WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina | Music festival's atheist ties stirring controversy

Music festival's atheist ties stirring controversy

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV/WIS) - The organizers of a Charlotte music festival have made a controversial decision to give the money raised by their event to an organization promoting evolution and atheism.

The Charlotte Pop Fest '09 is a music festival taking place in Charlotte's Myers Park area this weekend. The event features some well-known local and national bands.

Last year, proceeds from the Pop Fest went to an international children's charity.  The proceeds from this year's Charlotte Pop Fest will be going to the Richard Dawkins Foundation.  Dawkins is one of the best known evolutionists in the world and is also an atheist who wrote a book called The God Delusion.

Dawkins will be speaking at the University of South Carolina in October, in an event jointly sponsored by the Biology department and the atheist group Pastafarians at USC.

Pop Fest organizer James Deem says what he's trying to do is raise awareness for "science and science education."

"It's just really important," Deem said.  "There's not that many people raising money for science."

Some people don't see it that way.  Deem says he's lost a sponsor because of the event's support of the Richard Dawkins Foundation and the money he lost forced him to cancel appearances by a couple of the bands.

Most of the Charlotte Pop Fest will take place at Queen's University's Dana Auditorium.  On Saturday, bands from the Pop Fest will play on the main stage at Festival in the Park, a popular annual event at Freedom Park.

Rob Thorne helped book the bands for the main stage.  He says he doesn't support the views of the Richard Dawkins Foundation and said he didn't at first know the money from Pop Fest was going towards it.

He said the Festival in the Park isn't paying for the Pop Fest bands to be there, so they won't be getting any money from Festival in the Park that could potentially go towards the Dawkins Foundation.

Thorne stressed that the bands are there to play music, not give out a message about atheism or anything else.

Pop Festival attendee Debbie Aintrazi of Mint Hill hopes they don't.

"If they start going around saying, 'no, you shouldn't believe in this, you shouldn't believe in that'-- that's when I [get upset]," she said.  "I don't believe in not believing."

Pop Fest runs through Sunday, as does the Festival in the Park.

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