Mike Huckabee on the Vandalized Atheist Billboard July 5, 2010

Mike Huckabee on the Vandalized Atheist Billboard

By Guest Contributor
July 5, 2010

FOX News host and former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was in Charlotte over the weekend and a reporter asked him what he thought of the North Carolina Secular Association billboard that was recently vandalized:

Here’s what Huckabee had to say (about a minute into the video):

If people want to spend their money to tell everyone they don’t believe in God, the joy, beauty, and incredible greatness of America is that we let them do it and don’t shoot them for it… What I would hope is that people who believe, as I do, in the power of Jesus Christ like I do would put 10 billboards for every one like that.

I don’t mind those remarks at all… but did he completely ignore the vandalism part? Would it have been so hard to say that that vandalism never should have happened?

Or maybe he did and it was edited out…

But based on his track record, I’m leaning in the direction that he just ignored that aspect of the story.

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  • Samiimas

    Yeah because if an atheist politician had said in response to a church billboard being vandalized “They should up ten billboards around it explaining how full of **** they are.” without a single word of condemnation for the vandals no one would get mad at them…

  • Well that was much better than I expected.

  • incredible greatness of America is that we let them do it and don’t shoot them for it…

    At least not yet. Give the theocrats a couple years in power and they’ll start getting bold again.

  • Hitch

    Glad we are not being shot for it…

  • Hey Hemant, guys, I don’t if this also happens to you: sometimes you get bored of writing blogs or sharing news about how disgusting believers can be (not just any believer, but high profile like Huckabee) that you just don’t want to care anymore.

    And then comes one of them and shows us how full of shit they are, so full that gets you up on your feet and think “this has to be known”.

    Thanks Huckabee, thanks for remembering that.

  • Sellers_as_Quilty

    Would it have been so hard to say that that vandalism never should have happened?

    Or maybe he did and it was edited out…

    I doubt it. Had he condemned it, even in the most mild of terms, you can bet that would have been the clip they used in the segment. His reaction appeared to be pure political equivocation: he neither condemned the vandals, nor displayed approval of them. Therefore, he gave what my media consultant friend would call “the right answer.”

  • Phrosty

    What I would hope is that people who believe, as I do, in the power of Jesus Christ like I do would put 10 billboards for every one like that.

    Is he not aware that his buddies already have at least 100 proselytizing billboards for every 1 of ours?

  • ckitching

    At least not yet. Give the theocrats a couple years in power and they’ll start getting bold again.

    Don’t be ridiculous. They wouldn’t start shooting us. The biblical punishment for spreading “false gods” (and inevitably atheism is linked to devil worship by the religiously insane) is death by stoning.

    Although… If you wanted to redefine a bullet as a stone, because it was refined from ore trapped in stone, then maybe shooting would be biblical. I’ve seen some of the insanely convoluted devices some observant Jews have devised due to the restrictions on work on the Sabbath, so there is precedent for this kind of tortured logic.

    Okay, never mind. They probably would start shooting.

  • Spurs Fan

    “Controversial” billboard? Words from the original pledge of allegiance? Local media fail.

  • Roxane

    Has the man taken a road trip through the heartland lately? There are hundreds of Christian billboards, and the only atheist item I’ve ever seen IRL has been on the buses in Madison, Wisconsin.

  • MikeM

    Wait a minute! Did he really say that it takes “incredible greatness” from his fellow Christians to not shoot atheists! No wonder he didn’t think a little vandalism was worth mentioning.

  • Dan W

    He’s dodging the question, but what he says shows he’s a moron. There are already a ridiculous number of Christian billboards in America. There are way more than 10 Christian billboards for every billboard put up by atheist groups. I suppose it’s too much to ask for Huckabee to condemn vandalism when it’s done by Christians to atheist billboards.

  • Yanik Crépeau

    People who vandalized displays have a very weak faith. When you feel that your god needs you against such a poster, you see your god as a powerless entity. You are scared that your little impotent god can collapse if nothing is done to defend him. At the end, you are on the side of people who distrust god.

    We, the non-believers, don’t distrust god or any fictional character. I don’t distrust Santa Klaus or Peter Pan.

    So, mr. Huckabee and his friends have little faith in their god and no faith at all in freedom of conscience or freedom of expression.

  • As a former Charlottean (or at least resident of a suburb of Charlotte), I feel obligated to say that you must understand that Fox Charlotte is something of a joke. It’s not a real newscast; it’s an entertainment program masquerading as a newscast.
    North Carolina is an interesting place, isn’t it? Charlotte is a city caught between two worlds – the Old South and the Mid-Atlantic.

  • fritzy

    One only has to consider what his response would likely have been had it been a xtian billboard vandalized by atheists. This was a politically safe, non-apology.

    The part that rubs me the wrong way is the statement:

    If people want to spend their money to tell everyone they don’t believe in God, the joy, beauty, and incredible greatness of America is that we let them do it and don’t shoot them for it…

    sounds a little like a veiled threat. Like he’d sure like to but, you know, America frowns on murdering people for practicing their first amendment rights.

    As far as putting up 10 xtian billboards in response–how about just having some confidence in your faith? Is one billboard that reaches out to other atheists to let them now they are not alone really effect your beliefs? How about spending your money on something that actually matters, like a local soup kitchen? You aren’t going to get rid of all the atheists in the world by putting up more xtian themed billboards and you certainly aren’t going to be addressing the social ills Jesus told you to address with advertising that says “I’m still here–God.”

    Like I’ve said here before; Mike Huckabee is a nice man but he is not a good man.

  • Justin

    “and incredible greatness of America is that we let them do it and don’t shoot them for it…”

    We let them? WE let them!? Who is we? The Xtians majority? You don’t “let” anyone, it’s peoples’ right to practice their first amendment rights, asshole.

    This mindset is what is incredibly idiotic with Xtian Americans, or perhaps Xtians in general. They think they allow the rest of us to express our views and are humble or forgiving about it. I don’t need to ask your permission to be anti-religious or an atheist and I sure as hell don’t want your self-righteous “forgiveness”.

  • AxeGrrl

    Do people find him so ‘likeable’ because of his dimples? Seriously, is that it?

    *trying to remember why I found him likeable at one time*

  • Baconsbud

    I am a little confused as to where he thinks him and others are the ones allowing the billboards to be put up. He had nothing to do with allowing it and it is that arrogance that shows what he is.

  • storm in a teacup. if the billboard itself (rather than the vandalism) was, as hemant suggests, the subject of the interviewer’s question (we don’t know this for sure — the specific question has been edited out), huckabee was simply expressing precisely what he thought of the billboard. he may have ignored the vandalism in his answer because the interviewer ignored it in the question.

    i appreciate that he recognizes our constitutional right to our voice. sure, he hopes that we’re shouted down, but that’s how democracy works. note, though, that he hopes that we’re shouted down by erecting _other_ billboards, not by spraying on existing ones.

  • Bill

    A dangerous and stupid man who, not subtly at all, implied that atheists deserve to be shot

  • I agree with Huckabee, a bit.

    The amazing thing about America is that people can speak their ideas without being shot. Yes, put up 10 billboards for every 1 atheist billboard. I have absolutely no problem with that.

    The problem I have is the double standard that’s inevitable. If someone vandalized a Christian billboard, you’d bet a politician like Huckabee would be howling with rage. Atheists are fair game.

  • bernerbits

    they don’t believe in God, the joy, beauty, and incredible greatness of America

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but is Huck actually implying that if you don’t believe in God, you can’t believe in the other three?

  • Alex

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but is Huck actually implying that if you don’t believe in God, you can’t believe in the other three?

    bernerbits and a few others, I think you’re misunderstanding what he’s saying. He’s saying “The joy beauty and incredible greatness of America is that…”.

  • Last Hussar

    Here in Britain a couple of years ago a man was asked on a TV interview whether he believed in God. He said no. It was reported in about a minute and we moved on.

    That man is now Deputy Prime Minister.

  • fritzy

    After watching the video, I did not get the impression that they asked him about the vandalism specifically; just the billboards. His response–that “they” don’t “shoot us” is smug, arrogant and typcially evangelical. It was an off the cuff answer which made it all the more honest.

    Huckabee is the worst kind of monster; the kind with dimples and a “gee-willikers” look in his eye.

  • Of course he ignored the “vandalism” part! Don’t you understand … when someone does something in Jesus’ name, it can never be wrong? Even if Shucksabee himself would not choose to engage in vandalism, the last thing he’s going to do is condemn some other Christian who does.

    If he were to do so, you see, it would set a precedent for his own behavior that he’d be expected to live up to, in the future. But religionists like him do not accept that there should be any limits on their religiosity or how they choose to express it. So he’s not going to do anything to proscribe what he sees as his own “religious freedom,” or that of any other Christian.

  • tez

    Charlotte, you ignorant slut.

  • Kelsey

    Apparently he’s never been to Charlotte. LOL

  • When I was skimming post titles in my RSS reader, I initially read this one as, “Mike Huckabee Vandalized Atheist Billboard.” Imagine my disappointment! Now that would have been a story!