Sunday, July 24, 2022

the ripple effect

Update: Dec 2025

A Short History of Gator Freethought: Ripples From a Small Beginning

When I was a graduate student at the University of Florida, I restarted a defunct secular/freethought student group that had been dormant for years. The group had gone through several incarnations — first HASA (Humanist & Atheist Student Association), then AASA (Atheist & Agnostic Student Association), and finally the unwieldy but earnest AAFSA: the Atheist, Agnostic & Freethinking Student Association. My own 2007 blog entry marking the reboot still survives on the Wayback Machine.

Archived:

What began as a small social group — half discussion club, half community — eventually evolved into Gator Freethought, the name that stuck. An archived splash page from 2020 reflects this identity shift:
 https://web.archive.org/web/20200730015408/http://gatorfreethought.weebly.com/

The Weebly description nicely captures the transition:

“HASA (oldest), AASA (older), AAFSA (2002). Since these groups had all dissolved, he contacted the old leadership and registered AAFSA with the Center for Student Involvement. We have now evolved to Gator Freethought, and so too has our purpose… from a collection of a certain kind of discussers to a certain kind of discussion — freethought.”

The Unexpected Legacy

I always imagined the group would be temporary — a hobby, a campus niche, a way to meet thoughtful people. But a funny thing happened: the group kept going long after I left UF in 2007. New officers stepped in, meetings continued, and the group stayed active well into the late 2010s. Their Facebook page shows events as late as Fall 2018:
 https://www.facebook.com/gatorfreethought

More surprisingly, Gator Freethought ended up playing a visible role in a 2015 church–state controversy involving a Bible verse engraved on Heavener Hall. The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a complaint on behalf of UF students (widely understood to include members of Gator Freethought), challenging the inscription of Micah 6:8 on a public university building.

Coverage:

UF ultimately kept the verse but added secular quotations — a rare win in this type of dispute.

Around the same time, an activist Christian organization labeled Gator Freethought an “anti-Christian hate group,” which was absurd on its face — the group has never been anti-Christian, only pro-secular. But it shows the moral panics that secular groups sometimes attract.

Coverage:

Media Footnote: Hannity & Colmes

Years before the 2015 controversy, I briefly found myself in the national spotlight when I was interviewed on Hannity & Colmes in November 2006 about church–state issues. That was my one moment of national television exposure, and it now feels like a strange artifact from a different life.

Clip: https://youtu.be/zH5u48kjOWM

What Remains

If all this taught me anything, it’s the truth behind a simple idea:

Ripples are all we leave behind.

A student group I started for fun — without any sense of long-term legacy — ended up affecting campus debates and student life for a decade after I moved on. Friends met, ideas circulated, people found community. And eventually the group left a small but real mark on the university’s public history.

Not bad for a hobby with a clunky acronym.

Original Post: 

When I was a graduate student at UF I restarted a defunct student group about church-state separation/freethought/secularism. The first version of the group had a clunky name, AAFSA, which evolved to Gator Freethought. It was a fun social scene / outlet / hobby and partly a brief but intense belief in political activism on my part.

Some student groups are only good for fun and personal development, and that's okay. But some have longer-lasting effects, as I just discovered that Gator Freethought was involved in a 2015 FFRF action at UF to remove religious inscriptions from Heavener Hall. They were also continuing to meet as late as fall 2018, according to their Gator Freethought Facebook group. And they even got added to a hate group list by a religious group as "anti-Christian" although there is literally nothing anti-Christian about the group.

Ripples are all we leave behind. For me a simple choice to create a student group continued to have impacts on others for ten years after I left campus. Just a cool reminder that small things we do add up over time.

I ended up doing an interview on Hannity & Colmes in Nov of 2006 over a controversial topic concerning politics and religion. I guess that will remain my only national television exposure. But there's a lot more out there if you want to dig.

Wayback Archive:

1) https://web.archive.org/web/20200730015408/http://gatorfreethought.weebly.com/ 

2) https://web.archive.org/web/20120307063906/http://www.gatorfreethought.com/2006/03/faq.html

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