Salvation Army Media Relations Director: Gays Should Be Put to Death

Oh, but I should double back for a second, because the topic of the interview is one that I very much care about: LGBT rights. You see, the former lead singer of Sound Garden, Darren Hayes called for a boycott of the Salvation Army due to their views towards homosexuality. This is what prompted the interview with Craibe.

Craibe didn’t dismiss the accusations made by Hayes. He reinforced them and doubled down.

Ryan expressed incredulity that the official Salvation Army handbook cites a scriptural passage which calls for the execution of LGBT people, and asked Craibe how he would respond to a hypothetical LGBT person receiving guidance from the Salvation Army who discovers the homophobic citation (around the 7:00 mark).

RYAN: . . . that says, according to the Salvation Army, that [they] deserve death. How do you respond to that, as part of your doctrine?

CRAIBE: Well, that’s a part of our belief system.

RYAN (cutting in): So we should die.

CRAIBE: You know, we have an alignment to the Scriptures, but that’s our belief.

RYAN: Wow. So we should die.

They then discussed the handbook’s section on sin (pages 61-63), which cites the same passage from Romans.

RYAN: It’s going into Romans again . . . I accept that you’re out there wanting to help people . . . I don’t accept that this sexuality that is part of my DNA is a choice. I also don’t accept the support of any religion in a financial sense, and this is what the gay community is up in arms about: that you’re proposing in your religious doctrine and the way that you train — this is part of your training of your soldiers — that because we’re gay, that — we must die. If you go to Romans, book 1, 18-32, it’s all there, mate. I mean, how can you stand by that? How is that Christian?

CRAIBE: Well, well, because that is part of our Christian doctrine –

RYAN (interrupting): But how is that Christian? Shouldn’t it be about love?

CRAIBE: — that’s our understanding of that. Well, the love that we would show is about that: consideration for all human beings to come to know salvation –

RYAN: Or die. . .

CRAIBE: Well, yes.

Later on, Ryan pressed Craibe again on his statement that LGBT people deserve death, asking at 10:23:

RYAN: Honestly, Andrew, tell me — as a human being, how can you qualify that?

CRAIBE: Well, I qualify by way of, that’s where my belief system is structured, you know? It’s what it comes to, that salvation story, and that we can be redeemed from that. That’s my belief.

Exhausting. The interview goes on like that. It’s awkward and pathetic – Craibe stutters and blurts out talking points like a broken record while Ryan and Dillon effectively piss all over his arguments. At one point, Craibe tries to compare homosexuality with the choice of drinking alcohol, but the two hosts shoot that down immediately, with Ryan telling him that “we aren’t going to wear that – that this [homosexuality] is a choice – and I have to tell you – I have to put you on notice that we find that highly offensive.”

At another point in the interview, Dillon says: “If Rebecca, Rachel or Benjamin – one of your three children – came home and said to you ‘Dad I’m gay,’… how will you react to that?”

Craibe: I would continue to love them just as I do now.

Ryan: So they won’t die under your rule –

Craibe: Well, I’m not – I’m not saying that they wouldn’t die, cause I would still want them to know salvation.

Ryan: Wow.

Yeah, wow.

I highly recommend listening to the interview and, if you’re like me, you might go a step further and join in on the boycott against the Salvation Army. As Ryan says at the end of the interview:

“I feel that it’s a double standard to ask for money when in fact you fundamentally reject a good portion of the human race.