Salvation Army's George Hood Denies Anti-Gay Allegations

Major George Hood of the Salvation Army has denied allegations the group is anti-gay.

Appearing on cabler Current's Talking Liberally, Hood explained to host Stephanie Miller that discriminating against gay men and lesbians would violate the organization's mission.

“The very mission [of the Salvation Army] calls for meeting the needs of humans without discrimination,” Hood said.

He added that the Salvation Army does not give to anti-gay causes or discriminate against hiring gays.

“Many of those things start fueling through blog sites and postings on the Internet. And it's really, really tough to shut them down once they get out there,” Hood said.

In 2001, The Washington Post reported that the “Bush administration is working with the nation's largest charity, the Salvation Army, to make it easier for government-funded religious groups to engage in hiring discrimination against homosexuals, according to an internal Salvation Army document.”

The document “defines the charity's objectives as making sure states and localities can't 'impose the category of sexual orientation to the list of anti-discrimination protections' or mandate 'equal benefits to domestic partnerships' unless religious non-profits are exempt from such provisions.”

The paper quoted Hood as saying that the group never discriminates in services, but on the question of hiring gays, “it really begins to chew away at the theological fabric of who we are.”