Salvation Army members disagree on 'gay’ bill

Press, 19 August 1985, Page 8

Salvation Army members disagree on 'gay’ bill

PA Wellington Concern is mounting within Salvation Army ranks about the leadership’s stance and handling of the homosexual law reform issue.

Salvation Army members in both Wellington and Auckland said yesterday that dissatisfaction had prompted lay members to circulate an internal petition critical of Salvation Army leadership in opposing the legislation. A further group has put forward its own submission to Parliament’s Statutes Revision Committee saying it is in favour of the bill in its present form.

An editorial in a recent issue of the Salvation Army’s student fellowship magazine, “Battlepoint,” criticises leadership for failing to listen to the laity or provide members with the opportunity to have a say in issues.

An Auckland lay member, Mr Clive Luscombe, said many members were upset that the leadership made an arbitrary decision committing members to a national door-knocking campaign against the bill. He said a petition criticis-

ing the lack of consultation was being sent to Salvation Army headquarters. While the number of signatures is small, Mr Luscombe said a majority of members approached were concerned about the leadership’s failure to discuss the issue with members.

Some members, hesitant about signing a petition, had indicated that they would write direct to Salvation Army headquarters expressing their dismay, he said. A Victoria University lecturer in logic and Salvation Army member, Professor Max Cresswell, said he was one of nine officers and lay members who had forwarded a submission to Parliament favouring the bill in its present form.

“I feel there is no reason why the Salvation Army needed to have opposed the bill and I believe that many Salvationists who did not perhaps appreciate what they were supporting, may now have had second thoughts.” Professor Cresswell said there had been a lack of appreciation by the Salvation Army of the legal and moral issues raised by the

Wellington Salvation Army activists, Margaret and Brian Thompson, said other church members were concerned that their rights had been undercut by the leadership’s lack of consultation.

They had written to both the New Zealand Salvation Army and to the international headquarters in London objecting to the way in which the anti-homo-sexual bill decision was taken.

Mrs Thompson said they had recently received a letter from Commissioner Cairns, who is responsible for the army’s South-East Asia and Pacific area, which was supportive of their stand.

The Thompsons, who also favour homosexual law reform, said that while the leadership could uphold and perhaps preach Christian principles, it should not be allowed to impose these views in a democratic society. The Salvation Army’s public relations secretary, Major Rodney Knight, rejected the charge that army headquarters should have consulted members on the

“We are an autocratically administrative denomination. On the issue of homosexuality and homosexual acts we have an international positional statement and the only issue on which any people in New Zealand could contest what has happened would be in relation to (our support of) the anti-law reform petition.”

He said there was no room to change that statement or the position it represented. “Of course it is possible to have a moral stance without getting involved in the law but there has to be a point below which the Church must speak up, and in our thinking homosexual activity is below that minimum.”

Major Knight said it was unfortunate that many Salvationists did not know what was contained in the Salvation Army’s submission to Parliament.

The Salvation Army had been advised by Parliamentary officers not to reveal the submission’s contents until it had been presented to and heard by the select committee.