A few years ago, when Skip was Archdruid, the Mother Grove got an odd request from a legal firm to buy our Internet domain name, adf.org. It came as a surprise to us, and we wondered just who it might be who wanted to buy it. We went online and had a look. We were pretty sure it wasn't the Australian Defense Forces, and there was no reason why the American Dance Festival would insist on keeping their name secret from us, so the only likely candidate had to be the Alliance Defense Fund (who have since changed their name to Alliance Defending Freedom).

According to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a non-profit group dedicated to keeping church and state separated in the USA, this other ADF is an Arizona-based right-wing organization promoting a Religious Right agenda which “attacks church-state separation, blasts gay rights, assails reproductive freedom and seeks to saturate the public schools with its narrow version of fundamentalism.” (Church and State, vol. 65, no. 9, October 2012)

My, my. It’s true that we occasionally get information requests that are obviously not meant for us, and even the occasional donation! We can use the money and I don’t feel any obligation to pass it on – the other ADF has revenue of $35,145,644, according to the IRS. It really must burn them that folks looking for them find, instead, a Pagan Druidic church.

In any case, we turned down their request by asking for a million dollars for the domain. When they again contacted us this year we just said no, and I very innocently suggested that they find a new name with different initials. Cheeky, I know.

Happily, however, the rest of the Pagan/Heathen/Polytheist world knows who the real and original ADF is. And we are they.