The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s full-page ad, “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church,” runs in today’s Washington Post (A-5 Main), urging liberal and nominal Roman Catholics to “quit” their church over its war against contraception.
The provocative ad asks: “Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages? Do you choose women and their rights, or Bishops and their wrongs?”
The ad is similar to the full-page ad that appeared in The New York Times in March, which is still creating shockwaves among conservative religionists. The Washington Post, unlike the Times, accepted FFRF’s punchy headline, “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church.”
Additionally, FFRF has placed the full-page ad with a splash of color on the back of the Washington Express, handed out for free to Metro riders and D.C. residents. Express distributors will be wearing the ad on their vests.
“It’s a disgrace that U.S. health care reform is being held hostage to your church’s irrational opposition to medically prescribed contraception,” the ad states. “No political candidate should have to genuflect before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.”
“Join those of us who put humanity above dogma,” FFRF’s ad urges.
“As a member of the ‘flock’ of an avowedly antidemocratic Old Boys Club, isn’t it time you vote with your feet? Please, exit en Mass,” requests the ad, signed by FFRF Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker.
The Washington Post ad features a cartoon by the late Don Addis, showing a priest under a “Family Planning” banner counseling a woman: “Plan on a family.” It also includes a new line: “Life begins at excommunication.”
The House of Representatives, which has been lobbied by the religious right to take action against Obama’s contraceptive
mandate, is in session this week.
The ad blasts the church’s “pernicious doctrine that birth control is a sin” and the “Respect for Rights of Conscience Act” introduced into Congress to impose church dogma on employees. FFRF warns the liberal Catholic that the church is “launching a ruthless political Inquisition in your name.”
Gaylor called “The war against contraception and reproductive liberty the state/church battle of our day.”
“We’re telling truth to power,” Barker added, “which is very liberating, and we urge Catholics who disagree with their Church on these vital matters of health and civil liberties to liberate themselves from an anti-civil liberties institution.”
To view a larger version of the Washington Post ad, click here.
To view a larger version of the Washington Express ad, click here.
James hands "wears" FFRF's ad at the Falls Church, Va. Metro stop.
James is one of the 108 Washington Express distributors who displayed, as well as handed out FFRF's ad today.