FFRF agnostic student billboard creates ripples in Sacramento

A billboard with a secular message is on display in the heart of the Golden State capital as part of a national Freedom From Religion Foundation campaign during this critical election year.

Dulce Solorzano, a 20-year-old college student, is featured on a billboard on K Street and 20th in Sacramento (just a few blocks away from the state Capitol building) proudly proclaiming “I’m agnostic and I vote.” Solorzano is one of 75 million nonreligious Americans who want Congress, state legislatures, public officials and courts to listen to “secular values voters” by keeping religion out of government and social policy.

“This campaign is a wake-up call to retake our personal choices from those using religion to take those choices away,” says FFRF Sacramento Chapter Leader Judy Saint.

FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor explains the secular vote campaign: “FFRF is putting public candidates and officials on notice that the nonreligious now represent a significant portion of all adult Americans, that WE are the true ‘values voters’ and that it’s time that our secular viewpoint be heard and represented.”

In Sacramento County, the percent of adults identifying as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular is 33 percent, a full 10 percentage points higher than the national average.

Solorzano has listed a compelling number of secular voter demands: To keep religion out of government and social policy, out of public schools, and out of bedrooms, personal lives and health care decisions — including when or whether to have children, and whom to love or marry. 

The billboard is part of an ongoing campaign, with some billboards and newspaper ads running on Independence Day weekend and the rest appearing in the run-up to Sept. 17, Constitution Day.

This campaign is particularly urgent, since it has been launched in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Almost all of FFRF’s membership supports Roe, which is consistent with a YouGov analysis showing that atheists are the most likely to identify as pro-choice, with more than nine in 10 thinking of themselves as fitting that description. LINK 2

“The ongoing political turmoil makes it even more urgent for our secular voices to be heard,” Gaylor remarks. 

The Freedom From Religion Foundation serves as the largest association of freethinkers in North America, with more than 37,000 members and several chapters nationwide, including over 5,000 members and the Sacramento and a San Francisco Bay Area chapters in California.