Vandals Add “Under God” To Secularist Group’s Pledge Of Allegiance Sign On Billy Graham Highway
Jun 28, 2010 10 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Look for trouble, get trouble…
A controversial billboard that a secularist group put up on Billy Graham Parkway in North Carolina was defaced this weekend by spray painters who inserted the words “under God” on the sign.
The original sign, one of several placed across the state, read “One Nation Indivisible,” making the point that the words “under God” were not part of the original Pledge of Allegiance.
The graffiti writers “fixed” that, painting the words “under God” just below the phrase, with an arrow indicating their placement between “One Nation” and “Indivisible.”
“Inserting ‘under God’ under our billboard is like inserting it into the original pledge in 1954: it divides our nation,” said Joseph McDaniel Steward, founder of the North Carolina Secular Association, in a press release Monday. “All we are asking for is a level playing field and the same consideration that any other citizen would expect for themselves.”
Charlotte Atheist and Agnostics, who actually sponsored the ad, has asked the billboard company to repair the sign and has filed a police complaint.
Besides the ad over the Charlotte parkway named after the famous evangelist, there are five other billboards around the state — in Asheville, Greensboro, Raleigh, Wilmington and Winston-Salem. The Charlotte group’s ads are a part of a July 4 campaign coordinated by the North Carolina Secular Association, which began last Monday. The cost of the billboards totaled $15,000, and the ads will be up for four weeks.
“We were just trying to say that we live in North Carolina and we just want to be treated like everyone else,” said William Warren, spokesperson for the Charlotte Atheists and Agnostics.
According to Mr. Warren, the location of the ad was simply a “coincidence” because the Billy Graham Parkway provided the best visibility. There were three other possibilities, but two were too expensive and the third would not have been seen easily seen. There is no reason for people to be upset, he said.
“We are just trying to get the message across to everyday North Carolinian citizens that there are people here who don’t believe what others believe,” he said.
