At least that’s how the Christian Children’s Fund feels about it. Gen Con raised over $17,000 at its annual charity auction this year, held in honor of Gary Gygax, but the Christian Children’s Fund turned the money down when it learned that sales of Dungeons & Dragons materials were part of the auction. The late Gary Gygax himself had cited the CCF as his favorite charity, and was likely a frequent donor, so this makes even less sense than your average prejudiced stupidity. The money went to the Fisher House Foundation instead, which had no such qualms about the filthy D&D charity money.
What a pack of asshats.
How can anyone be so lame?
Poor judgement on THAT board of directors.
Well, given the never-ending flood of negativity against D&D that most “Christians” spout, it would hardly be politically correct of them to accept the money. Some enterprising journalist might have accused them of hypocracy at some point in the future, don’t’cha know… Well, if nothing else, this will help those of us on the boards who can afford charitable donations where their money should go.
You’ve got to wonder, though, how they reacted once someone pointed out that Gary Gygax had donated to them, more than once. “What? The fiend who CREATED this infernal game donated to us? We are shocked! SHOCKED! And as soon as we get over our shock, we’ll apologize for not being able to return every penny he ever donated, because while we’re in the world and not of the world, we do still have to pay our bills with cold hard cash at some point…”
“Most” Christians? The tide of anti-D&D rhetoric passed a long time ago, and I doubt the average journalist would care. If they’re hanging on to this outdated panic, it’s their own fault.
I agree with Evan. The “Satanic D&D” craze was starting to pass when I graduated high school in the mid-90’s.
I love it. I am glad they turned down the money, I’d hate to think that some of my money (participated in the auction) went to a bunch of dumbasses, fortunately another charity (Fisher House), that I am glad to support, stepped up and was more than willing to take the donation.
And just think how far that money could have gone to pay out the legal settlements for all those Alter Boys…visionless Fundies.
According to Wikipedia, the CCF was founded by a Presbyterian minister and has no current formal connection to any church, let alone the Catholic church.
As both a Christian and a journalist, I am going to echo the “asshat” sentiment first posted.
Of course, we recently had a school refuse to hand out our October issue of Parent Magazine because I had a review of the card game “Gloom” in my column on Halloween games, and the school principal felt it sent the wrong message to the students and community. She’d never played the game, refused to look at the company’s Web site and made the decision purely on her own.
So those kinds of people are still out there.
ME
So who will end up getting the money as an alternate?
It was in the last sentence of the story: Fisher House Foundation gets the money instead of CCF.
As a game designer, minister, and enthusiast who was suspended for carrying a GURPS rulebook in middle school (in 1994!), I can thoroughly attest that said asshats permeate the waking world with alarming regularity. It’s all gone Mazes and Monsters with these folk.
It really pisses me off when this kind of stuff turns up. As a Christian, I feel embaressed by the fact that there are so many narrow minded idiots like this out there, and as a roleplayer it infuriates me that I can’t talk about my hobby to anyone in my church because they’re all convinced that D&D is evil, just because the only place they’ve heard about it is in Christian magazines.
This is inaccurate and a quick email to CCF easily clears this up. I know because I did so. I was astounded when I read this story. I could not believe a charity I personally respect (and I am a hardcore atheist) would be so…dumb. Here is the email I recieved from CCF.
“Dear Concerned Gamer:
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 http://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”
That sounds an AWFUL lot like covering their asses.
@Adam:
Not at all. It’s very common for charities to have very strict limits on how their names are
used by other organizations, even if those organizations are donating.
They could be sincere here, yet it pisses me off when I see relatively small and namely religiously-inspired charity institusion having a board, fundraising specialists and the like: how much goes to them and how much to their supposed target?
From a GenCon forums post by Jeannette LeGault, Director of Event Programming – Gen Con LLC:
We have a new thread on this here, but it seems this was a still a refusal to be involved with D&D, whether it would benefit children or not.