What do gay-rehab and the United Way have in common?

I must like being outraged. It’s the only explanation I have for spending 30 minutes of my time looking around the right-wing, assbackwards, fundamentalist christian organization which aims to cure people of the homosexual “lifestyle”. They call themselves day seven ministries.

Now these types of homosexual “rehabilitation” counseling programs always give me that weird feeling you get when you know people are spewing judgment and hate disguised as the “love of God”. This bothers me for a number of reasons: One, I feel bad for gay people who are already struggling in a society that does not fully accept them and who are now being conditioned to believe their form of love is wrong. And two, this place gives Christians a bad name.

I could go on and on about the reasons why these kind of places suck, but I think that is pretty self explanatory. The other aspect that I am more conflicted about is why Day Seven Ministries appears in the human services reference guide by the United Way of Lancaster .

You may have heard of the United Way, it funds many progressive organizations nation wide and in Lancaster county. Its aim is to work to resolve pressing community issues. Why is this "gay-rehab" listed as the only “human services” organization addressing issues of homosexuality (as cited by their index).

To clarify, just because they’re listed in their resource guide does not mean they are a United Way funded organization. But I still find it fishy that they are the only place listed. Now people using the guide to look for help are lead into the trappings of conservative evangelicals posing as counselors. This is propaganda posed as counseling. And the American Psychological Association would agree: (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09080608.html)

So I researched the United Way. I found that there is another controversy: they fund the Boy Scouts, an organization criticized for firing gay troop leaders and being overall homophobic (http://www.ffrf.org/timely/bsa.php). When confronted with this issue, the National United Way stated that their anti-discrimination policy opposes only illegal acts of discrimination (unfortunately firing someone for being gay is legal in the United States, if you're mad click here: http://www.change.org/actions/view/pass_the_employment_non-discrimination_act.)

Despite their national stance that anything legal (albeit immoral) is peachy, many local United Way organizations have stopped funding the Boy Scouts. The United Way of Lancaster is not one of these chapters and still holds the Boy Scouts as one of their partner organizations.

The United Way funds awesome organizations, such as The Red Cross and The Urban League of Lancaster.

The United Way pledges to “bring our community together and focus resources on the most critical health and human service needs in the county”.

The United Way doesn’t like gay people?

I’m not sure if this is an oversight on their part, or if their reference to anti-gay organizations has anything to do with their indirect support of the Boy Scouts’ discrimination policy. What do you all think: United Way: Friend or Foe?