A Nose By Any Other Name...

It seems that Red Nose Day is nearly upon us. I had hoped that I'd missed it (I don't watch TV) but that must have been Children In Need or some other fund-raising enterprise.

For those of you across the pond, who haven't been acquainted with Red Nose Day, it's part of Comic Relief, and people do silly things and wear red noses in order to raise money. You can't turn around without seeing (or hearing) that something ridiculous is being done "for charriddy" (though quite a few C-list celebs seem to try to resurrect their ailing careers by getting prime spots on TV...)

I have no problem with the idea of doing stuff to raise money for worthy causes. Unfortunately, I've become very choosy about which causes I will support. I won't support any charity which claims that it's offering reproductive "choices" to the poor in Africa (ie. "we think you're too stupid to be allowed to reproduce, so we're going to "encourage" you to have smaller families...") I don't want my money going to fund the killing of babies for research (so that's quite a lot of the medical charities scratched off the list), and I don't wish to support euthanasia (so that wipes off rather a lot of the charities which deal with disabled or elderly people.)

Red Nose Day and Comic Relief allocate funds to charities which do all those things. Avoid them.

It's a lot easier to pick a specific charity (or two or three), check them out via the SPUC Charities Page, and then give money with a clear conscience. SPUC, Aid to the Church in Need, Life, the Good Counsel Network, Cor Unum, and the Sisters of the Gospel of Life are examples of charities which support the teachings of the Catholic Church, and that's just a bunch I reeled off from the top of my head.

Think about where that money is going.