For
Immediate Release
December 5, 2001
Christmas Kettles
and the Constitution
By
Congressman Joe Pitts
In December of 1891, a
Salvation Army captain in San Francisco made a decision.
He wanted to provide a Christmas dinner to the poor people of that city.
But he had a problem. He
didn’t have the money. A former
sailor, he remembered seeing a large pot on a street in Liverpool, England into
which passersby would place money for the poor.
Taking this idea from memory, he placed his own pot at the Oakland ferry
landing in San Francisco and asked passersby to give money so the poor could
have a meal for Christmas.
That’s the origin of the
famous red Salvation Army Christmas kettles we now see at malls and street
corners at this time of year. Unfortunately,
some in the same city that saw the first Christmas Kettle are intent on making
the Salvation Army a pariah in San Francisco’s social services community.
Unless, that is, they abandon their century-and-a-half-old principles and
adopt new ones more in line with the left-wing orthodoxy of the Bay Area.
The Salvation Army is not
simply a charitable organization. It’s
a church. It has Sunday services
and a doctrine it adheres to. Its
liberality—that is, its generosity—is famous, but it is by no means liberal.
William Booth, an Englishmen
who had witnessed poverty for years as a pawnbroker during the age of Charles
Dickens, founded the Salvation Army in 1865.
Booth was a Methodist, and very evangelical in his beliefs and approach.
He stood on street corners, preaching to passersby.
It was after one of these sermons that Booth was asked by a group of
missionaries to lead a group that evolved into the Salvation Army.
By the time of Booth’s death in 1912, the Salvation Army was active in
58 countries.
Today, the Salvation Army is
one of the world’s strongest and most effective charitable organizations.
It is active in communities all over America, including our own here in
Pennsylvania. It is trusted by donors to use its funding wisely, frugally,
and effectively. It has saved lives
and souls alike. It is a wonderful
organization.
But it has a problem.
It still believes in the same Christian principles that William Booth
preached on the street corners of London. And
the people who run San Francisco don’t like it.
As far back as the Gold Rush,
San Francisco has been known as a city disinterested in upholding traditional
standards of morality. Other parts
of the country may disagree with San Francisco and its left-wing ideologies, but
in a free country there must be a San Francisco just as there must be an
Alabama. But when San Francisco
sets out to break the back of an organization like the Salvation Army, a line
has been crossed.
Recently, the Salvation Army
of San Francisco had to give up $3.5 million in city money that would have gone
to drug rehabilitation services, a meal program for seniors, and a homeless
shelter because it would not abandon its principles. Eager to continue serving the poor of San Francisco, the
Salvation Army tried to find a middle ground that would technically satisfy the
city’s “anti-discrimination” law without abandoning its own Christian
beliefs. But that wasn’t good
enough for the left-wing leaders of San Francisco.
When you pass a Salvation Army
bell-ringer this Christmas, be sure to support them. One has to wonder how, in the City of Saint Francis, an
organization as good as the Salvation Army has come to be demonized as bigoted
and backward. One also has to
wonder who is being discriminated against.
The Bill of Rights established freedom of religion, not freedom from
religion. If freedom of religion is
in danger, how safe is the rest of our Constitution?
# # #
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