Opinion: Transgender Bell Ringer Makes Uneasy Truce With Salvation Army

A transgender volunteer chronicles her experience as a red-kettle bell ringer for the Salvation Army in an opinion piece in The New York Times.

Unaware of the organization’s stance against gays and lesbians, Jennifer Finney Boylan at first felt welcomed but soon learned that the Salvation Army “advocated celibacy for homosexuals and resisted offering benefits to employees’ same-sex partners.” More alarming, in an interview, a major in the Australian branch of the organization suggested that gays and lesbians should be put to death as part of the group’s belief system.

Other officials disagreed, and the organization put out a statement saying it “does not consider homosexual orientation a sin.”

Ms. Boylan, who no longer volunteers for the Salvation Army, feels the organization’s history of discrimination creates “a moral quandary for people wishing to do good in the world.”