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Secular coalition's billboard aimed at Kentucky State Fair-goers
By Peter Smith

A coalition of secular groups and advocates for church-state separation have unveiled a billboard that will be in full view of Kentucky State Fair goers with the message: "Don't believe in God? You are not alone."

The billboard was installed Monday at Interstate 65 and Phillips Lane under the sponsorship of the newly formed Louisville Coalition of Reason.

The message is intended to draw fair goers to a booth at the state fair sponsored by the coalition, said Edwin Hensley, coordinator of the coalition. The billboard also refers viewers to the coalition's website, louisvillecor.org.

The billboard will let people know "that we are here, and we wish to be accepted as an equal part of the community," said Hensley, who is also active in some of the coalition's groups, such as the Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers.

Numerous cities have seen similar messages on billboards, buses and subways in recent months. Hensley said he wasn't aware of any similar billboards before now in Kentucky, where billboards and other prominent signs have often proclaimed religious messages such as the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

Hensley said he was inspired by news of a similar billboard in Cincinnati. That sign had to be relocated in November 2009 from a building to a freestanding location because the building owner was receiving threats, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

"After reading that article, I got the idea that if they could do it in Cincinnati, we could do it in Louisville," Hensley said.

The Louisville billboard site is owned by the CBS Outdoor, and there were no problems getting permission to install the sign, according to Fred Edwords, national director of the United Coalition of Reason. CBS Outdoor did not return a call for comment.

The local coalition received $4,100 from the national group to install the billboard for August, timed to coincide with the annual Kentucky State Fair with its hundreds of thousands of visitors. The group's booth at the fair will provide information about local groups advocating for a secular world view and separation of church and state. It will also tout "famous atheists and freethinkers and their accomplishments," Hensley said.

Edwords added: "Non-religious people sometimes don't realize there's a community out there for them because they're inundated with religious messages at every turn. So we hope this will serve as a beacon and let them know they aren't alone."

Religious groups contacted said they disagreed with the billboard's message but endorsed the group's right to spread it.

"I don’t think there'll be any kind of protest or anything, because that tends to popularize it rather than deter," said Wesley Pitts, executive director of missions for the Long Run Baptist Association, a local Southern Baptist group with offices near the billboard.

He said he found the billboard "confusing" and thought at first it offered a "pro-Christian" message by offering companionship to those searching for God.

Given the state-wide draw of the fair, the group is sending word of the billboard to Baptist churches throughout Kentucky.

"We're trying to inform our people across the state that it's there and that they might have an opportunity to encounter some of these people” at the fair booth, Pitts said. "We just hope they'll be Christ-like and present a positive witness rather than a negative one."

MaryAnn Gramig, director of policy at the local group ROCK (Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana), said freedom of expression is one of the "inalienable rights that come from God and not from man," she said. The group has been active in promoting public expressions of the view that the nation has a Judeo-Christian heritage and limits on sexually oriented businesses.

"ROCK would differ from the Louisville Coalition of Reason in that it is because of America's founding principles and acknowledgement of Providence and God as giving rights to man that they are able to live in a country that is tolerant and respectful of those types of views," she said.

The coalition says on its website that member groups support "science, reason, skepticism, civil liberties, separation of church and state, and the improvement of the human condition."

Coalition members include: Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers, Louisville Secular Book Group, Kentucky Secular Society, Atheist Women of Louisville, Secular Parents of Louisville, Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers Adopt-A-Mile and the Kentucky Association of Science Educators and Skeptics.

The site also lists "friends" of the coalition, including the Socrates Café of Louisville and the local chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.