Should Atheists Offer Services to a Conservative Christian Group

I would definitely provide them with what they asked.

From what I understand the SOSDG is a group which presumably values openness (given the ‘open source’ in the name and the lack of charge for services) which seems to me to trump any other concern. Not giving the assistance would go against that core philosophy. The SOSDG website says that you provide these services to the FOSS community, individuals and non-profit organizations and you should honor that. It doesn’t say or imply that you are an organization that provides assistance only to non-religious organizations, the very idea of which would be against everything that FOSS stands for. In future you should change your organizations name and be explicit that you only supply your services where no conflict of interest arises.

That a christian ‘family values’ organization has chosen you says nothing necessarily about their views towards LGBT individuals that can be taken as hostile, if anything it shows the opposite since they are willing to rely on SOSDG, and this is complicated by the fact that the service you provide not only has positive effects on them but potentially positive effects on many other internet participants by flow-on. But even if they are hostile, and discounting the idea that the philosophy of openness is worth upholding for the organization above all else, I would still help them out and assist them. You need to lead by example and I would argue that assisting ‘enemies’ when they need help is one of the most ethical actions one can take. They may be christian but by helping them out you would be christ-like, which may show them a thing or two at the least about the people they vilify.

Maybe the best tack would be to give them permission but write up a few paragraphs about how you feel about it, and how you went through the ethical choice. But, I think, since being atheists / gays / liberals / hippies / however you want to label yourself isn’t exactly in the mission statement, I think you have an ethical obligation to support them.

Oh, and there’s a grammar error in you about us page – you use “it’s” instead of “its” for the possessive.

Evolution unifies biology, it explains life after origin, from the first cell to every species on the planet. It’s one thing to be ignorant, it’s another to be willfully ignorant, and it’s something else to be actively seeking to persuade others to be willfully ignorant. Not only that but creationists tend to use arguments that not only attack the theory of evolution specifically but the scientific method in general. This has implications for virtually everything, it matters what is true.

By Christian “values” I guess this means forbidding certain sexual relations resulting in suffering and the advocation of ignorance to contraception based on Biblical “revelation” and tradition. Do I really have to talk about the social cost of this? It’s perverse how they react to problems they created, like a homosexual in a heterosexual marriage, or teenage girls with unplanned pregnancies.

These people are bad people, it’s right to be intolerant of them. There’s plenty of groups that society has no problem shunning, and rightfully so, like racist groups, practicing irrational hatred based on either pseudoscience or completely arbitrary superficial differences. Yet if you wrap something in religion, you can get away with any bullshit you want. These Christians are also basing their actions on pseudoscience or completely arbitrary reverence to a religion that most of the time is inherited from their parents. These are not minor differences or slight wrongs.

I wouldn’t expect a privately owned company run by Catholics to help me run adverts for advice on contraception or abortion. I’d like them to help me, but that’s because they’re wrong and often stupid/disingenuous. Cooperation for the greater good has limits, nearly everybody has limits, but these limits have been socially conditioned to let religion get away with far more than secular wrongs.

I’m curious about what they intend to do with the data. Not being familiar with how internet advertising works, what advantage would this group gain from a list of nefarious IP addresses?

I must agree with Aj…… These are bad people and do not deserve your help. They more than likely will use any information you tender them for negative purposes. They hAVE A WAY OF USING WHATEVER INFORMATION THEY CAN GET THEIR HANDS ON TO ONLY FURTHER THEIR OWN AGENDA, AND NOT TO SPREAD ANY TRUTH! I’d tell them to go f–k themselves…… but in as nice a way as you think they deserve. They have no intent on informing their “flock” as to the truth, for, telling the truth would only result in them cutting their own religious legs out from underneath them. They’re not going to do that! Dis-asscoiate yourself from them, and don’t fall for their chicanery!

Hemant said it best in the last line of the post. As an atheist (or even a Buddhist or Wiccan), yours is a small minority voice amongst the majority who believe in Yahweh (at least in North America and Europe). Somewhere along the line, from your web hosting or telecom companies to the government officials involved, there are at least a few religious people who are allowing your voice (and mine!) to be heard because they value the free exchange of ideas – even ideas they disagree with. To refuse to honor that ideal yourself seems hypocritical to me, as long as the ads to not actually incite violence (which would be illegal anyway).

And by the way, please don’t lump atheism in with Buddhism and Wicca as if rejecting the Jewish god unites us into one big liberal hippie family. Atheism is not a political ideology, but a rejection of gods – even new age nature goddesses that give us magic spells to use.

Depends on whether their internet posting thingers would qualify THEM to be on your spammers list. If it would, then your organization has every right to refuse to give them the spammer list; if not, then I’d think it best to be fair and treat them like you would anyone else.

First, get rid of the Buddhists and Wiccas, then we’ll talk.

say while you don’t agree with what they do, you’ll help them out as fellow humans or whatever your two groups are.

Give them full disclosure. Then if they still want to do business, cool. You said you never charged… now might be a good time to start. Christian money is just as good as LGBT/atheist/buddhist/wiccan money in my book.

I think the comment about leading by example is the most apt. Do you want, as ABHL, to become about religious activism? If not, then don’t let your personal feelings on religion – however well-founded – decide your response.

If you really want to make a statement, let them know your ethical concerns. I think it would be dangerous to use that as a bargaining chip, but by helping them while letting them know who is helping them, you might soften someone’s attitude a little. Surely that’s a more productive course than taking on the role of the intolerant enemy: nobody’s mind is going to be changed that way.

dersk:

Oh, and there’s a grammar error in you about us page…

McKean’s law strikes again! 😉

NO, not tolerating bigotry that smears gays is not being intolerant. The KKK has the right to speak but if they asked if they could use your front yard to burn a cross if they promised to clean up afterwards would you let them? I hope you would say no to that also. Saying I”m sorry I don’t support hate toward gays is not being “the” ass.

Ex-evangelical here. This is what I’d do if I were you.

Provide the best, friendliest, most helpful service you possibly can. Let these people truly fall in love with your business and staff. Let them see how great you are as a professional and as a person.

Then at some point much later, let them find out you’re gay. Or Wiccan. Or whatever, depending on the staff member involved.

The way I became tolerant (and eventually came to reject the evils of religion entirely) was not to have my intolerance flung back at me. That’s just stupid. Instead, it was as I got to know people who weren’t the same as I was.

My having a personal relationship with non-believers and other people not like me was what revealed my allegedly personal relationship with Jesus for the lie it was.

The (private) company I work for often finds itself making similar choices. We do consulting for non-profits and as a whole, the company has always leaned pretty far left and secular. We have certainly turned down clients because we did not agree with their politics. Nothing I ran, regardless of mission, would provide help or resources to a group fomenting hate in any form.

I agree with an earlier poster. Let them know that you are a bunch of godless queers and they’ll probably not want to do business with you anyway. If that fails, just say no.

Stoi hit the nail on the head way up there. You have Open Source in the name, which means your organization already made this decision when it was formed. Two points of the Open Source Definition are,

“5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups – The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor – The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.”

As Bruce Perens put it, “Your software must be equally useful in an abortion clinic or an anti-abortion clinic.” It would be disingenuous for you to discriminate against a group while using the name Open Source.

AgnosticOracle also gave you a reason beyond the name: helping this group fight spam makes the Internet better for everyone. Part of the reason spam is sent is that it probably works some of the time. Less spam making it to inboxes, the less incentive there is for spam. Gullible people buy the stuff spam advertises. And who’s more gullible than a group of fundie Christians? 🙂

I think Kaylya’s onto something with her comparison. I think they should go ahead and provide the data, continuing their policy of “openness” and let the chips fall where they may.

I think if your goal is to be accepted as professionals, then you should act like professionals. I buy the bulk of the music CDs and DVDs for a public library system, and I work hard to keep my personal biases out of my job. A professional defense attorney has to defend child molesters, a professional police officer has to protect people who hate them, a professional family planning physician will perform an abortion to the protester who was outside their clinic last week.

As a professional librarian I have to keep in mind the diverse needs of the population I serve. They say a good public library collection contains something to offend everyone, and ours certainly does–myself included. I purchased Ben Stein’s execrable Expelled without hesitation, much as I buy Christian pop music, bible documentaries, and the like, alongside fare such as Religulous, The God Who Wasn’t There, and Ricky Gervais’ stand-up material.

I get pissed off when Christian pharmacists refuse to fill birth control prescriptions, and when Muslim cab drivers refuse to carry alcohol or dogs. I got really upset when Heather Reisman, who owns around 85% of all bookstores in Canada, called a press conference to announce she was pulling all copies of Mein Kampf from her shelves. As a merchant she has every right to sell what she wants but by making it a press event, Ms. Reisman basically told 25 million adult Canadians that she should dictate what they read, when she has not been elected or hired to fill any political office. I consider all the above examples of extremely unprofessional behaviour and I constantly check myself to make sure I am not guilty of the same.

It looks pretty simple to find out your organization’s stance on GLBTQ issues (right at the top of the SOSDG page)–so either it’s not an issue to these would-be clients, or they’re too lazy to do the most basic research on an organization before entering into an arrangement with them, in which case, caveat emptor.

If it was me, I’d make sure you make it clear exactly what services you’re providing and what the boundaries are (as other posters have noted), and if they break contract, sue their asses off. Alternatively, if litigation isn’t feasible (because you can’t afford it or you’re not in it for the money in the first place), you can always use word of mouth so the whole web knows these people can’t uphold a business arrangement–there must be IT equivalents to Angie’s List.

I hate relativists, get some morals. If you own a printers, you have a right to refuse to print slogans that are offensive to you. Helping a non-profit spread lies and hate is not the same as helping someone who is sick. There’s a difference between public and private organizations, your responsibilities to tax payers, freedom of speech, and legal representation are different. I’d help an old man carry heavy packages but if I found out they contained racist placards and t-shirts then I’d put the packages down and walk away. You have a moral responsibility to not help others do wrong. If you do help them under no pressure then you’re indicating you have no problem with what they’re doing.

I think it would be right not to help them spread beliefs you don’t agree with directly, but I don’t think you should refuse them services that aren’t directly related to something you don’t want to do. Electric companies should still provide electricity to them and businesses should sell them computers, even if they use those computers and that electricity for something they don’t like. Companies should not be obligated to design advertisements that hold a message they disagree with.

I don’t know exactly which category your situation falls in, but I would consider how directly you’re actually helping them spread ideas you can’t stand.

You also should probably consider the law and whether denying them services would count as discrimination. I would avoid something that might be illegal.

They’re trying to set you up, hoping you deny them, so they can cry “victim” or accuse you of discriminatory behavior. Don’t go for it.

@Aj

Interesting, you really made me think! You say

but if I found out they contained racist placards and t-shirts then I’d put the packages down and walk away.

Put the packages down? Why not drop them or smash them up completely? Isn’t everything relative?

The jury is out for me on this one. I want to be the nice, cooperative, friendly, civilised morally irreproachable guy and say yes give the list. On the other hand I want to fight the creationists arguments at every opportunity!

Hello all, time to respond to specific things and to clarify some things. My description left alot to be desired, but I’ve not entirely been on my game the past few days (yay stress).

We aren’t a company, but rather a group of people with similar interests and goals (volunteers) with me overseeing the bulk of the work.

@Dan:
I listed LGBT and atheist/buddhist/wiccan because its the makeup of our admin team. The admins pretty much pay/donate/provide everything that gets used by users, and retain ownership over their own projects. Didn’t mean to make the terms seem like they are related. 🙂

@False Prophet:

I doubt they did their homework on who was behind the work they wanted to use. I still find myself trying to explain to people that we _aren’t_ a business, we do this on our free time, and they jump up and down and cry about how we don’t fix their problem now, completely ignoring the fact we have real life work that comes first.

Our motto has always been, you get what you pay for. There are a few companies that have priority support agreements for AHBL support, but those are with individual admins and usually relate to maintaining mirror servers and assisting with abuse incident response, rather then the data itself.

@dersk:
I’ll fix the it’s on the about page as soon as I can. 🙂

@Eskomo:
In re of AHBL data – Some data is freely available, others is not. The query features, we have no control over considering it works with DNS, and can be done without ever needing us to set stuff up. In this case, said group wants access to the bit that is not freely available – and we do limit access based on need, what they want it for, and if we can trust them not to further share the info outside what they are intending to use it for. Last thing we wanted was for a spammer to get ahold of open proxy lists they could use to go balistic.

TBH, I probably wouldn’t have even known it was a christian targeted group had it not been for the glaring logo in their e-mail that proudly stated their audience.

You’all have given me alot ot think about, alot of good points, alot of good views, which I appreciate.

First, I didn’t read through all the responses and apologize if I am duplicating anything someone has said previously.

Today, we had a contact from a Christian group, specifically a faith-based ad network that targets Christian families and values. They wanted to use the AHBL data on their end for something.

It would seem logical that the group you work with would want to know exactly what that “something” is… because it would be counterproductive to allow them access to a program/service enabling them so their IT people could discover a way to remove their organization from the filters…or some similar use.

If you determine that what they are doing is within your TOS then it would obviously be a different matter. Perhaps your company might want to think about being a bit more specific as to the target audience.

@Brielle

Based on this:

In this case, said group wants access to the bit that is not freely available – and we do limit access based on need, what they want it for, and if we can trust them not to further share the info outside what they are intending to use it for. Last thing we wanted was for a spammer to get ahold of open proxy lists they could use to go balistic.

You have access to something through another service provider, and you are responsible for ensuring that anyone you provide that information to does not use it for unintended purposes, thus violating your terms of service with your provider.

You need to be sure you know what they intend to do with the data.

Again, I’m more concerned with the fact that they’re an ad service, than that they are a Christian service. They may be taking advantage of your generosity to access information that they would otherwise have to pay for, which may be in violation of the terms of service of your providers.

Are they looking for open proxy lists so that they can get around spam filters that have rejected their ads in the past? Or are they just setting up a spam filter on their own servers so that the nice little old lady who works their reception desk stops getting viagra offers?

Make sure you know what they are using the data for, make every reasonable effort to ensure that they are being open and honest with you, and make sure they are not planning on using the data in a way that would violate your terms of service, or that of your providers. Which should be part of your operating procedures anyway, regardless of who your client is.

Also, ensure that they have sufficient security on their end so that they don’t inadvertently loose control over the data they provide.

Aside from that, I see no reason to deny them service. Once you’ve verified that they’re not planning on violating your terms of service, or that of your service providers, treat them like any other customer.

The Other Tom,

AJ is wrong: if you “own a printers”, you do NOT have an absolute right to refuse to print signs that are offensive to you. The printing business would be providing a “public accommodation”, and would be subject to relevant anti-discrimination laws. There was a specific case in the last few years in which a printer was successfully sued because they had refused to print signs for a gay group, and I support this decision.

If that’s the case the law is wrong, and so are you. I guess it’s a predictable irony that churches are fucking exempt. I guess that would be a time to get passive aggressive against these tyrants. “What? What? I could have swore you said to write ‘Christ hates vag'”.

For public accommodations apparently under UK law a printer can’t specifically discriminate against homosexuality, but they can discriminate against sex before marriage. Apparently it’s not OK to discriminate against the gays, but those who like sex without marriage can be discriminated against, fascists. These anti-discrimination laws tend to have discrimation built into them, it’s as if politicians don’t even read most legislation.

For public accommodations under US law people can’t be discriminated on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or disabilities. Of course anything and everything can be claimed to be religiously motivated. The printer could say they don’t have a problem with the religion, they’re discriminating against bigoted fuckfits. And by fuckwit, I don’t mean disabled. It really depends how you define “religion”. Can you discriminate against non-religious customers?

Why was my post deleted? 🙁

The way I see it, this is similar to the bus driver who refused to drive the bus with the atheist ad. Business and personal lives need to be separated. Offer them the service just like you would to any other company. If you do feel a need to approach them about their awful ads, do so as a private individual instead of as the owner of your company.

For Moral and Ethical reasons I WOULD NOT assist these people with there little problem!!! It has to do with intent. If you know there intent of there site, and it conflicts with your better judgment, ideals, and personal beliefs, then that to me is a conflict. I would tell them that based on the principle of the matter, that help is not available…

I was thinking about this during the day today. And it completely depends on what the data will be used for.

If they’re trying to find ways of getting around anti-spam software, giving them the date defeats the purpose of your company and it should _not_ be given.

If, on the other hand, it’s to prevent them from being spammed, you should help them.

@ NealO

On the other hand I want to fight the creationists arguments at every opportunity

How could you possibly argue against creationists arguments? They make much more sense than an Atheists perspective.

It would seem logical that the group you work with would want to know exactly what that “something” is… because it would be counterproductive to allow them access to a program/service enabling them so their IT people could discover a way to remove their organization from the filters…or some similar use.

It doesn’t matter what they say they’ll use it for, if they have it they can do anything they want to with it. A group that exists to promote lies will happily lie about their purposes for data like this, and the fact is, they CAN use it to reverse-engineer methods to stay off the list, which is the likeliest use they’d have for it!

If the group asking for it was not some oh-so-sweetly named Xian group but the “rUmAn1aN hAxxOrZ kLAn” who here would be telling the OP to release the data?

Open Source is not a suicide pact. And BTW it only covers the software you license and release, not services.