I don’t see the distinction. So exercise your right to eat where you want. They exercise their right to conduct their business as they want. The right you don’t have is to dictate how they run their business.
Oh FCOL! At $0.75 a tip I could really care less WHAT they are fund raising for. Just give’m the damn change and forget about it.
I’m mean it would be one thing if the sign said: “Christian fundies trying to raise money to take away women’s right to abortion”
But no, these are just Christian youths proly trying to raise money to go to Six Flags or Jessus Land.
A rather harmless cause I’d say.
I think pbbth has been hanging out on these boards for too long. Despite the impression you might get from these boards pbbth, believe it or not, there are a couple of good Christians out there…
But just a couple mind you… 
(I’m kidding of course)
While I sympathize with this point of view, I’m wondering whether or not pbbth has a right to it, since he admits to having previously participated in these things from the other end.
(i.e. Do you have a right to resent the method some other group uses to try to get you to contribute to their cause, if you’ve used the very same method to try to get people to contribute to your cause?)
I didn’t hear him saying he resented it, just that he didn’t want to contribute to it.
Sorry, didn’t mean to imply that pbbth did resent it, just wondering whether he would have been justified in doing so, given that resentment or something like it (“resent” may not be the best word, but I couldn’t think of a better) might be a reasonable reaction to essentially being hit up for a donation in a situation like that, but that he also had done his share of “hitting up.”
Thanks for all the input! Generally when I tip a fast food server, which is what the car hops are as they do not rely on tips for their primary wages, it is because I want to be nice. I have tipped fast food servers for having to deal with asshole customers while I waited in line because I have been there and I know what it is like. I tip people who are not standardly tipped fairly often because I know how I felt when I was schilling large popcorn and soda combos at the local cineplex and how much it improved my day to know that someone valued me enough to leave a tip. I don’t want to not go to the car hop because I like the product that they sell, and most especially because I had about half an hour to get back to work and I was going to have to eat while I drive I did not want to take the time to find another fast food place, but I still felt bad about not leaving a tip. I have done the fundraising thing before but I think there is a huge difference between supporting local school programs (theater, football, cheerleading, etc) and supporting a religion that I don’t claim as my own.
I don’t think that any church or organizations shouldn’t be able to fundraise just because I don’t agree with them but I shouldn’t have to support them if I choose not to. They have a right to raise money and I have a right to not give them mine, but it doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad about it. I would have felt bad if I had given it to them too, so I guess I was going to be screwed no matter what I did. 
DIOGENES –
Well, maybe that’s the difference between us. I tip based on the service, not the server. I don’t think I have any business deciding what the server is going to do with the tip, as a prerequisite for leaving it. If the service is good, and you would otherwise leave a tip, not leaving one because you don’t like what the server will do with it is IMO shabby. And my opinion doesn’t change if the tip (or failure to tip) is rationalized as “just being nice”; if a tip is deserved, you should leave one, if a tip isn’t deserved, then you shouldn’t.
Aw, horsefeathers. You haven’t requested the Windex, knowing full-well the guy will be the one to apply it, and then decided you won’t tip the applicator-guy because he might donate his tip to a church. Sqeegy guys are a shakedown; waiter staff are not.
PBBTH –
IMO, the difference is that a tip you would otherwise have left supports the carhop, not the carhop’s cause. You are no more responsible for the carhop’s giving his money to his church than you are for the pizza kid’s using his money to buy pot. If yo would normally leave a tip because the carhop is overpaid, or his job is shit – well, he doesn’t become better paid, or his job any more fun, in this case. A tip is either warranted or not; the cause to which it may or will be put is irrelevant. I wouldn’t have felt bad about leaving the tip – the standard, usual tip, and not one penny more – because IMO you’re supporting the carhop, not the cause, just as by failing to tip when you otherwise would you are penalizing the carhop, not the cause.
Under paid, obviously; not overpaid.
Unless I’m missing something fundamental here, I think pbbth is totally in the right. In fact, whatever you gave the server wouldn’t really be a tip at all, it would be a charitable donation. Because none of that money would go to the server, it’s not really different from dropping change in the Salvation Army box on your way into the office.
I think people are morally obligated to tip their waitress or server for service that is better than substandard, because waitresses get taxed on their estimated tips, which means you’re ripping them off by not tipping them.
If your gratuity is all going toward a charitable cause, however, this doesn’t apply. It’s totally up to you whether or not to contribute. So no, pbbth didn’t do anything wrong by withholding money.
But I’m still not convinced, as I said back in Post #10, that you would have been supporting a religion. In my mind there’s a difference between supporting a group of people from a church for a trip they’re planning to take, and supporting the church itself.
May I just say that, the more I think about it, the more I believe that the OP’s is a Very Good Question. Since I first read it, I’ve been unable to stop thinking about it and turning it over in my mind to see it from different angles.
And I’m almost tempted to ask, “Why do you care whether it makes you evil?”—not flippantly, but because I think an honest answer to that question might lead to some really interesting discussions about the origins of morals and ethics and manners and why we do the things we do. But I fear that could really get us into deep philosophical Great Debates-ey waters.
This is what I feel:
The carhoppers were working. Voluntarily, yes, but they performed a service for you. It is rude to let someone work for you, knowing good and well that you aren’t going to pay them in return. I don’t care if that person is Charles Manson or the neighborhood boy scout.
If you wanted a burger but didn’t want to contribute to their cause, you could have gotten out of the car and served yourself (don’t know if that was an option). Or you could have gone to another establishment. Evil isn’t the word to describe your behavior, though. Maybe laziness?
My Girl Scout troup was sponsored by my church. When we had fundraisers, we always mentioned our church, but our money went to the troop. It would have sucked for us if people had sniffed their noses at our “cause” just because we happened to go to Sunday School together. I’m all for people choosing where to send their charity donations, but I’m wondering if maybe you were a bit too hasty with your judgement. As said in earlier threads, they could have been raising money for something you are 100% agreement with.
Well, to be fair, I don’t really think this makes me evil and I am not worried about whether or not this one act effects my level of evilness (which I think of as being very low btw). I just felt torn about the whole issue and although I feel I made the right decision I still feel kind of squicky about it, though that feeling is going away fairly quickly as I think about why I made the decision I made.
If I had pulled in and it had been the Republican Fundraiser For The Furtherance of G. W. Bush or the Support Polygamy Fundraiser I wouldn’t have tipped either but I wouldn’t necessarily pull away and make a scene. This particular fast food place will let everyone use their establishment to raise money for things so I don’t feel bad about going there. As for whether or not my money would have gone to support a religion or a *group of religious people * I think they are essentially one in the same. If I give money to the guy going door to door looking for funding for his Communist Youth Group and their trip to Wisconsin I would still be supporting communism even if it isn’t as direct as writing a check to Fidel.
I do not associate christians with republicans, polygamists or communists. These are groups that I used for example only and I understand that people may belong to none of these groups or possibly more than one and that this doesn’t reflect on them as individuals. Everyone has a right to believe in and support whatever they choose.
If you hadn’t seen the sign, would you have left a tip?
If I read your OP correctly, probably not, since you had exact change. So having seen the sign didn’t really influence your behaviour. So what are you fretting about? Are you sure you aren’t Catholic? You’ve got the self-guilt-trip thing down pat.
(Before anybody jumps on me, I’m a practicing Catholic and I can make fun of my religion if I want to)
I agree withmonstro. This was not evil or cheap, but lazy. pbbth, if you want to stand up for your principles of not supporting religious groups, even by loose association, sometimes it means you might have to make a sacrifice or two. You could have gone elsewhere for food, drink and self or secular service, my friend, but you did let them serve you, so you should have ponied up a little change.
You seem awfully prejudiced and a little ignorant about Christianity in general just from my perspective. I am obviously not familiar with this particular church but you would be way off base on some of them. I am Episcopalian and my church sponsors trips sometimes but they are usually for some type of humanitarian aid. For example, our youth group recently went to El Salvador to help with infrastructure damage. If you refused our kids based on your assumptions, you couldn’t be more off base. They simply went to do hard labor, assess needs, and have supplies delivered. You reference Hindus and Buddhists like they are some opposing teams but they often work together on aid missions. You also compared supporting Christianity to supporting communism. I see a big difference. Many Christian denominations try to follow the more pure teachings of Christ and just reach out to help people, no questions asked and nothing expected in return. I find it hard to believe that someone could shut their eyes to that type of organization.
Granted, the prostelitizing, bible-thumping churches do exist but it is a little absurd to assume that all or even most of them are. There are a lot of people that want to do good in the world and churches are a good way to get involved in that.
Oh really? On what evidence do you base this certainty? Do the Christian churches in your area have a history of protesting Hindu or pagan fundraisers? I find that very difficult to believe. Can you provide an example of an instance when that has happened?
I don’t think you’re evil, just… petty, I guess.
Another vote for the rightness of monstro. You should tip your waitperson/carhop. If someone is doing the job with the publicized intent of giving the money to a cause you don’t agree with, you should either tip anyway or go somewhere else.
I also agree largely with monstro that you should have gone elsewhere or sought some other option (self service maybe) if you were, for one reason or another, not willing to pay the workers who were present for their service.
To me, tipping is payment for service. It’s a common courtesy. The server did something for you (brought you your food in a convenient and timely manner.) In exchange, you tip them (provided they fulfilled their side of the exchange.) It’s common courtesy not to take if you’re not willing to give.
It seems to me that you’re trying to stand up for your beliefs, but the only thing you’re willing to sacrifice for them is common courtesy. That makes you lazy and (as likely as not) a bit of a jerk.
I got the impression from the OP that the carhops were more akin to the counter guys in a fast food restaurant than to waiters in a sit-down restaurant, in the sense that you’re not really expected to tip them: they earn their money through their wages, not through tips. You pay for their service the way you pay for a cashier’s service: indirectly, through the money you pay to the business out of which the employee gets their wages. You can give them something extra if you want, but it’s not “manditory.” From the OP:
In light of this, I think several of you are being way too hard on pbbth. (Unless he’s mistaken about general tipping etiquette at this particular establishment, in which case he’s ignorant and/or cheap in general.)
"Bryan Lankford, a leader of the Texas Council of the Covenant of the Goddess, originally was invited to give the invocation a week ago, but when a group of Christians protested that Wiccans were witches Mayor Ron Kirk canceled the appearance.
Kirk changed his mind after learning more about the religion, and he invited Lankford back to deliver the two-minute invocation Wednesday in which the Wiccan minister prayed for “honesty, love, compassion, and faith.”
One man who stood in the audience said allowing a Wiccan to deliver the invocation was not an exercise of religious freedom because he said the faith is not a true religion."