A Freedom From Religion Foundation banner has been vandalized in a Connecticut park.
FFRF member Jerry Bloom, with the help of John Levin and Cary Shaw, had recently put up an FFRF banner in Huntington Park in the city of Shelton to counter a nativity scene. The banner was desecrated a couple of days before Christmas.
The banner carried FFRF’s message, by FFRF’s principal founder Anne Nicol Gaylor, composed as an equal-time challenge to religious displays in governmental places. It read:
At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail.
There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.
There is only our natural world.
Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.
The banner was severely slashed. FFRF is offering a reward of $1,500 for information leading to arrest and conviction of the perpetrator(s) responsible.
“This disgraceful expression of intolerance toward dissenting ideas proves the government can’t successfully host a true public forum on religious views in December,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Shelton’s Huntington Park isn’t safe for minority viewpoints.”
Gaylor urged the city to shut down the “forum” next year.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a nontheistic organization with 25,000 members all over the country, including 200-plus in Connecticut.