N.C. billboards say: Non-believers are Americans, too

[Ed Barrow]

A new billboard is going up in Raleigh and five other North Carolina cities this week with a seemingly innocuous slogan superimposed over an image of the American flag: "One Nation Indivisible." It's what the slogan doesn't say that may bother some people. Since 1954, the Pledge of Allegiance has split those three words to include two others: "under God." But this billboard was paid for by N.C. Secular Association, a coalition of non-believers and agnostics. Their message: We're Americans too.

"We're trying to restore the sense of one nation indivisible," said Joseph McDaniel Stewart, a member of Charlotte Atheists and Agnostics who initiated the billboard campaign. "It's a nation that welcomes people who believe or don't believe. Everybody's equal in the eyes of the law."

The billboard has already gone up on the Billy Graham Parkway in Charlotte and in Greensboro, Wilmington and Winston Salem. It is expected to go up in Asheville and at the intersection of Capital Boulevard and Trawick Road in Raleigh, this week, or by the Fourth of July weekend at the latest. The $15,000 project is another sign of the growing visibility of atheists in North Carolina. It took 11 different groups, including the Ethical Humanist Society of the Triangle to mount a fundraising campaign for the billboards. Those are just a few of the groups that have formed statewide to lend support to and fight for the rights of non-believers.

"We want to reach out to other secularists and religious liberals to let them know they're not alone in their lack of belief," said Randy Best, who leads the Ethical Humanist Society of the Triangle. The groups share a strong belief in the separation of church and state and want to protect and strengthen the secular character of the government.

That's exactly what groups such as the Christian Action League oppose.

"They want to exclude religion from the public arena altogether," said Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League. "The whole message of of the billboard undermines who we are in America."



http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/06/23/547677/nc-billboards-say-non-believers.html

[earcandle]

1. OH YES! This makes so much sense. Maybe we are having a breakthrough in our own principles

being restated to remind us who we really are.

How cool to have that happen in North Carolina!  

[customerserviceguy]

4. NC is changing

A lot of Northeasterners have moved there over the last couple of decades, even my lady and I would like to spend retirement in the Wilmington area.

SC is changing, too, believe it or not. While many of the transplants from the NE vote Republican, it's a "kinder gentler" Republicanism than was evident in the 1970's and 80's.

[AmericaIsGreat]

5. Yeah but

It was put up by an Atheist/Agnostic group. If it were put up by a church that would be a breakthrough.

You'll hear NC religious zealots whining about this soon and putting up their own signs, just like in Texas.

[damntexdem]

2. Uh oh -- now the RW will start a campaign to deny citizenship to children of nonbelievers.

;-)

[arcane1]

3. Like George HW Bush said:

“No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God.”

[BanzaiBonnie]

6. I just reminded my husband, who's an atheist

of this jackassery by elder Bush. I asked him how it felt that someone who was once president thought that about him. He said it doesn't feel very good. Then I reminded DH that they would probably want to be burning ME at the stake.

He thinks he may be better off.

[Heywood J]

7. Reading the quote from the Christian Action League,

I can't help but thinking that their thought processes are disturbed. "Gasp, they want to do what the Founding Fathers intended! That's un-American! Reminding people that non-Christians are citizens as well? That's un-American!"

It sounds like the group needs to have any tax exemptions revoked, since they're obviously involving themselves in the politics of citizenship and how government is operated. I shudder to think of someone whose thought processes are that infected with intolerance being in control of any aspect of policy.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. "on the Billy Graham Parkway..."

How appropriate. Taxpayer-funded infrastructure named after a religious figure, but it's the sign that causes controversy?

[struggle4progress]

9. Hooray! I completely agree!

[laconicsax]

10. There's a beautiful summary of the shit atheists have to put up with in here:

"We want to reach out to other secularists and religious liberals to let them know they're not alone in their lack of belief,"

"They want to exclude religion from the public arena altogether," said Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League. "The whole message of of the billboard undermines who we are in America."