by chiggerbit » Sat Sep 03, 2005 3:37 pm
<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jul2001/fait-j23.shtml">www.wsws.org/articles/200...-j23.shtml</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>"...The Salvation Army hires gay people, but rejects them for the ministry. According to a spokesman for the church group, it opposes granting domestic partnership benefits “whether for homosexual or unmarried heterosexual couples” on the grounds that sex outside of marriage is immoral. In 1999 the Salvation Army forfeited a $3.5 million contract to provide free meals to AIDS patients in San Francisco rather than comply with an order by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission to provide domestic partnership benefits.<br><br>The Salvation Army saw an opportunity in the Bush “faith-based initiative” to gain federal sanction for its bigotry. The church leaders hired several high-powered Washington lobbyists to press its case, including Stephen M. Minikes, a member of the Bush election campaign’s “Pioneers”—those who raised at least $100,000 apiece for the Republican candidate—and Mark Holman, former chief of staff to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge and a longtime personal friend of Bush political counselor Karl Rove.<br><br>Minikes’ lobbying firm, Thelen Reid & Priest, is on a $25,000-a-month contract with the Salvation Army, while Holman’s law firm, Blank, Rome, Comisky & McCauley, was described in the Salvation Army report as the church’s “direct liaison with the White House staff.”<br><br>According to the Salvation Army documents, Karl Rove was the first White House official contacted in the campaign to strengthen the church’s right to discriminate against gays and unmarried couples, followed by Don E. Eberly, the deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Salvation Army leaders then met personally with President Bush.<br><br>Eberly promised the church that if the Salvation Army supported the legislation incorporating the faith-based initiative, the Bush administration would issue a regulation by executive order enabling it to practice anti-gay bias in the workplace...."<br> <p></p><i></i>