Conservative Community Service?

I'm a life member of Alpha Phi Omega, a national co-educational service fraternity. (I know, I know, if it's "co-ed" why is it a "fraternity"? It's a long and involved discussion that's irrelevant here.) What drew me to it in college was its huge focus on community service, an emphasis the traditional Greek fraternities didn't seem to have. I'm big on the whole community service thing. I try to do volunteer work when I can, even though I'm usually pretty busy with work and other general "life" stuff. When I have free time, I like to give of my time.

Recently, a fellow APO alumnus has taken it upon himself to create an alumni group here in the area, for purposes of organizing APO alums for community service events from time to time. Frankly, I think it's a great idea, seeing as at my age I feel like it would be strange to be hanging out with 18- to 21-year olds doing volunteer work. I'd really feel like an outsider. So a group of adult alums might be perfect for me to get back into the swing of being involved, and through my fraternity, no less.

There's a slight hitch.

The guy who's forming the club took it upon himself one day to post a message to the yahoogroup he formed complaining about the fact that Target stores have decided not to permit the Salvation Army from soliciting donations in front of its stores this year. You know what I'm talking about: those people in Santa suits ringing a bell all day long in front of a can where they ask for money. Those people will no longer be in front of Target stores anymore.

APO guy thinks this is a terrible idea. He thinks that it's horrible to deny the Salvation Army, which provides such a great public service, the opportunity to solicit money outside Targets, for no good reason. He even provided a link to his blog entry about this travesty.

And from this link I was able to read the rest of his blog, from which I am able to discern that the man is a conservative Republican.

Not that there's anything per se wrong with that.

But in my mindset, it's so difficult for me to embrace the thought that a person who could be committed to community service, to helping others less fortunate, to chipping in with global efforts, could be Republican. I mean, let's face it, George W. Bush hasn't met a billionaire he hasn't wanted to help to become richer, while welfare mothers don't get a very welcome reception from the administration.

So I posted a comment on this guy's blog entry. (Anonymously, becuase I'm a chicken that way.) I told him that I was upset with the Salvation Army's active attempts to subvert anti-discrimination laws by trying to negotiate with the Bush (II) White House for a special exception to any local anti-discrimination laws the protect gays and lesbians. I told him that any veneer that they had of being a "charitable" institution evaporated in my eyes when they decided that they could not associate with gays or lesbians and wanted assistance from above to allow them to fire people just on that basis. I told him I wouldn't miss the bigots if I walked into a Target.

The guy not only deleted my comment, he eliminated any trace that the comment ever existed.

I'm torn now. I do want to do some service work, through this organization, but if I did show up to any particular function, I know I'd spend much of my time seething at him, hating him before I had even met him.