{"id":51997,"date":"2009-11-23T18:53:39","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T23:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010339787_thetimeskicksoffitsannualfundfortheneedy.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2009-11-23T18:53:39","modified_gmt":"2009-11-23T23:53:39","slug":"the-times-kicks-off-its-annual-fund-for-the-needy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/51997","title":{"rendered":"The Times kicks off its annual Fund For The Needy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Should have left Salvation Army in the cold<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is unfortunate that The Seattle Times has once again included the Salvation Army as one of its Fund For The Needy recipients [\u201cWhen times are tough, finding a way to give,\u201d page one, Nov. 22]. This is inappropriate for two reasons.<\/p>\n<p>First, the primary mission of the Salvation Army, which describes itself as evangelical, is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. For example, hungry men who want a meal must first sit through Christian sermons.<\/p>\n<p>The Salvation Army is certainly free to push its religion on the vulnerable, but it\u2019s offensive for The Times to ask a diverse community \u2014 including Jews, Hindus, atheists, and other non-Christians \u2014 to support Christian proselytizing. There are many organizations, such as Northwest Harvest, that help those in need without also trying to convert them.<\/p>\n<p>Second, the Salvation Army discriminates. In 2001, it agreed to back former President George W. Bush\u2019s faith-based initiative if Bush pushed for regulations allowing the Salvation Army to discriminate against gays when filling taxpayer-funded jobs and providing domestic-partner benefits. In 2005, the Salvation Army won a court case that allowed it to fire non-Christian employees, even though those positions were publicly funded.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, The Times article never mentioned the evangelical nature of the Salvation Army when asking for donations. Just slipped your mind?<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 Matthew J. Barry, Issaquah<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Should have left Salvation Army in the cold It is unfortunate that The Seattle Times has once again included the Salvation Army as one of its Fund For The Needy recipients [\u201cWhen times are tough, finding a way to give,\u201d page one, Nov. 22]. This is inappropriate for two reasons. First, the primary mission of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}