Salvation Army does something awesome

So, I found this awesome thing on the Salvation Army website. It’s a “Code of Conduct” for men, and includes not just things like “I WILL NOT abuse my wife or partner,” but also things that get more at the roots of patriarchy, like “I WILL INTERVENE when my male colleagues, friends, or family belittle or degrade women” and “I REJECT all forms of sexual harrassment, including wolf whistling, sexual insinuations, and unauthorized physical contact,” and even includes a pledge to spread this code to their friends, family and children.

I always get into little debates with myself over things like this. I know the Salvation Army is among the group of Christians who claim that “same-sex orientation [is not] blameworthy in itself. Homosexual conduct, like heterosexual conduct, requires individual responsibility and must be guided by the light of scriptural teaching” (Salvation Army). Of course, for gay people, that means total celibacy never to be in a loving sexual relationship, but let’s put that aside for the moment.

The thing that confuses me about this is that the reasoning beyond their logic is that same-sex relationships are prohibited in Scripture. Well, I’m a feminist, so don’t get me wrong, but I’m pretty sure that there is a lot of support in the Bible for treating women as inferiors. I could also probably show you a dozen places in the Bible where it says to treat everyone equally, and to respect women.

Problem is, it’s the same thing with homosexuality. For every reference that says something about a man lying with another man, I could come up with a passage talking about the sanctity of love. Yes, it’s kind of hard to find a Scripture passage that says “There’s nothing wrong with being gay!” But that logic doesn’t fly. The Bible doesn’t talk about “gay people” or “homosexuality,” because it didn’t exist then the way that we understand it now. It just talks about men and women running around having sex with random people. The Bible says that’s wrong for everybody! People talk about the importance of chastity, because Scripture never sanctions having random sex outside marriage. But they don’t claim that those prohibitions for resisting random sex mean you shouldn’t be straight. Plus, when looked at in context, many of the passages in the Bible that talk about men having sex with men refer to idolatry or other acts that weren’t allowed for those who practiced Judaism (most of the “anti-gay” passages in the Bible come from the Old Testament. And Jesus never mentions it.) It was all part of a very strict code of conduct followed by the ancient Hebrews, like keeping Kosher and not wearing mixed fibers.

So while I’m obviously not advocating for treating women poorly, it just seems like a little bit of a contradiction to me. I think it’s super awesome that this group is getting behind equality and trying to break down the patriarchy that tends to be especially prevelant in religion. I’m just kind of bewildered as to how they make their choices about what to follow in Scripture and what not to follow.

The thing is, if I judge them solely by “the gay issue,” I’m as bad as the people who say Planned Parenthood is evil because they perform abortions. Those people totally ignore all the other stuff–affordable health care of all kinds, including cancer screenings, etc.–that Planned Parenthood does. Right? I mean, I’ve been to a Salvation Army store before. They didn’t say a word to me about hating the gays, or even about God (plus, I have nothing against God. Just people who use God as an excuse to tell people not to be in love). So If I refuse to donate my clothes to Salvation Army, does it hurt them, or does it hurt the people who don’t have afordable clothing options?

Either way, this whole code of conduct thing is awesome. Maybe Salvation Army will just have to join the ranks of things that are great, except for when they suck (a statement that is true of most things, and was originally stated in reference to Callie from Battlestar Galactica).

Also, if you’re interested in reading more in-depth about some of the arguments I was discussing about homosexuality in the Bible, I’d look into The God Box and Thinking Straight. Both are YA fiction novels, the first much more “fluff” than the second, which is a more intellectual novel.