty of the same amount of potential for discrimination, make it a point to speak out, as a group, against it.


But then again, I am just a bleeding heart liberal...


Fin.