Christian Children's Fund: "Donations From You Satanic Gamers? Lord No!"

The BBQ Pit
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Welcome to the Christian Children’s Fund. You’ve all seen the type of charity – $28.00 per month to give an underprivileged child food, clothing, education, etc. Quite the worthwhile cause, and one that depends on the generosity of others.

Per their Donation Page:

Urgently needed? Strange…it would seem to me that if they urgently needed support, they wouldn’t spit in the faces of those trying to donate $17,398.00. But that’s what happened after this year’s Live Game Auction – a charity auction held each year at GenCon.

With the passing earlier this year of Gary Gygax, it was decided that this year’s charity auction would be in his honor, and would benefit his favorite charity – the CCF. That is, until they got wind of it. You see, a large portion of this money would come from <gasp> Dungeons and Dragons-related items! And since we all know that D&D manuals are printed exclusively on desecrated communion wafers using nun’s blood as ink, well, they certainly can’t accept money from devil worshippers such as these, can they?

You fucking sanctimonious toolbags. You’re quite literally taking food out of children’s mouths over your narrow-minded, ignorant, unreasoned principals. I’m going to assume that the villages these kids come from don’t have web access, and that’s quite the good thing for you. Otherwise, you might have to explain your reasoning to the 60 kids you just told “Too bad, we had someone willing to pay for you for a year, but I’m sure you’d rather starve than take food from…Satan!”

Fortunately, not everyone is as stuck in the dark ages as these folks. Fisher House Foundation, a charity that provides temporary housing for family of injured military members while they recover, was happy to take the money off their hands. And the extra twenty bucks I just sent.

I know my mother sponsors several children through charities such as the CFF – I just really, really hope it’s not directly through these bastards.

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I heard about this from Order of the Stick. These kind of people are why people think Christians are all judgmental lunatics.

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D&D as a Satanic influence? Wow. How very mid-'80s.

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Well, it sure seems odd to me. They take my money and I’m an atheist - perhaps they didn’t know. In fact, two of the kids I sponsor aren’t even christians. So, anyway, I fired off an email to let them know I thought this was silly. I don’t expect an answer any time soon; I mean, tonight they’ve got to be out celebrating [del]Samhain[/del] [del]Halloween[/del] All Saint’s Eve…gahh, I give up!

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I stopped at a church rummage sale once. I saw they had some CD’s and found a couple I liked. But when I took them up to buy them the woman said she hadn’t realized they were selling rock music and refused to let me buy them because “we don’t condone that type of thing.”

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Yeah, because what could be less Christian than doing what you can to give money to those less fortunate than you? Oh, right, being a sanctimonious, judgmental jackass who will put your personal, idiotic vendetta before helping those less fortunate than you.

I don’t play D&D, but I am a raised-Jewish atheist bisexual chick with buzzed hair who regularly gives money to Planned Parenthood. I’m kind of torn as to whether it would be more spiteful to donate to them or not in light of this.

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Hmm, I see it more as a “99 percent of them make the rest look bad” situation.

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Reminds me of the “Saving the Souls of Pagan Babies” we had in my Catholic school childhood. I don’t recall any promises to feed, shelter or educate them, just to save their souls. I think that meant baptize them – which must have been pretty pricey, given the cost of shipping holy water to every little hellhole desert village. :rolleyes:

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You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.

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Screw those guys. Go to orphansponsorship.org. 100% of your money goes directly to your orphan, and you can see an accounting of it. They don’t care about your filthy blood money, OR your filthy blood sacrifice money.

ETA - did I tell you guys my orphan is a school prefect this year? All the other prefects have parents, so this is a really big deal for her. I am so freaking proud of her.

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There was an identical auction at Origins as well. The proceeds were to go to “Gary’s favorite charity” but what charity it would be was not specified. I’m curious if they had the same problem.

ETA: Apparently not. The results of the Origins auction went to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

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Fitting. They’re on the verge of electing a nigger [del]sheriff[/del] President. :slight_smile:

“Palin just pawn in game of life, you betcha.”

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I wrote to CCF when I heard this and got this reply:

"Dear Ms. (autz),

Thank you for writing to Anne Goddard and sharing your concerns. Anne was traveling when she received your email. We discussed your concern and she asked that I respond on her behalf Please know that we take your email very seriously.

There appears to be a misunderstanding which I would like to correct. When Gen Con contacted CCF about its auction, we were pleased to accept donations. However, we couldn’t lend our name for publication because our policies have specific criteria for endorsements. We were unaware that this had caused any problem or concern for Gen Con until we began receiving emails. This decision was in no way intended to be a reflection on Mr. Gygax, gaming enthusiasts or the game Dungeon and Dragons. We have the utmost respect for the gaming community and were touched by the generosity expressed through your auction. We were disappointed that we were not the recipients of the donation but we were pleased that another worthy organization benefited.

We realize this has become a topic of discussion in the gaming community and we hope you will help us by sharing this response.

The needs of children are great and we welcome your support. Should you wish to learn more we invite you to visit our website at www.christianchildrensfund.org.

Again, I thank you for taking the time to voice your concern. Your passion for gaming and your support for children are admirable.

Sincerely,

Cheri Dahl
Vice President, International Communications and Fundraising

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So what are the specific criteria for endorsements - GenCon wasn’t asking CCF to endorse them - they were saying “we’d like to have an auction to benefit CCF.” That answer is bullshit - CCF turned down fundraising on their behalf for a reason. What was it? Few charities can afford to turn down funds.

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Were there any restrictions or requirements that Gen Con put on the donation? I know my non-profit does not turn down donations lightly, but we have had to in the past when unacceptable strings were attached. We don’t bring in anything like CCF’s $206M in donations annually, but I did have to recommend rejecting a $20,000 donation not long ago. That hurt, but the Board agreed it had to be done.

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I hope you stole them.

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And therefore they hate the Playable Characters?

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If you take them at their word, CCF had some objections to Gen Con publishing their name. Presumably Gen Con was planning some sort of promotional campaign about an auction “for the benefit of CCF.” Perhaps CCF didn’t like some of their promotional venues, or perhaps Gen Con didn’t want to give CCF a form of veto power over parts of its promotional strategy.

Really, I can see how nixing this could have come from either side. It’s not necessarily bullshit from CCF.

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That’s what it looks like from the letter - rules about how the company name can be used, not an indictment of perceived satanism in D&D. As near a I can tell from looking up various sources on CCF, they are one of the religious charities I wouldn’t mind donating to myself, which is saying something as I as a rule tend to avoid them as a matter of course.

Nope, sorry, from my atheist non-profit-accounting point of view, CCF did what they need to do in not allowing other organizations to use their name as an implied or actual endorsement.

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I for one will be profoundly disappointed if it turns out this was really an honest misunderstanding. Despite all the heartfelt outpouring of emotion at Mr. Gygax’ passing, I think the greatest tribute would be the fact that his name continues to be feared posthumously by religious fundamentalists.

“They told me at Bible camp that if you say his name three times he appears, and he always has initiative.”