The other night, the American Cancer Society put out yet another note on their Facebook page trying to defend their actions in rejecting an atheist National Team.

It’s full of lies.

First, their message:

We want to apologize to all those who come to our Facebook community to either support the American Cancer Society or be supported by it. Because we respect and value the voice of our community, we have tried various methods of dealing with the current situation involving the Foundation Beyond Belief, responding in a measured way and only removing hateful and egregious posts. In addition, we want to make sure we are absolutely clear with respect to the facts. We have seen profane hyperbole and personal attacks on members of this community that only serve to disrupt the American Cancer Society’s ability to serve cancer patients and their families. At this point, our ability to deliver on our life saving mission has clearly been impacted. We need to get back to work. These are the facts: In recent weeks, supporters of the Foundation Beyond Belief have used the American Cancer Society community on Facebook to post misinformation, saying the Society turned down half a million dollars and is discriminating against atheists. These statements are false. Todd Stiefel, a humanist philanthropist and supporter of Foundation Beyond Belief, approached Relay For Life representatives and offered a matching gift of $250,000 if Foundation Beyond Belief teams raised $250,000 in 2012. The matching gift offer from Mr. Stiefel was contingent on his and the Foundation Beyond Belief’s request to become a Relay For Life National Team Partner. However, beginning with this fiscal year, ACS discontinued Relay’s National Team Partner program for clubs and organizations while National Teams focused around commercial organizations remain. Mr. Stiefel and the Foundation Beyond Belief have not told us if they are willing to consider working with the Society in any manner other than as a National Team Partner. We think this is terribly unfortunate and wish the Foundation Beyond Belief would reconsider making its recognition as National Team Partner a condition for its support. We do not take lightly an offered donation of a half million dollars, and we remain committed to discussing with the Foundation Beyond Belief ways in which we can work together, encouraging the group’s participation in Relay For Life and in the Society’s mission to save more lives from cancer. After reviewing the situation, it is clear that we have made mistakes. We did not communicate effectively about the rationale behind our decision not to allow the Foundation Beyond Belief to participate as a National Team Partner. And we used our own organizational terminology in public communications to differentiate between commercial teams and teams formed by clubs and organizations, calling them “corporate” and “non-corporate” teams. Unfortunately, that lack of clarity created misunderstanding and confusion. To be clear: we ended the National Team Partner program for clubs and organizations, many of which were incorporated, earlier this year; the National Team Program for commercial entities –primarily businesses and corporations with large employee bases– remains. Going forward, we intend to make the distinction much clearer in our communications. The National Team Partner program will now be implemented in a way that more clearly outlines the requirements for participation. Perhaps just as importantly, those requirements will be more clearly communicated on our Relay For Life website and elsewhere. You can find information about our National Team Partner program here: http://www.relayforlife.org/learn/nationalteamprogram/index We acknowledge our mistakes, and we appreciate your patience and understanding as we have worked to resolve them. We appreciate our many loyal volunteers who believe that the Society and its Relay For Life program would never discriminate against any group committed to participating in our mission to save lives from cancer. It is our deepest desire to get back to business as normal so that we can focus on serving cancer patients and their loved ones, and the millions of individuals who want cancer information and who are passionate about engaging in our mission. Greg Donaldson

National Vice President, Corporate Communications

American Cancer Society

So where are the lies?

Let’s go through the big ones, one by one.

…

Mr. Stiefel and the Foundation Beyond Belief have not told us if they are willing to consider working with the Society in any manner other than as a National Team Partner.

Not true.

Todd Stiefel specifically asked if a youth affiliate team was possible. Between the organizations he works with (notably, the Secular Student Alliance and CFI On Campus), there were over 400 student groups who could have participated. The ACS rejected that idea, despite having youth affiliates from other non-profit groups.

No reason was given for this rejection.

…

… we remain committed to discussing with the Foundation Beyond Belief ways in which we can work together, encouraging the group’s participation in Relay For Life and in the Society’s mission to save more lives from cancer

Not true.

According to Todd, the National Relay for Life people do not call him or try to contact him. The only person Todd has communicated with from the national organization is Reuel Johnson and that was only over the phone, once in the past six months, and only after Todd “complained to local Relay people that he had not been returning emails or phone calls.” He subsequently received two emails from Reuel, both neglecting to mention the matching challenge or trying to secure the donation.

If the ACS was serious about working with the Foundation Beyond Belief and Todd Stiefel, why not follow up with them? Why not propose alternative ways to work together?

Simple: They’re not really interested in working with atheists.

…

In recent weeks, supporters of the Foundation Beyond Belief have used the American Cancer Society community on Facebook to post misinformation, saying the Society turned down half a million dollars and is discriminating against atheists. These statements are false.

Not entirely true.

They have indeed rejected the money. Says Todd: “They have rejected it by default by refusing to give us the only condition on the gift: equal recognition [granted] to other non-profits, such as with a national youth affiliate team.”

Sure, they won’t refuse the money, but by not giving the atheists the same recognition any other group would have received and by not trying to secure the donation in any other way, it’s really just another form of rejection.

As Todd points out, “If someone asks someone out on a date and they never answer, it is still a rejection. So is this.”

…

However, beginning with this fiscal year, ACS discontinued Relay’s National Team Partner program for clubs and organizations while National Teams focused around commercial organizations remain.

Not true.

They’re trying to change the rules after the fact.

Todd explains that they have continued National Teams with clubs and organizations… but since Greta Christina‘s AlterNet article came out on October 10th, they’re now calling them “Youth Affiliates.”

Furthermore, when the ACS’ new website rolled out on September 1st, they continued to mention the same youth partner clubs and organizations they had the previous year. (We have pictures to back that up.) They’ve since gotten rid of those references from their site.

…

Todd Stiefel was recently contacted by one of the Youth Affiliates.

Apparently, they were never told they were no longer a “National Partner” or that they were now a “Youth Affiliate” until after Greta’s article came out… which reinforces the idea that the ACS made the changes in response to the backlash, not before it.

Our case is still solid. The atheists are being denied a National Team while other groups get to keep theirs. Instead of admitting that, the American Cancer Society is trying to spin the story so that they appear to be the victims.

This isn’t the end of the issue. If they want to keep pushing the lies, then we’ll send more media attention in their direction.



