When was the last time a mosque held a food drive and was challenged by the “humanist group’?
Via Charleston Post and Courier
The American Humanist Association, whose slogan is “good without God,” sent a letter last month to Dorchester District 2 officials threatening legal action over Oakbrook Elementary School’s support of students collecting food and raising money for Old Fort Baptist Church’s food pantry.
The association announced Thursday that the district “has agreed not to sponsor or endorse churches and religious institutions in the future.”
“We strongly support charitable giving, but the good intentions of fundraisers and food drives can be achieved in ways that do not favor any religion,” David Niose, legal director of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center, said in an email Thursday.
Students were raising money and donating food before Thanksgiving for the church’s pantry, a part of its Community Impact for Christ program. The efforts were publicized on the school’s website and in fliers supporting “Old Fort Baptist Missions.”
The humanist association said it received complaints from some parents, and the association threatened legal action if the school didn’t drop the project in a Nov. 20 letter to District Superintendent Joe Pye and Oakbrook Principal Monica O’Dea.
“The purpose of this letter is to advise you that such school-sponsored fundraising efforts – the proceeds of which go directly to an evangelical Christian Church – must immediately cease, and that our organization will pursue the matter through litigation in federal court if it does not,” Monica Miller, an attorney with the Appignani Humanist Legal Center in Washington, D.C., said in the letter.
Responding to the humanist association, the school district’s attorney, John Reagle, wrote that the $100 the students raised through the sale of thank-you notes and the food they collected were given to high schools for distribution to needy students instead of being donated to the church’s food pantry.