Last week I had lunch with a friend from my freethought group back in Utah, who was here in Sacramento visiting his daughter. Over lunch, he showed me a brochure about a group called the National Heritage Foundation.
The organization promotes the use of foundations for various purposes, and frankly, I think that's a great idea. Foundations are wonderful ways to raise money. But one section of their brochure really stood out. It's a section explaining how funds can be channeled through NHF.
"Your Foundation can donate to any qualified 501(c)(3) charity including places of worship, colleges and charitable organizations. And your Foundation can actually conduct bona fide charitable activities of its own. However, we cannot make gifts that promote violence, atheism, or abridge the freedoms guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution."
Funny… I thought that atheism was one of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. It's called "freedom of religion," which of course, includes freedom from religion, no matter what some of our politicians think.
Ironically, this makes the NHF one of the foundations that the NHF can't donate to! But I doubt they would agree.
Once again, we're confronted with religious bigotry masquerading as charity. This fundie foundation will help you donate money to promote faith and fairy tales, but not something that might promote reason and responsibility.
I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again: Atheists are the last minority against whom discrimination is socially acceptable.
Still, maybe a few pointed emails from the general public will at least rain on their parade for a few minutes.
