The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a state/church watchdog which is also the nation’s largest national association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics), has brought its national billboard campaign to Flint, Mich., for the month of October. It has placed a “mini-blitz” of ten billboards.
The Madison, Wis.-based Foundation, with more than 15,500 nonreligious members nationwide, has more than 500 members in Michigan
One of the four billboard messages quotes John F. Kennedy from his famous address as presidential candidate to Protestant ministers in Houston in 1960, saying “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”
This is FFRF’s debut of the JFK quote on a billboard.
“We would like to go back to the day when public officials revered the constitutional principle of separation between church and state. What candidate for public office today would make such a clear, unequivocal endorsement of secular government?” asks Foundation Co-President Dan Barker, a former minister-turned-atheist.
Other billboards include these varied FFRF messages:
• “In Reason We Trust” depicted on a shiny penny
• “Imagine No Religion” with a stained-glass window
• Red-white-and-blue “God & Government: A Dangerous Mix”
" 'God' does not belong in government, or on U.S. money, and Congress should never have adopted ‘In God We Trust’ in the 1950s as a latter-day national motto,” asserts FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.
“With 15% of the U.S. population identifying as nonreligious, the motto really ought to read, ‘In God Some of Us Trust,’ and wouldn’t that be silly?”
Since launching a national billboard campaign in October 2007, the educational nonprofit has placed billboards in half the states and about 50 cities.
Billboard locations:
N. Dort Hwy S/O Pierson W/S Face: N 14.03 Flint
S. Dort Hwy N/O Lippincott W/S Face: S 26.13 Flint
N. Saginaw St N/O Mcclellan W/S Face: S 12.83 Flint
Flushing Rd E/O Eldorado N/S Face: E 14.66 Flint
W. Pierson Rd W/O Clio Rd N/S Face: W 15.72 Mt Morris Twp
E. Bristol Rd W/O Dort Hwy @ Rr N/S Face: E 11.89 Burton
S. Saginaw St & Hemphill NE/S Face: N 13.81 Flint
W. Atherton & Fenton NW/S Face: E 8.65 Flint
Davison Rd E/O Averill S/S Face: E 13.03 Flint
E. Court St E/O Dort Hwy @ Rr S/S Face: W 10.56 Flint
