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Is there something wrong with an atheist booth at a gay pride event?

In my local atheist group we have discussed setting up a booth at the local gay pride day event to get some new members- the logic behind it being that these people were directly harmed by religion... it seemed to make sense to me. But I sent out a newsletter saying "okay this is what we're working on right now and we need donations desperately" one of those things was the booth (among a couple other things including a billboard and protesting our local city council who have decided to pray before meetings now) and I got a huge huge backlash of people telling me that we shouldn't get involved with gay people.. it was too controversial.. that i was trying to force my beliefs on them- that i just had an agenda because i am bisexual.. we even had about half a dozen people leave. So what are your thoughts on leaving out lgbt issues and the like from an atheist group? Some people even said if we did a gay pride booth then we should do a pro life booth.. again, what are your thoughts on this? I could really use some advice.. It just seems like specifically not doing this booth is saying "oh no, we can't get involved with *those* people". I should also add that about half of the people who spoke up about it were for the booth and half were against it (it was about 45% for and 55% against).

I try very hard to have activities for everyone and I know that not everyone will want to attend every meeting- some want a social group, some want an activist group.. we have things like this booth, the billboard, the city council thing, as well as plans for a helping the homeless program, adopt a highway, etc and we also have bowling nights, movie nights, dinner nights, and backyard BBQ's for people who just want to have some social time with non religious people.

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Permalink Reply by Heather on June 1, 2010 at 12:52pm

i think the pro life thing was meant to be something that was controversial but on the other side of the spectrum.. in essence saying that we'd support liberal issues but not conservative ones. of course, pro lifers aren't in any way attacked by or damaged by religion so... it's not really on the same page.

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Permalink Reply by Sam in WV on June 1, 2010 at 3:08pm

As my hohemian nephew would say, "Like we need the people for the earth that heterosexuals produce." What could be more appropriate at a festival of people who seldom participate in the proliferation of overpopulation than to have a booth represented by folks who generally affirm logic and reason?

How many religions do any of us know, which by tradition openly welcome people who do not have offspring?

This one is really a no-brainer!

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Permalink Reply by Robert McLean on June 1, 2010 at 8:53pm

Seems even gay people hate themselves as a result of archaic religious dogma. I'd have thpought, like you, that a group so tainted by religious bullsh*t would embrace your offer of support. Is the religious right, that strong in the US, that even gay conservatives can't see past the nonsense? We have gay specific churches in Australia, as I'm sure you do too in the US and they seem to be quite popular.

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Permalink Reply by Randi Enochson on June 4, 2010 at 9:56am

In my experience gay pride events are a lot like any other community event. There will be booths from churches, political organizations, palm readers, people selling CD's they made in their basement, and guys offering one day bathroom remodeling. You should look at this from an economic perspective. The cost of the booth vs. the amount of traffic you can expect