The way our 501(c)(3) status works, we can only fund charities based in the United States (regardless of what they do). This is a chance to expand that reach:

Humanists in Australia are now moving from questions to action, working rapidly to establish an FBB Australia. Though based on the same model and sharing our brand and name, the new foundation will be governed independently and will focus on Australia-based charities and members.

“Foundation Beyond Belief is an idea whose time has come in Australia,” says Avi Chapman, lead organizer of the effort. “Aussies are both generous and secular — a perfect fit for the Foundation. We’re very excited to be working to bring this concept to fruition down under.”

If you’d like to stay informed about the progress of FBB Australia, you can sign up for updates here!

Here’s something you don’t hear a lot, courtesy of Luke Gyure at WWJTD:

Here’s the answer is to what theists and atheists can do together: secular work. If you’re really as committed to working together and finding common ground as you claim to be, then you have to concede that the common ground is found in nonreligious conversation… The “middle ground” for an atheist and a believer is not actually somewhere in between: it’s where the atheist already is.

Never thought of it that way, but it’s accurate. Whenever I’ve participated in interfaith projects, they’ve been things like hosting debates/discussions (something atheist groups do all the time), volunteering at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter (ditto), donating blood (yep), etc. It’s never anything unique to one faith or another, because there’s no common ground there.

When you want to do good — with other people from different backgrounds — god stays out of the picture.

After Camp Quest Northwest (in Washington state) raised $10,000 in 2011 to support their inaugural camp taking place later this year, the Humanists of North Puget Sound just doubled their funds by giving them a matching donation of $10,000!

According to an email press release:

“It made perfect sense for our two groups to join resources to support the camp,” said Robert Ray, Vice President of Humanists of North Puget Sound. “Camp Quest’s goals are very much in keeping with the values that we promote, especially our hope that reason and science will one day overcome superstition and outdated traditions.”

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According to [President of Camp Quest NorthWest Chuck] Wolber, “We are deeply grateful for this matching gift from Humanists of North Puget Sound. These funds will be incredibly helpful, especially this year as we work toward our first Camp Quest NorthWest session, August 15-21, 2012.”

That’s a generous gift for a worthy cause. The presentation of the check was made over the weekend:

If you’d like to register your children for CQ NorthWest, you can do that now for an early bird rate! I’ve heard so many good things about Camp Quest in general and this is bound to be an equally wonderful experience for all the children who attend.

(Thanks to Jon for the link!)

The anger and hatred directed at Ms. Ahlquist — she was called “an evil little thing” on talk radio by a Cranston state representative — helps explain why the judge, responding to her brave lawsuit, did his duty under the Constitution and ordered immediate removal of the prayer, which begins “Our Heavenly Father” and concludes “Amen” and was visible throughout the auditorium.

…

… Recent meetings in Cranston about the prayer involved the kind of “excessive entanglement with religion” the court has warned against, with prayer backers reading from the Bible. The meetings showed why what believers consider a harmless request to respect a prayer can feel like coercion to nonbelievers.

… The kindness, friendship and other values the prayer champions are universal, but a statement of religious belief has no place in a public high school auditorium.

The fact that her story is getting such coverage on a national scale shows that this isn’t just about some local banner. It’s symbolic of how Christians love to force their views on everyone else, sometimes in illegal ways, and then cry foul when someone calls them out on it.

Jessica’s scholarship fund, by the way, has raised over $36,000 on her behalf. Some college atheist groups have told me they’re raising funds for her, some donations have been made directly to the American Humanist Association, and t-shirt sales still need to be included in the total amount. What you’re all doing for her is truly amazing.

Atheists don’t always get positive coverage in the media, so it’s an encouraging sign, especially after everything Jessica’s been going through:

Jessica Ahlquist (Gretchen Ertl - The New York Times)

She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years.

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Brittany Lanni, who graduated from Cranston West in 2009, said that no one had ever been forced to recite the prayer and called Jessica “an idiot.”

“If you don’t believe in that,” she said, “take all the money out of your pocket, because every dollar bill says, ‘In God We Trust.’ ”

Compare that ignorant soundbyte to Jessica’s pitch-perfect line at the end of the story:

Does [Jessica] empathize in any way with members of her community who want the prayer to stay?

“I’ve never been asked this before,” she said. A pause, and then: “It’s almost like making a child get a shot even though they don’t want to. It’s for their own good. I feel like they might see it as a very negative thing right now, but I’m defending their Constitution, too.”

What a great analogy.

I’ve been asked a few times over the past couple of weeks if I’m surprised at the amount of money people are donating toward her scholarship fund.

My response has been the same: I’m not surprised at all. Of course people want to chip in to her future success. Jessica embodies our movement at its best — she’s brave, she defends the separation of church and state, she’s eloquent when speaking about the lawsuit and her beliefs, and she’s not letting the religious majority in her community keep her down.

This article just reinforces everything we already knew about her.

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***Update***: There’s some misinformation being spread about Jessica possibly transferring schools. Jessica has denied this rumor, so please stop perpetuating it:

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“This is going to be an amazing event,” said Dale McGowan, executive director of Foundation Beyond Belief. “We’re thrilled to be involved and grateful to FFFF for naming the Foundation as the event beneficiary.”

Also fun to note: The event will be held in a nightclub called “The Church”:

More information is here and details about how the game will be run are here (PDF).

On a side note, the Providence Journal had a nice, short article about the “Evil Little Thing” t-shirts which are being sold in Jessica’s honor.

All profits from sales will be donated to her scholarship fund, which is (incredibly) at $33,000 and counting!

A few updates since then:

The Freedom From Religion Foundation let all the florists know that Jessica Ahlquist was “under the public eye” so they would need to show identification when they delivered the flowers to her door. I don’t know if that warning was necessary — did the florists really need to know who Jessica was? — but it looks like it was a red flag for some of them.

Does that change your mind about how these florists reacted?

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Also, according to a local ABC news story, one of the florists that was initially asked to deliver flowers (Floral Express) was legitimately closed for the day:

The others still sound like bigots to me:

Owner of Twins Florist in Cranston, Marina Plowman, was one of the businesses to reject the order.

Plowman said, “It’s my freedom of speech I refuse orders when I want and I take orders when I want.”

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[Flowers by Santilli] owner Raymond Santilli said, “we have beliefs as well as the individual that’s in the middle of all this, and we just feel that it’s better for us as a business and the city itself just to stay away from this and not to cross the lines.”

Whether their refusals actually constitute “freedom of speech” is debatable and FFRF is in the process of “filing civil complaints” (PDF) against the florists that refused their order.

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Sean Condon, co-owner of Glimpse of Gaia, the only company that agreed to deliver flowers to Jessica Ahlquist, is a little surprised to be receiving all the positive publicity, but he comes off looking great in this segment:

One reader passed along an email he received from Sean and Steph after thanking them for delivering the flowers:

“Thank you very much for your kind words.  It is an odd experience to be congratulated and thanked for doing something so ordinary.  We’d like you to know that the response has been overwhelmingly positive and that Jessica is getting more flowers today as are several charities in our area, thanks to donors.  This is a funny little chapter in the history of a state founded on religious liberty.

Thanks again – Sean & Steph”

Take a wild guess at the first (and very deserving) recipient:

The Foundation announced today its first recipient will be Jessica Ahlquist, the besieged 16 year old running the gauntlet in Rhode Island for successfully suing her high school over an illegal prayer banner. FFRF today is sending a start-up scholarship check via its Atheists in Foxholes Support Fund for $10,000. FFRF already announced it is designating her for the 2012 Thomas Jefferson Youth Activist Award with a $2,000 scholarship.

As far as I can tell, this is not an annual award or even a set amount of money. It’ll be given to whomever the FFRF deems worthy of receiving it, based on financial need or because FFRF just felt like giving someone a nice reward.

Anyone is welcome to earmark money specifically for the fund.

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So now even the florists in Rhode Island are avoiding Jessica Ahlquist?

[Freedom From Religion Foundation] President Annie Laurie Gaylor, wishing to send a bouquet of roses to congratulate Jessica, contacted a shop based in Madison, Wis., to assist with the delivery. FFRF understands at least three florists in Cranston were contacted on Wednesday.

• Floral Express, in Cranston, on Wednesday messaged the Madison shop via Dove Network, an electronic order service, that it was “closed on the requested delivery day” (which was the same day) and “. . . I am not able to fill this.”

• At 2:12 p.m. Wedneday, the Madison florist was contacted by Twins Florist, refusing the order via Dove Network message: “I will not deliver to this person.”

• Then Flowers by Santilli in Cranston was contacted by phone. The owner, upon hearing the name of the recipient, said he would rather not get involved and refused to fill the order.

• Seeking to go outside Cranston, the Madison flower firm on Wednesday next contacted Greenwood Flower and Garden in Warwick, which agreed to accept the order, but today called back saying patrons were phoning and emailing threatening to boycott his business so he refused the order, too.

FFRF was forced to go to an out of state business, Glimpse of Gaia, in Putnam, Conn., which not only agreed to deliver the flowers but threw in a second bouquet from the shop with its own message, “Glimpse of Gaia fully supports our First Amendment and will not be bullied by those who do not. Here’s to you, Jessica Ahlquist.”

Damn… well, if you ever have floral needs in that region, take your business to Glimpse of Gaia. They’ve earned your business by taking an anti-gelato-ey route.

Meanwhile, FFRF has asked the Commission for Human Rights in Rhode Island to investigate these companies on grounds of religious discrimination.

And the Cranston florists who didn’t want to deliver flowers to Jessica? They think they’re being “intimidated” and “harassed” and created a Facebook page called “I stand with the Cranston Florists.”

Because, you know, they’re the real victims in all of this…

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The fundraiser for Jessica is still going strong: