On several occasions I’ve mentioned that I don’t support the Salvation Army because it holds that I’m going to Hell, along with all other non-Christians, while trying to look like a secular charity. This doesn’t seem to bother many people, though. Far more people blast it for being allegedly anti-LGBTQ. They pay no attention to the shift in the church’s tone; to them it’s now and forever hostile to gays.

While I don’t like the Salvation Army, I also don’t like unjust accusations. On its website, the page titled The LGBTQ Community and the Salvation Army, the US organization says it serves the LGBTQ community, it will provide shelter to transgender people, and it does not consider sexual orientation or gender identity in its hiring practices.

I can understand skepticism. Churches are resistant to change, and statements of policy don’t always reflect practices. The Salvation Army builds its reputation on a false front as a charity rather than a church, often seeking improper collaboration with governmental agencies. That page might be just an attempt to improve public relations.

But the people attacking the church on social media almost never acknowledge these statements, even to mock them. They don’t document their claims, or they link to articles that are five or more years old. The purpose isn’t to evaluate the Salvation Army’s actions or to convince people their accusations are true. It’s to pile on. They aren’t just misinformed; facts are utterly irrelevant to their way of thinking. They aren’t trying to deceive anyone; they believe what they say, but it’s akin to a religious belief. No facts support their claim, and no facts would make them reject it. Anyone in their group who expresses doubt becomes the target of shaming and mockery.

Mob thinking is basically an acute form of tribalist thinking. It gives them an in-group which the members think will support them and an out-group they can hate. Repeating the group’s dogmatic belief relieves them of responsibility. Piling on an outsider is fun.

There was an occasion when a member of the Boskone committee pushed for a policy that would have amounted to racial labeling of convention members. When I objected to it, she threatened that rumors would somehow spread that I was racist. She admitted those rumors would be false. If she tried to get people to pile on me, her attempt failed so thoroughly I never noticed it. It takes a crowd of easily manipulated fools for the technique to work. Some people are trying a similar game with the memory of Leslie Fish, without much more success.

The mere fact that a lot of people repeat a claim doesn’t mean it’s true. It may simply be a dogma, just like the Salvation Army’s dogma that everyone is “totally depraved.” Insist on supporting evidence when a person or group is being attacked.