Salvation Army homophobia

Opposition to hiring homosexuals
The Salvation Army in the U.S. has been the topic of some controversial discussions about discrimination against homosexuals in their hiring practices.[22] According to lesbian/gay newsmagazine The Advocate, in 2001, the Bush administration was "willing to do whatever it takes to perpetuate, support, and defend discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals" in exchange for The Salvation Army's lobby support for Faith-Based Initiatives, in what the publication described as a "secret arrangement."[23] The New York Times reported that the Salvation Army believed it had a firm commitment from the White House to issue a regulation that would override local antidiscrimination laws. A disclosure of The Salvation Army's request "outraged some civil rights groups and lawmakers," and resulted in an immediate reversal of a previous promise to honor the request. The Salvation Army maintains that they were "not trying to get permission to discriminate against hiring gays and lesbians for the majority of its roughly 55,000 jobs and merely wanted a federal regulation that made clear that the charity did not have to ordain sexually active gay ministers and did not have to provide medical benefits to the same-sex partners of employees. [24]
The Salvation Army's position is that because it is a church, Section VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 explicitly guarantees its right to discriminate on the basis of its religious beliefs in its hiring. To reinforce its position, it threatened to close all soup kitchens in New York City when the city government proposed legislation that would require all organizations doing business with it to provide equal benefits to unmarried domestic partners.[25]