Sensible Erection | LGBT People Should Be Put to Death, Says Salvation Army Major

Sunday, 24 June 2012

LGBT People Should Be Put to Death, Says Salvation Army Major

quote [ RYAN: . . . that says, according to the Salvation Army, that [they] deserve death. How do you respond to that, as part of your doctrine?

CRAIBE: Well, that’s a part of our belief system.

RYAN (cutting in): So we should die.

CRAIBE: You know, we have an alignment to the Scriptures, but that’s our belief.

RYAN: Wow. So we should die. ]

For Fuck's Sake.

[politics] [by pleaides@5:03amGMT] [+10 WTF]

Comments

sanepride said @ 5:26am GMT on 24th Jun [Score:3]
Well I don't know about Australia, but here in the US the Salvation Army is not an actual army, with no authority or means to actually put anyone to death.

pleaides said @ 5:32am GMT on 24th Jun
They're not armed, thank fuck. Still, they're a very prominent charity in Aus, well respected and all. I hope that will change.

swiggy said @ 6:14am GMT on 24th Jun
I don't know, those bells could do some damage if they catch someone in the temple.

Naruki said @ 3:22am GMT on 25th Jun
You think they'll be targeting Jewish gays first? I'd expect them to be swinging their bells at beauty salons.

ComposerNate said @ 10:35am GMT on 24th Jun
All it takes is a few inspired Christians, justified by their bible and peers.

RedRiverRat said @ 12:57pm GMT on 24th Jun
Nothing is scarier than a bunch of Christians with their torches and pitchforks, lurking around, ready to attack the next monster.

scojam said @ 1:33am GMT on 25th Jun
....and mindless blind faith followers.

eggboy said @ 4:50pm GMT on 24th Jun
Dunno about youse, but Red Simons is worth a division in my books.
I now realise I was dreaming when he used a guitar string to garotte Simon Cowell and flew away high-fiving Brian May.

Dunno what the point was but yah.

mechanical contrivance said @ 3:06am GMT on 25th Jun
I think Brian May worked with Simon Cowell at some point.

piginspace said @ 9:42pm GMT on 24th Jun
I don't know... If their PR spokesman is a Major, I don't see why there won't be a grumpy old NCO in charge of a firing squad.

sanepride said @ 5:30am GMT on 24th Jun
I see also that the following day the Salvation Army .

sanepride said @ 5:32am GMT on 24th Jun

sanepride said @ 5:33am GMT on 24th Jun
Sorry, screwed that up.
Anyway the following day they did apologize.

pleaides said @ 5:46am GMT on 24th Jun [Score:1 Underrated]
Of course, but it's exactly the same kind of PR firm composed damage minimising backflip that one would expect, and it in no way accounts for the fact that the guy speaking was confirming their 'official literature', which still calls for the deaths of innocent people, and at this date hasn't been changed.

Ankylosaur said @ 7:27am GMT on 24th Jun [Score:5 Insightful]
Their literature doesn't "call for the deaths" of anyone. It references a Bible passage that says a bunch of people doing things God doesn't like are "worthy" of or "deserve" death, by which it means they deserve to miss out on the after life (remember, these are people who think you can avoid death). Later on in Romans 6:23 it says "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." So it's "you deserve death, as opposed to eternal life" not "you deserve to be killed prematurely by Christians".

Of course, that hasn't stopped some Christians from interpreting that and other passages as God condoning the active killing of sinners, so if someone points to that passage favorably they should be grilled on their interpretation of it.

Funny how the "miscommunication" that the SA apologized for comes from the supposedly divinely inspired words of the Almighty. You'd think an all-knowing God would have made the text clearer, foreseeing exactly this sort of thing.

the circus said @ 8:49pm GMT on 24th Jun [Score:1 Informative]
Exactly. Far be it for me to defend the bible, but the old testament lines about "homosexuality" (well, it says not to lie down with men like you do with women, which creates a considerable problem for people who say that the bible is literal and not figurative, although nothing like the problem with the last page of genesis, and either says nothing about lesbians or orders women to be sluts) basically just says that it's gross. Well it's usually translated as something like it's an abomination. But considering how the old testament also includes instructions on how to bury your poop, avoid intestinal parasites, and how women should practice hygiene during their period, it's basically saying that butt sex is nasty. Anything about preventing or punishing homosexuality is nothing but the fevered imaginings of Christians who can't stop thinking about hot man on man action.

When it comes to the new testament, Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthians (his first letter to the Corinthians). The Corinthians were accusing each other of evil and threatening damnation for every little thing (like contemporary conservative Christians). Whether you were having gay sex, or straight sex, or drinking alcohol, or were just kinda greedy, they were suing each other left and right. Paul wrote a letter condemning people for being busy bodies and worrying about every little thing, and not to worry about it because they'd have to face God (well, except for something about sons who inherit their mothers being so horrible it doesn't even have a name).

So none of these people will go to heaven, but nobody gets to go to heaven in the bible. If you own money you don't get to go to heaven. Or, as the bible says, you don't inherit the kingdom of God, which implies that it's God that has to die first. Anyway, when it comes to laws, as opposed to religious rules, Paul (the guy generally being quoted when anyone says that the bible says this or that) accuses the busy bodies as being just as "defective" as the people they're accusing. Of course you'll never hear that in any sermon. The system of chapters and verses makes it so easy to isolate any statement from it's context and let the listener think the statement is intended with the message of the sermon.

mechanical contrivance said @ 3:09am GMT on 25th Jun
God didn't write the bible; men did. And they didn't write it in English, anyway.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 7:25am GMT on 25th Jun
Not at first, but the translators who produced the King James Version were Divinely Inspired, so the KJV is actually more true to the Word of God than the original Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic. You see, America is God's new Chosen People, so of course an English Bible is part of His plan.

It must be true; I read about it in a Chick tract.

Adam said @ 5:48am GMT on 24th Jun
If your belief is that you people who have never harmed you should be put to death, then you're an asshole. Double-asshole if you can't come up with a better explanation for this belief than "because that's what we believe."

traitor said @ 6:18am GMT on 24th Jun
Is this just in Australia? I can't believe that the Salvation Army literature would include something like that in America without people going apeshit.

Ankylosaur said @ 6:43am GMT on 24th Jun
You mean the Salvation Army's literature in the US including a reference to a passage in the Bible? Because that's fairly believable.

azazel said @ 10:45am GMT on 24th Jun
The Salvation Army in Sweden is much the same.

sanepride said @ 1:48pm GMT on 24th Jun [Score:1 Funny]
...only blonder.

ckfahrenheit said @ 7:01am GMT on 24th Jun [Score:1 Interesting]
We're diverse enough by now, aren't we? Evolution can take a vacation from this two-sexes stuff for a while

Ankylosaur said @ 7:06am GMT on 24th Jun
Nothing in Romans about molesting a bell... Carry on, brother in Christ!

Kurisu said @ 7:18am GMT on 24th Jun
He's not molesting a bell, he's filling a cup until it runnith over.

krupa said @ 10:24am GMT on 25th Jun
This might be the outcome, then?

At least that was a damn good book. Best of them all. (IMHO)

tickaz said @ 1:38pm GMT on 24th Jun
Yeah I heard that Darren Hayes - Australia's Elton John (he was once famous for being an accomplished musician but now he just famous for being gay) - called for a boycott of the Salvo's for this very reason. Of course they denied it, but once the news is out, fuck em.

eggboy said @ 5:48pm GMT on 24th Jun
Didn't the Salvos say something horrible about poofters like a year ago in New York or somewhere. They were gonna close the doors of the soup kitchens in their faces or something.

Anyhoo yah, fuck em, there's a hundred good charities more transparent than the Salvos, as far as I know the Smith Family are still the good guys.

Personally I like Doctors Without Borders, who have never shown anything short of heroism in the face of horror. Far better than getting squeamish at the idea of teh gays.

granitewitch said @ 2:38pm GMT on 24th Jun
I knew there was a reason I support Goodwill instead.

scojam said @ 3:23pm GMT on 24th Jun
I got a brand new copy of Mein Kampf at the local Goodwill for only $0.50. Bitch of read though.

azazel said @ 7:39pm GMT on 24th Jun
Yeah, it's not very good.

SicJake said @ 7:21pm GMT on 24th Jun [Score:1 Informative]
Growing up, a friend of the family ran a second hand clothing store, just one location. Yet he was pulling in almost 500k a year. Turns out he was kicked out of the salvation army for making too much money :p so he knew how to run a clothing "charity" store.

It's amazing what people will throw into clothing donation bins. Tv's, steroes, laptops, jewllery. What people don't understand is most "charity" second hand stores don't sell your clothing donations. Instead they ship it to a scrap factory who pay cash per pound of cloth you give them. They recycle it, cut it up etc. It's used in a bunch of products like stuffing or mop heads.

The money they make from the scrap they buy NEW clothes to sell at the store. Anything else you throw in those bins gets pocketed by someone at the church. It's very rare something donated gets actually worn.

scojam said @ 1:50am GMT on 25th Jun
I had a customer who opened a high priced clothing store in the Yorkville area in Toronto. He bought garbage bags of clothing stuff for $2 each and hired a eight women to take the material in the old and make new stuff. Old blue jeans were wonderful and blue jean shirts were very popular at the time. The women made BJ shirts using contrast stitching and the worn material from the old jeans matching the wear by using the panels from the front and backs.

I understand that there is such a surplus of old clothes that the stuff is sent overseas to third world nations. Sounds good but those nations don't want the stuff. Their people probably made it in the first place and second, the used clothing market was undermining the local new clothing market.

A friend in the customes office told me that such stuff had to identified as "rags" or it couldn't be shipped because it was being rejected at the destination.

For the unemployed there is money to be made it is just a matter of looking for opportunites.

In Ontario years ago all license plate renewals came due in the same month, I think it was Feb. If you couldn't get it done earlier, the wait on the last couple of days was hours long. Teens were taking time off school to stand in line, for a fee, but once they got to the wicket they got all the ones renewed for the one wait and collected multiple fees. Sounds risky but where I worked six people used them and got their renewals back okay.

azazel said @ 7:42pm GMT on 24th Jun [Score:2]
Spotted this on my facewall, haven't verified it yet though:

The following words are from the Reverend Otis Moss, Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois concerning President Obama’s recent public endorsement of Gay Marriage. I must say, I was positively surprised.

"My Brother:

Tell your brethren who are part of your ministerial coalition to “live their faith and not legislate their faith” for the Constitution is designed to protect the rights of all. We must learn to be more than a one-issue community and seek the beloved community where we may not all agree, but we all recognize the fingerprint of the Divine upon all of humanity.

There is no doubt people who are same-gender-loving occupy prominent places in the body of Christ. For the clergy to hide from true dialogue with quick dismissive claims devised from poor biblical scholarship is as sinful as unthoughtful acceptance of a theological position. When we make biblical claims without sound interpretation we run the risk of adopting a doctrinal position of deep conviction but devoid of love. Deep faith may resonate in our position, but it is the ethic of love that forces us to prayerfully reexamine our position.

The question I believe we should pose to our congregations is, “Should all Americans have the same civil rights?” This is a radically different question than the one you raised with the ministers, “Does the church have the right to perform or not perform certain religious rites.”

There is difference between rights and rites. We should never misconstrue rights designed to protect diverse individuals in a pluralistic society versus religious rites designed by faith communities to communicate a theological or doctrinal perspective. These two questions are answered in two fundamentally different arenas. One is answered in the arena of civic debate where the Constitution is the document of authority. The other is answered in the realm of ecclesiastical councils where theology, conscience and biblical mandates are the guiding ethos. I do not believe ecclesiastical councils are equipped to shape civic legislation nor are civic representatives equipped to shape religious rituals and doctrine.

The institution of marriage is not under attack as a result of the President’s words. Marriage was under attack years ago by men who viewed women as property and children as trophies of sexual prowess. Marriage is under attack by low wages, high incarceration, unfair tax policy, unemployment, and lack of education. Marriage is under attack by clergy who proclaim monogamy yet think nothing of stepping outside the bonds of marriage to have multiple affairs with “preaching groupies.” Same-gender couples did not cause the high divorce rate, but our adolescent views of relationships and our inability as a community to come to grips with the ethic of love and commitment did. We still confuse sex with love and romance with commitment.

My father, who is a veteran of the civil rights movement and retired pastor, eloquently stated the critical nature of this election when speaking to ministers this past week who claim they will pull support from the President as a result of his position. He stated, “Our Ancestors prayed for 389 years to place a person of color in the White House. They led over 200 slave revolts, fought in 11 wars, one being a civil war where over 600,000 people died. Our mothers fought and were killed for women’s suffrage, our grandparents were lynched for the civil rights bill of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965…my father never had the opportunity to vote and I believe it is my sacred duty to pull the lever for every member of my family who was denied the right to vote. I will not allow narrow-minded ministers or regressive politicians the satisfaction of keeping me from my sacred right to vote to shape the future for my grandchildren.”

“The institution of marriage is not under attack as a result of the President’s words.”

Gay and lesbian citizens did not cause the economic crash, foreclosures, and attack upon health care. Poor under funded schools were not created because people desire equal protection under the law. We have much work to do as a community, and to claim the President of the United States must hold your theological position is absurd. He is President of the United States of America not the President of the Baptist convention or Bishop of the Sanctified or Holiness Church. He is called to protect the rights of Jew and Gentile, male and female, young and old, Gay and straight, black and white, Atheist and Agnostic. It should be noted the President offered no legislation, or executive order, or present an argument before the Supreme Court. He simply stated his personal conviction.

If we dare steal away from the noise of this debate, we will realize as a church we are called to “Do justice, live mercy and walk humbly with God.” Gay people have never been the enemy; and when we use rhetoric to suggest they are the source of our problems we lie on God and cause tears to flow from the eyes of Christ.

I am not asking you to change your position, but I am stating we must stay in dialogue and not allow our own personal emotional prejudices or doctrines to prevent us from seeing the possibilities of a beloved community.

November is fast approaching, and the spirits of Ella Baker, Septima Clarke, Fannie Lou Hammer, Rosa Parks, A. Phillip Randolph, James Orange, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther, King Jr. stand in the balcony of heaven raising the question, “Will you do justice, live mercy and walk humbly with our God?”

Emmitt Till and the four little girls who were assassinated in Alabama during worship did not die for a Sunday sermonic sound bite to show disdain for one group of God’s people. They were killed by an evil act enacted by men who believed in doctrine over love. We serve in ministry this day because of a man who believed in love over doctrine and died on a hill called Calvary in a dusty Palestinian community 2,000 years ago. Do not let the rhetoric of this debate keep you from the polls, my friend.

Asking you to imagine a beloved community, your brother and friend,

Otis Moss, III, Senior Pastor Trinity UCC"

bruceski said @ 8:51pm GMT on 24th Jun

Video confirmation.

piginspace said @ 9:45pm GMT on 24th Jun [Score:-2]
Australia, Australia... That sounds familiar... Is that the place where religious bigots can eat da poopoo for all I care?

piginspace said @ 4:32pm GMT on 25th Jun
Oh, I got downmoded the living crap out of me.
That was not an anti-Australian statement! I meant to say religious bigots in Australia can eat da poopoo - pretty much like everywhere else.

Not that I care about my SE points; just want to clarify that I didn't mean to offend anyone down under.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:51pm GMT on 25th Jun
No, I think you're being downmodded because "can eat da poopoo" sounds really really dumb.

piginspace said @ 4:48pm GMT on 26th Jun
I agree - it's actually beyond really really dumb... But it's a quote from some infamous anti-gay preacher in Uganda or Kenya... was posted on SE once.

But it doesn't really matter; my comment simply wasn't particularly funny, so I'm not demanding any credit here or anything. :)

Naruki said @ 1:44am GMT on 26th Jun
2 dowmods does not the living crap make.

And it was probably because you targeted the wrong country. That was from Uganda.

edga alunpo said @ 7:33am GMT on 25th Jun
seems to me me everybody is interpeting the texts the way they want.

So the bible says "(homos) deserve to die".... the bible also says only God has the right to take life. So where's the call for their execution?

ComposerNate said @ 8:20am GMT on 25th Jun [Score:2 Informative]
"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

the circus said @ 12:09pm GMT on 25th Jun
Good thing I'm not a child of Israel, or a stranger visiting Israel, or according to Leviticus I'd have to follow this rule; and if I didn't, God would kill me.

ComposerNate said @ 4:22pm GMT on 25th Jun
Good thing most pick and choose what their god intends based largely on the secular morality of their culture.

the circus said @ 8:17pm GMT on 25th Jun
Amen to that, brother!

I'd only add that secular morality, the morality of humanity and society as opposed to religious morality, the morality of appeasing the needs and lusts of imaginary characters, exists despite the influence of religious morality. And what's unfortunate is that so many people (maybe even most?) don't pick and choose their interpretation of religious morality based on secular morality. I'd go so far as to say they based it on personal hedonism, if hedonism included equal parts what the self wants and what the self doesn't want others to have.

pleaides said @ 11:47pm GMT on 25th Jun
How the fuck does that make it ok?

scojam said @ 2:45pm GMT on 25th Jun
"What God has joined together ....." You can't put them assunder but you can kill them? I guess it depends on what you think 'God has joined together" means.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:20am GMT on 25th Jun
Where in the Bible are you getting "only God has the right to take life"? The Old Testament at least has plenty of nasty death penalty stuff.

edga alunpo said @ 11:59am GMT on 25th Jun
sorry, here my explanation.

To me the bible is just the new testament, especially if you're talking about the religion of christianity. The old testament is just a history of the Jews and they were not christians.

The new testament says judge not lest ye be judged... ergo no judgement, ergo no conviction, ergo no execution.

Only god has the right to judge and take action.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:53pm GMT on 25th Jun
That's great for you, but the overwhelming majority of Christians use "the Bible" to mean both the Old and New Testaments.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:54pm GMT on 25th Jun
And I'm still wondering where it says "only God has the right to take life." That seems more like something Gandalf would say.

edga alunpo said @ 8:43am GMT on 26th Jun
James 4:12

"There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbour?"

There are several different translations all roughly similar. Ok, the text does n't actually say he has the RIGHT to take life, but it infers the lawgiver (and from the text I infer that that is god) is the only one allowed to judge and destroy.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 9:30am GMT on 26th Jun
So, no secular legal system then?

herra turpa said @ 9:54am GMT on 25th Jun
shitty article, i had to use google to found out what LGBT abbreviation stands for...

pleaides said @ 11:19am GMT on 25th Jun
My God, that must have been terrible for you.

I wouldn't blame the article for the fact that you don't seem to have some important piece of information.

herra turpa said @ 2:30pm GMT on 25th Jun
troll or asshole?

spite48 said @ 3:28pm GMT on 25th Jun [Score:1 Good]
You or him?

cb361 said @ 3:43pm GMT on 25th Jun [Score:1 Funny]
Fish or chips?

pleaides said @ 11:52pm GMT on 25th Jun
Bugger you mate, are you really expecting to receive sympathy because you had to use google?

ComposerNate said @ 9:26am GMT on 26th Jun
30 seconds of struggle, hard lesson learned.

eIfish said @ 4:46pm GMT on 25th Jun [Score:1 Informative]
So that no-one else is forced to use Google, LBGT is an abbreviation for "Lesbigator", a rare, rainbow-coloured reptile.

edga alunpo said @ 8:22am GMT on 26th Jun
Loves Being Genderly Trans-sexual ?

scojam said @ 2:48pm GMT on 25th Jun
You can deride the religious folk and their beliefs all you want today, but once they get the power again, and they will maybe after a huge natural catastrophe the wipes out 90% of the people, keep your thoughts to yourself or face the stake and the fire.

cb361 said @ 3:46pm GMT on 25th Jun
He likes his steak's rare?

bruceski said @ 8:02pm GMT on 25th Jun
So the "religious folk" will take power after Armageddon? And you claim not to be a believer?